 edwis' Dubrovnik Travelogues | | | | Title [Click to view] | Travel Year | Pictures | | Dubrovnik | August, 2005 | |
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| Page Views: 144 Last Visit to Dubrovnik: August, 2005 | Dubrovnik by edwis - last update: Jun 26, 2007 |
Dubrovnik is the centerpiece of the area known as the Dubrovnik Riviera. This area shares the cypresses and soft light of neighboring Italy, but not the swarms of tourists. The climate is Mediterranean, and the long, warm days of sunshine result in lush vegetation. Dubrovnik is the most southern city in Croatia, and the most practical way to reach the city is to do so by air. The city of Dubrovnik was laid out in 1292 and the city has become famous for its beautiful walls and streets which remains virtually unchanged to the present day. In the 15th to 17th century the city was a center for intellectuals, writers and thinkers. Tall ramparts surround it and there are only two entrances to the old town which lead to the Stradun, the city's promenade. One of the greatest pleasures for many visitors is to have a drink in one of the nearby cafes and watch the world go by, whilst they themselves are being watched by the city patron, St. Blaise, or Sveti Vlaho as the locals call him. In 1991-1992, the Serbs shelled the city causing considerable damage, but thanks to a massive rebuilding effort has all but erased the visible scars of the war and the old town has been restored to its former beauty.
You can get to Dubrovnik from “J”s either by car 45 min, or 20 min by boat. The whole time there one year, we never even got into “J’s” old Russian car. We went everywhere by boat. The trips into the Dubrovnik for the daily fresh outdoor market were mostly always done via boat. They even took us to town with our luggage and then we took a taxi to the airport from there. The early morning cab ride out to the airport was certainly interesting; the guy pulls up in a Mercedes and opens his trunk, and pulls out a taxi sign and secures it on the roof. On the way to the airport, he pulls off onto a scenic overlook (I thought for sure we were going to get mugged), but he wanted to show us the beautiful views of his city. He talked all about the war damage, and how this building and that one went ‘kaput’. Everything was kaput. You could just sense that he was so very proud of his area.
There certainly still a lot of reminders of the war about ten years ago that Croatia went through. Many of the buildings in Slano have shrapnel holes and several are still just a fired out shell only. The sentiment in the local people will keep these memories alive for many years to come. |
Dubrovnik as a trading city was especially flourishing from the 15th to the 18th century, and was the chief rival to Venice. They say that Dubrovnik had a fleet of 300 ships as late as the 18th century. Many of the achievements and monuments reflect a pretty developed city back into the 1200s. |
Dubrovnik has the famous ‘old town’ section which is a city completely enclosed by a circular wall, no autos allowed. The main streets in old town Dubrovnik have marble tiles; they look like polished floors in an old church. The streets are full of locals and tourists amongst the shops, restaurants, markets, and street musicians. It’s a big tour bus and cruise ship stop. Within the walls of old town there is an old monastery that houses the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in Europe which has been operating since 1317. It is run by the church nuns whose convent is just about that old too. We liked the place for they don’t seem to worry about having a doctor’s prescription all that much. Since the old town is a contained within old stone walls, they have made it possible to walk around the whole circumference up on the top of the walls. Not a walking adventure for the timid, but for a few coins, one can have very nice views of the sea on one side, and the old city’s roof tops on the other. |
The last time there, they had “guards” standing at the gates entering the old town. These were little 16-17 year old guys all dressed up in the old time costumes. You knew they were there really just to check out the pretty babes coming and going. I messed around with one and got him smiling pretty good, which I think was against the rules of his position.
One Croat saw “C” with her backpack on the way to our next walking adventure and asked her in Croatian if she ‘was going parachuting today?’ We walked the tops of the walls which circle the old town. It was very hot and I overdid that adventure. It took some recovery time and refreshing water from the fountain. |
We saw some bars / stores where they had giant 12 foot high silver tanks, with a spigot where you bring your own bottles and fill them with wine for 90 cents a liter. We didn’t try it this time. In all three countries, we drank wine as part of the normal daily routine. Usually there was a ½ pitcher for lunch and a full liter for the evening meal. Seemed like the normal routine to follow. |
Meals and drink stops in old town were good I ordered a fish soup Croatian style from the menu. The bowl of broth arrived with a giant prawn with its far reaching antlers reaching out of the bowl which also contained some mussels. WOW!
We sat in one of the sidewalk cafes and had wine spritzers and watched all the stylish and fashionable Italians walking the old town streets. They were always easy to identify. The people walking the streets of Dubrovnik range from the tourists to the highly fashionable younger crowd. A lot of pretty young women all dressed up hang out there, for this is where the social life is good. At evening time, it is not unusual for a couple hundred people to be milling about and walking the marbles streets of old town. |
LAPAD PARK Down by the beach area in Dubrovnik is a nice little rehabbed neighborhood called Lapad, where we found a park that had about a dozen computers setup outdoors on various tables and it was an outdoor internet park. One day "J" and "C" went to hit some tennis balls in the afternoon and I took little Luca to the park there. They had air inflated jumping houses, a giant inflated slide (his favorite) and lots of climbing things for the kids. By the beach area, they recently installed little changing huts. These are pretty neat for they look like advertising shields, but are shaped as such to allow beach goers to slip between them and change out of their suits. Voila! I was wondering if so many of them are topless anyways, what’s there to hide?
One evening we took the boat for an outing to a jazz club in old town Dubrovnik. It was so pleasant, sitting outdoors with about 200 people at tables, surrounded by old historic and war damaged buildings, listening to live jazz music and just enjoying the simple life. Later we are walking around old town and see a couple of those motorized Segways high tech machines scooting around the marbled streets.
In the city of Dubrovnik, we rode the old city buses to an open market where all the local farmer ladies yell at you as you pass by, to “try this”, “try this”. The bus had pressed wood seats, much unlike the leather seats in Rome. We read in the paper the week after we left that Tom Cruise, actor, came for a surprise visit to Dubrovnik while he was at the Venice Film Festival promoting some film. |
Croats have some strong opinions on others. I figure it must be some kind of identity complex going on. When a fisherman comes in without any catch, he blames the ‘damn Italians’ for coming over and robbing all the fish out of their waters; the Czechs and Hungarians are the worst tourists – they are poor and dopey peasants, for they bring all their own food, and meat, and then park in front of restaurants eating out of their trunks of the cars. But they all do seem to get along with the many German tourists quite well.
Once while walking the old town walls, a lady bumps into “C” knocking a package out from her arm. The lady says something to “C” and “C” responds by calling her a ‘Pollack’. I found that quite amusing. According the Croatians, the French only use one bar of soap, per person, per year (that one may be true). If you mention the Bosnians, you spit as you say it. And then if anything goes wrong; you can always say, “It’s the Italians fault”.
One night there was big soccer match between the two rival sections of the country, all day long everyone was talking about the big game that night. The 30,000 seat stadium was completely sold out. Everyone there is so trusting, house doors being unlocked and in the phone book, “J” said that there is even a listing for babysitters.
Along the way we learned a few basic words to help us get by: adio (bye); molim (please), Hvala (thank you), “Dobardan” (good day), “Dobra tek” (to your health) at meal times, “Pivo” (beer) and then there is “bog” = a Hi / Goodbye greeting to neighbors /family which is actually the same word for ‘god’ - some sort of good feeling greeting / blessings that you wish on your close people.
People would say ‘ya, ya, ya’, in all their conversations and then we started to say it all the time after becoming aware of it. It was always hard to leave such a wonderful, simple lifestyle as we come to love in Croatia; ya, ya, ya. |
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| edwis' Dubrovnik Travelogues | | | | Title [Click to view] | Travel Year | Pictures | | Dubrovnik | August, 2005 | |
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 Comments for edwis about Dubrovnik | | | | |
victor1956 Wed Dec 17, 2008 19:37 UTC
Hi Edwis, i´ve seen your photo in segway in dubrovnik. Can you please tell me where can i book a segway tourist ride in dubrovnik? Please answer to victorcolomer@ya.com. thank you and merry christmas. victor |
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