Being a new to us place, we wanted to get the main feel of the area, rather than explore further afield. I had researched enough online to know that we could easily take a public bus from near the port into the old city. I also knew that one of the major attractions is walking along the top of the old wall, and that you can pay with a credit card for the privilege.
We awoke to picture perfect sunny skies and warm, but not hot weather--as well as lovely views of what was clearly a gorgeous landscape.
We had breakfast as the ship slowly sailed in, and headed off about 20 minutes after we were cleared to do so (leaving just enough time for the first rush of passengers to clear out, but still wanting an early start ourselves).
It was a VERY short (2-3 minute) walk to the bus stop, which was right outside of the port gates.
Waiting for the bus (you can see the shore excursion buses inside the fenced port area behind us). There was a snack kiosk nearby where you could buy tickets, pay in Euro, and get change in kuna. I don't know what sort of exchange rate they had; we had some kuna left from our stop in split the day before and bought our tickets directly from the driver.
I took both of the above photos from the bus stop--even the port area was pretty and not industrial as so many are.
We took the 1a into town (the 1b also works). it was clean and efficient and arrived after about 5 minutes. The ride lasted about 15 minutes, and cost the equivalent of about $1.50. You couldn't ask for anything easier or more reasonably priced.
Here is where you get off the bus. It is the end of the line and the walled city is in front of you; it should be easy to spot (that said, half our bus was standing on as the rest of us got off asking one another if this was it lol)
People streaming over the bridge into the old town
After crossing the bridge you zig zag down a wide ramp into the city. Be sure to stop at the sign which you can see in the photo (behind the man in yellow). My photo did not come out, but it shows a map of the old city pinpoitning all the areas that suffered damage during the 1991-92 siege of the city, an showing which buildings were damaged and how. Here is a copy of that map which I found online:
It is really sobering, and rather amazing to walk around the gorgeous city and think that only 20 years ago it was so embattled. There is some amazing, recent, history there. Marika knew all about it, but Rio is not the history buff she is, so we were filling him in, and learned to our utter astonishment that Dave knew nothing about it either! He and I were dating as college freshman when the war was happening. I really have no idea how he completely missed such a huge news item, that I was seeing. In any case, he knows all about it now.
The first view as you come through the wall and into the city.
We turned to the left and headed straight for the entrance to climb up and walk around the top of the wall. We guessed, correctly, that there would be fewer people up there earlier in the day, and that the sun would be less intense. There was a very short line to buy tickets and we were able to pay with our credit card. The cost was 90 kuna per adult and 30 for kids under 18, which worked out to be about 40 dollar or 30 Euro.
Starting with the wall also has the excellent advantage that you can see out over the entire city, as well as lovely views of the ocean and surrounding hillsides.
There are three places to enter and exit the wall. We entered at the main entrance. The next set of stairs is about 65-70% of the way around, on the opposite side of the city. In between you pass one snack stand (with reasonably priced ice cold half liter water and soda at 10 kuna each) and a restaurant. We did sit in the shade on a bench by the snack bar and have a cold drink, but were not ready to eat and did not check the prices at the restaurant). We decided to head on down that first stairway (number 2, having entered at number 1) so that we could work our way back across the city and see things from ground level.
There are a number of stray cats in the city. At the base of the stairs, there was a plate of food set out for them and a place to donate towards the food and neutering of males (which is the best way to control stray populations).
Seconds earlier the little grey kitty was letting Rio pet her. Rio was missing Taio and Fergie quite a lot by this point in the vacation.
Yes, we donated a bit. I am a softy for cats, as is Rio.
The old town was very picturesque from street level as well (though, it was the Adriatic sea and lovely coastlines that most took our breath away in Dubrovnik).
The 14 year old boy is always hungry, so we stopped to pick up a pizza for him and some wine and cole for us (our standard order on vacation it seems). We chose a pleasant place to sit right off the main drag. It was aimed at tourists, and the price reflected that a bit an the pizza was average. But it served our needs for the time and it was nice to try some locally made wine.
After retanking the teen boy, we finished up our walk in the city.
Once back out of the walled section of the city, we decided to walk down to the little cove area that was so pretty from up on the wall. There were sea kayak tours leaving from there as we arrived; had we had time before all aboard I think we would have joined in one on the spur of the moment. We all wanted to see more of that lovely coastline (ah, well, we just HAVE to go back now, don't we?).
the water was very blue and very clear
It was somewhere in one of the coves that Marika lay down along a wall, sighed and said "I think I'm falling in love with Dubrovnik." We all 100% agreed with her.
After exploring eh coves for a bit, we headed back out to the bus stop (1a and 1b pick up at the exact same place they dropped you off, NOT across the street) and then headed back to the ship where we enjoyed the fabulous Halloween party that I blogged about previously.
Our take on Dubrovnik is it is a fabulous cruise port: beautiful, easy to get around, reasonable priced. It is also an all and all gorgeous area with lots of nice people. We are very much hoping to go back and rent a house for a week sometime soon.
--Hadley
No comments:
Post a Comment