Tuesday 16th October 2018
The ravages of recent troubles have been healed, and once again this magical walled city with its marble streets and palaces, provides a feast for the eye. You can explore the old city, rich in culture and history with its orange-tiled rooftops which create an ambience like no-where else along the Dalmatian Coast. Although the old city is small, it is one of the most famous places in the world and is included in the UNESCO world heritage list. Dubrovnik, nicknamed ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’ is a city on the Adriatic Sea in the region of Dalmatia within Croatia. A key feature of Dubrovnik is its walls that run almost 2 kms around the city. The walls, up to 6 mtrs thick on the landward side, are considered one of the best remaining examples of a medieval walled city in the world.
Fairly early start just cruising into the "new" port in Dubrovnik,
Not quite such an early start as on some days, nice time to allow for breakfast and to get to our meeting for the tour on the dock.
Everyone eventually arrived and onto the bus for a 500 yard ride to get to our tour boat! All on board and off to take a scenic cruise round to the old harbour and the city.
About 45 minutes cruise along the coast to the city, then a walk round the town for about an hour, our guide giving us all the information on the city, it’s buildings and monuments.
The city seems to consist of a couple of main streets with many narrow offshoots some climbing steeply up steps toward the surrounding hills.
No trip round the walls today, no time and this is just a leisurely walk. The city suffered badly in the Yugoslavian wars, hardly a roof left intact, all repaired now, with red tiles from UNESCO, not the light-coloured originals. Also many walls still scarred with shrapnels holes.
New and old tiles
Shrapnel scarred wall
Interestingly the city is now so popular with tourists, especially cruise passengers, that the city has no proper shops and so a very small population. Reduced to only about 800 today.
Just restaurants, souvenir shops and holiday rental apartment left now. It's also too noisy to live here, late night music and early morning deliveries.
Free time allowed us to wander the town and get an ice cream before rejoining the boat for the cruise back.
Arriving back most chose to walk from the boat to the ship, much easier, than the bus ride and just as quick.
Time for a cuppa and then some time in the sun.
Decided to go to the main dining room this evening.
Then off to the show. The "Troubadours" singing for us. A four part harmony group. There seem to be many groups of four chaps called Troubadour. This set are particularly good. Sang us the usual classics, Beach Boys, Frankie Valli, etc. well sung and well presented.
And so to bed.
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