I drink. And I know things.

Sorry. Game Of Thrones reference. 

Dubrovnik was not what I expected. It was better. It is a small town on the water, with a huge old town and very little else. I knew that it was a major city hundreds of years ago when the Venetians ruled the Mediterranean. I erroneously thought that meant it would still be a major city. It really isn’t, with less than 30,000 residents. Probably twice that many tourists. 

It's hard work writing this blog.

It rained the first morning we were there. Which was a blessing in disguise, because we climbed the city wall anyway. The two-hour trek around the wall was lovely, because it wasn’t too hot, and it wasn’t especially crowded due to the rain. No other old city that we’ve been to on this trip has had a high wall that you could walk all the way around on. It is quite the hike if you do it properly, stopping to take photos every thirty seconds, dipping into turrets and every other possible nook, cranny, and thingamajig that you encounter. Lots of steps, always getting higher than before, it seems.

A pick of the city walls, from the city walls.

Looking down on the main drag within the old town.

Another shot of the walls.

A pick of the nearby citadel on the left and the town outside of the walls.

At one point in the climb, we dipped into the maritime museum, which was plenty interesting and worth the time, but was the perfect place to hide out from the worst of the thunderstorm, which was quite impressive. We were not the only ones to choose this shelter however, and once the storm calmed down a bit, the museum curator bellowed that the storm was over and would everyone please get the hell out of the museum, though maybe not in those exact words. Apparently, we were a bit over capacity. But what were we all to do? It is not like there were that many options to choose from atop the wall. Plus, we really had intended to see the museum in any case. We had all purchased the Dubrovnik Pass which gets you access to ten different museums in the old city, and we intended to see all ten. So lightning or not, we were gonna ogle those old boat models! So what if we were all dripping wet, with hair sticking up due to all the electricity in the air? We wanted to see those boats!

A cool old-timey map in the maritime museum.

The Venetians in Dubrovnik used octants instead of sextants. Wow, that is one nerdy detail.

And see all ten, we did. Half of them were closed on Sunday, but the ticket was for 24 hours, so we did the other five on Monday morning, and got the last one in with only a minute or two to spare. Lots of impressive old art, architecture, and history lessons. I loved every minute of it. In the afternoon, Mark, Carol, and I went to see about kayaking the coastline while the rest of the group went to the beach.

One of the museums had photos of the city burning in the war in the 1990s

Another pic of a pic from the museum.

The woman who rented the kayaks said the wind was picking up so we had better be back within the hour to be sure we could get out. So we hightailed it back to our apartment to change and were back within 45 minutes. We got there, and they said “Sorry, too windy, not today.” Bummed, and a bit perplexed, as the water seemed calmer than a swimming pool, we went to find a local swimming spot instead. After a quick swim and a less quick cocktail, Mark decided to ask about kayaking again. They said “no problem”. What the heck? Nothing had changed. But, glad we’d persisted, we grabbed the boats and spent an hour circling the walls of old town. Now if you are remembering all the sea kayaking stories from twelve years ago, you are expecting a horror story here. Sorry to disappoint. The wind never came. Nobody came even close to capsizing. All fun, no drama. But I am imagining you reading this and anticipating the worst. “Uh oh, here it comes!” And that fills my heart with joy. So the non-story is still blog-worthy.

As you can see, there were plenty of kayaks to rent out.

The beach we spent time on could be seen from the balconies of our latest apartment. Yes, that is “balconies”, plural. Our place was situated on he side of a cliff and looked down on the Adriatic. It was probably ten stories beneath us, all rocky cliff.  And the place had not one, not two, not even three (unless on thy way to four) different sitting areas on multiple levels of balcony. We were a bit spoiled. Another over the top quality view. 

Patio sitting area number one.

Number two.

Number three, which we never used.

And of course, number four, which we used for drying laundry.

The beach below looked perfect from ten stories up. Turns out, it was all pebbles and not sand. This has been the case for the entire trip. I guess the Adriatic just isn’t violent enough to break rocks up. Sand is a luxury reserved for the Mediterranean or the oceans. But we still used that beach on at least three separate occasions. The water was super cold, but clean and clear. There was a cave to swim to that was apparently pretty cool. I didn’t spend enough time in the water to check it out. The funny part of the beach was the access path. You had to walk around a large hotel and climb down a switchback path that at one point was completely gated off with a “Danger!” sign prominently displayed. You had to climb around the locked gate, with your butt hanging over a cliff, to continue down the path. But there was a constant stream of people coming in and out. The beach was obviously a well-used public beach. 

Here's the beach as viewed from our patio.

Here's the view from our patio in a different direction than the beach.

But here is the fun part. You can see the beach from the road where our apartment was located. People couldn’t figure out how to get to it. Multiple groups of people decided the steps down to our apartment were the way to get there. They weren't. There were 53 winding steps down to the place, and then it just dead-ended on our patio. Private property, and certainly not the way to continue down to the beach. But we had multiple groups of people join us on our patio looking for a way down. One group from Texas actually argued with Michelle about setting up camp on the property. She had trouble getting them to leave. Our landlord really needs to install a gate at the top of the stairs. But otherwise, that place kicked some rear-end.

The old town in Dubrovnik was huge, and you cannot describe it in one or two sentences, because different parts felt very different from others. But we walked a good percentage of it, and enjoyed lunch one day and breakfast another within the walls. At breakfast, we were directly under the bell tower, which has two life size mechanical bell ringers that rotate to ring the bells. Fun to watch. They have been up there ringing the bells for over 500 years. Job security!

You can barely see the bronze dude in there ringing the bell.

A typical old town shot. I think that's the bell tower, just from a different angle..

Another typical shot. That might be the cathedral? It is all fuzzy at this point.

The Spanish Steps got moved from Rome to Dubrovnik?

A ton of the shops in Dubrovnik are dedicated to Game of Thrones paraphernalia. Being a huge fan, I had difficulty not buying a bunch of crap I didn’t need. But I prevailed. Apparently, much of the filming happened in Croatia, and in Dubrovnik in particular. But everything was so heavily CGIed in the show, that I didn’t really recognize anything. And I wasn’t about to put out 50€ a pop to find out. So I enjoyed the references and left the whole G.O.T. hoopla alone. I do have to watch the whole thing again now (for the fourth time) to see if anything looks familiar.

One of many G.O.T. stores within old town Dubrovnik

We also checked out the citadel, which is perched outside the city walls. This is actual location where much of the Game of Thrones was filmed. I still wasn't seeing it. But it was pretty cool in its own right. No movie magic was necessary. In fact, it felt kind of like movie magic as we watched the lightning strike over the citadel back when we are on the wall walk. There were some great views of the city from the citadel. It was worth the extra hike.

Selfie from the citadel, looking back at the city.

The shot is better when my ugly mug isn't mucking it up.

Didn't catch the lightning on camera, but the incoming storm was ominous.

We left Dubrovnik and followed Google Maps to cross back into Bosnia-Herzegovina, for a look at Mostar. It took us on a circuitous path that became a dirt road. Uh-oh, not again! But this time we were in the middle of a town, so how bad could it be? The wait was less than ten minutes, and the border control officer questioned us as to why we were at that gate, and not the heavily trafficked main gate on the main road, a kilometer away. We tried to explain that it was the all-knowing Google, but he wasn’t having it. Eventually, we told him our destination and he grudgingly let us through. We don’t know if we avoided another two-hour border crossing, or if things would have been much simpler had we found the actual gate that we were obviously intended to use. But we got through, and that is what matters. The route was on country roads for quite a bit. Which is weird, because the A-1, a modern freeway was always looming above us, and cars were driving on it, so it was open. Why was Google not having us use that thoroughfare? It is not because one phone was accidentally switched to "no-tolls" or something. We checked. Plus we were using like twelve different phones to map the route as nobody trusts the official navigator in the front seat (me). 

It's right there!

Before hitting Mostar, we stopped at a heavily advertised waterfall, named Kravica Falls. The falls were gorgeous. But the place was like Disneyland. Thousands of people enjoying the water together, made enjoying the water nearly impossible. The crowds were insane. There were maybe eight or nine restaurants and bars and endless gelato stations. This natural wonder was not a secret. So we did our best to enjoy it, but left pretty quickly. 

It was a zoo.

But the falls were really cool.

One shot without any people getting in the way.

Another section of the falls.

We landed in Mostar, and were pretty happy with our ability to park Luka on a sidewalk out of the way, and convenient to our hotel. Whenever we avoid the stress of dealing with parking, it makes the rest of the stay much more enjoyable. The hotel was the nicest in town. But Bosnia is so inexpensive compared with Croatia, that it was easily in our budget. Mark especially enjoyed the buffet breakfast. I liked that the hallway to our room opened up directly onto the bazaar. The location was incredible. No complaints. 10/10. Kriva Cuprija Hotel. Though they don’t need my endorsement. 

The "crooked bridge" near our hotel didn't get enough love, but I thought it was cool too.

Mostar is a very interesting town. It is located on both sides of the Neretva River. It was once two separate towns. Christian on the west side and Muslim on the east. The old bridge that spans the river and connects the towns is a beautiful beloved landmark that pretty much everybody there would point to as the beating heart of the town. We talked with one merchant for a good ten minutes as he showed us all of the symbolism in his artwork. The bridge is a symbol of peace between two peoples with two backgrounds living in harmony together. He was Muslim, and his wife of forty years, Christian. We bought a plate from him. It was impossible not to, he was so earnest and moving.

The old bridge as viewed from the northeast side.

Zoomed in to get an idea of the hordes of people it attracts.

A view from on top of it.

Walking the old bridge.

Artists renditions were everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

Another interpretation.

Okay, we liked this artist's work so much, that we bought one of her paintings.

One more for good measure.

Hey, I found some art in Mostar that has nothing to do with the bridge!

That bridge was destroyed in 1993, during the genocidal war of the time. It was rebuilt as close as possible to the old style. It is quite stunning when it is not overrun with tourists. All you need to do is walk on it in the early morning or at siesta time, around 4:00 p.m., and you can enjoy it. The rest of the time, even late into the evening, it is absolutely packed. Entrepreneurs collect money from tourists, and when they hit their quota, someone jumps off the bridge into the river maybe four or five stories below. Carol and I took a short boat ride on the river for an adrenaline rush and views you couldn’t get from shore. We caught one diver on video. I can’t post videos on this site, but I have included a still shot I got with the guy in mid-dive.

On the boat.

From the boat.

Here's the diver in mid flight.

We visited the Museum of War and Genocide in town. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. We read personal letters and news articles from that time about the war. We listened to audio recordings of survivors and their stories. We watched actual videos of people getting tortured and then shot in the back. There was a video of the old bridge being bombed and destroyed. There is something so poignant about atrocities that happened within your adult lifetime that ring so much stronger than wars of the past that feel separated from your own reality. This museum hit me hard. It was weird going back out into the sunshine and eating dinner above the river as if nothing bad had ever happened here. It was only thirty years ago. Millions of people were affected in some very personal way by this war. I was living my life in the Bay Area almost completely unaware of it, and one hundred percent sheltered from it. It almost makes me feel guilty. It definitely makes me feel guilty knowing that such things continue to happen right now, in places like Sudan, Ukraine, and Palestine, and others that I am still blissfully unaware of. Yet I am doing nothing, personally, to help, beyond sending money, which feels almost dirty. That phrase that Americans think any problem can be solved with money, stings. I just don’t know how else to help.

No photos allowed in the museum, but here's a poster I found outside showing the bridge in 1993

But that is enough of that. Nobody wants to read a blog about depressing wars and such. Back to the fun stuff. We decided that parking was so easy that we could take Luka out for a spin before leaving town for good. So we drove to a little village called Blagaj, just a few kilometers south of Mostar. It is a popular place to visit just because of the stunning scenery. There was a cliffside, with a historical monastery built around 1520, with Ottoman architecture, along the spring of the Buda river. It was quaint. We came, we saw, we enjoyed it, we drank Radlers (a mix of beer and lemonade popular in central Europe, and with the Allen girls) by the river. We went back to Mostar. Parking was still easy. HURRAY!

The girls must have drunk 30 or 40 of these on this trip.

I had quite a few myself, when I wasn't feeling the need for a whole beer.

Here's the Dervish House

Another angle showing the cliff wall.

The river just comes straight in from under that huge wall of rock.

Here's the entryway.

Since we were in the old town, of course there were competing live music sounds coming from all directions, late into the night. But we enjoyed the music on our hotel terrace, eating late-night doner kebabs, and playing cards. Michelle and the girls found the local second-hand store and made a few purchases, as they tend to do wherever they go, supporting the local economy. All in all, Mostar agreed with us, and we were sad to see it go. But we had to cross the border again back into Croatia for our next stop. The route makes sense, I promise, despite all of the border crossings. Dubrovnik to Mostar to Split, as we head back north to Slovenia and the end of the line. This crossing was a piece of cake. Big roads, no lines. I was all worried about it, and tried to get the scoop beforehand, and people were complaining of long lines and such. But I guess it is just hit and miss. You get what you get. This time we hit the jackpot. We barely had to slow down.

Felt the need to include a few more pictures of Mostar.

Sunset over Mostar

Night falls.

It is a pretty city no matter what the hour is.

Back in Croatia, we visited the fortress of Klis, a one-time vital stronghold for the whole of the Dalmatian coast. Super cool walls and towers and such. It was also used in the filming of G.O.T. We were duly impressed. We spent quite a bit of time climbing around. The ticket was combined with an olive-processing museum that in reality was just a front for an overpriced shop that sold everything olive oil-related and lavender-related. We bought nothing. But we did enjoy the garden and the tiny connected museum. All good. The ticket price was worth it just for the fortress, even if the olive museum was a bust.

From the olive museum gardens.

And another.

And another.

The fortress from below.

Inside Klis Fortress

Lots of Game of Thrones art is displayed in the fortress.

I mean lots.

Climbing around the fortress.

The views of Split and the surrounding countryside were phenomenal up there.

The Allens agree.

But the fortress kitty don't care.

We hit a traffic jam as we negotiated downtown Split. And the reserved parking spot behind the apartment was a bear to get into, but we made it alright. We are all a little wiped out. Poor Michelle got food poisoning and spent the first 24 hours of her Split holiday recovering from that. I have had vertigo come back with a vengeance after a blissful six weeks without it. Carol is feeling swamped by work and is doing that by day now, instead of sightseeing. So these last five days of the vacation are starting to feel like more effort than fun. But we’ll rally. We have three days here instead of the usual two at each stop. Maybe a day of recovery is just what we need so that we can enjoy our final two stops. But the last blogpost will have to cover those, as well as the rest of our time in Split. I’m spent.

We arrived at our apartment in Split just in time to watch the sunset.