Dubrovnik

Our final stop in Croatia, originally I would have said would be our longest. However, due to a last minute change actually only came to about 24 hours.

As mentioned, our arrival in Dubrovnik was via shuttle from Korcula, this included two different vans and one short boat ride. We went to the old city (a lot of those in Croatia it would seem) which is also city center. This is a walled city on sea's edge.

Notably, the wall itself seems to be the main attraction here. As I understand it, the wall construction start date for back to medieval times. The city remained protected for centuries thanks to this wall which is not only tall, but incredibly thick and has been well maintained by city residents over the centuries. We did walk the wall, which is about 1.25 miles for the full perimeter of the city. Not only were the views of the old town, new city and sea amazing, but the wall itself was impressive to experience.

Being inside the walls did often feel like another world. We did wander, up and down stone steps and walk ways, and through the busy and quiet town streets to see and experience what it may be like to live there. Based on what we saw there are a lot of residents in this part of town, evidenced by beautiful flower pots and laundry hanging to dry in the sun. We also found a school and hilltop playground.

A highlight of our time in Dubrovnik was sitting along the rocks at Cafe Buza. This bar is actually on the outside of the wall overlooking the Adriatic.

Our View

As you enter Dubrovnik's old town, one of the first things you can spend time viewing is a map that shows where bombs were dropped on the city in the early 90s during the Siege of Dubrovnik during the war with Yugoslavia. This, along with what I had read about people hiding in their cellars or parts of the fortified walls that had actually never seen battle, stuck with me throughout the time spent here. Understanding that wars are not localized to a defined battlefield, curiosity about those living in their homes while battle is waged around them consumes my thoughts when I try to understand history. When we toured Gettysburg with a private tour guide last year, we saw the homes in the middle of key battlefields that's still stand. I have never wrapped my brain around what those may be like. And walking the streets with citizens who experienced it here, in their home in my lifetime, left me grappling even more for some reason and understanding.

Our departure from Dubrovnik included another entrepreneurial cabby who came to the airport shuttle stop and rounded up four travelers willing to pay for a ride to the airport. Fortunately for us, he was more successful, and turned out to be a really nice guy. We rode with an American currently living in Munich and a British woman heading home to Vienna. This final drive all the Croatian coastline was also stunning and a great farewell to this wonderful place.

We had not originally planned to fly to Rome, but a plane ticket on another regional airline purchased the day prior actually cost us less than the ferry and train to Rome would have been. The Dubrovnik airport is very small and was easy to navigate. Boarding the flight included none of the repeated, often annoying, loudspeaker announcements or boarding rules that accompany travel in the U.S. Here, when the agents got to the gate, people just started to line up and we all got on board. As another American in line pointed out, it was a nice break from some obviously unnecessary procedure back home.