Dubrovnik! Woohoo! After our drive, we got settled into our apartment overlooking the bay and channel and soon were out to dinner for our anniversary!
The drive over from Split -
I found a very special place in Dubrovnik called Restaurant Orsan and we were able to enjoy being “dockside” in the marina, with views of the bay and Dubrovnik all around. The food that we ate was excellent and we enjoyed the white linen table service, atmosphere of the upscale seafood establishment, and our company. With dinner and dessert complete, and with little sleep from the night before due to the late night Beach Party, we were pretty wiped and called it a night. But not before setting the alarm for early and getting some anticipation built up for our next morning excursion - Ocean Kayaking!
Panoramic - View from apartment.
This was an epic day. We started out the day by cruising into town to meet up for Ocean Kayaking! Soon after getting our two-person kayak with a rudder launched, Candace and I were on our way, paddling along the shoreline. It was awesome and we were able to work together to move faster than anyone else in our group and to be able to set a relaxed pace as well that we could maintain for quite some time as we enjoyed the scenery. Paddling into caves, onto beaches, and jumping off 12 meter cliffs, we had an awesome time! After I had jumped off the cliff for the second time, I accidentally told three ladies up at the top that it was an easy jump. I said to just “keep your arms at your side and keep a straight body as you jump and you will be fine.” Well, with that the three of them jumped in unison as our guide took a picture with one of their cameras… Immediately, one of the girls starts falling to the side and -=*Whack*=- she landed all along her left thigh. Her friend in the middle was holding her nose with one arm that of course -=*Smacked*=- and flew up off her face and above her head and the third girl came up with the same look that they all had, like they had just staggered off a trainwreck after getting punched in the stomach. I felt so bad looking at their painful faces as they came out of the water and started swearing. They were missing things that had fallen off of them and after gathering their wrecked selves together and swimming back to the beach, Mrs Legslam had a bruise all along her thigh and her friend said that her whole head felt like it was full of seawater. They actually took it pretty cheerfully, all things considered, and for them I believe that it was a great achievement because none of their friends will have jumped off of a cliff that high! Anyways.. soon we were back and cleaned up, ready for downtown Dubrovnik.
Big pic from top of cliff -
Ozujsko's sketch of Dubrovnik -
And our first views of downtown -
We walked around the city a bit, ended up at the Cathedral but found it closed for the day already so we headed to the City Walls, which I had heard was spectacular. We ended up being the last ones admitted and climbed on up the many stairs to feast our eyes upon all of Dubrovnik, the ocean, and the surrounding hills. The walls were way better and cooler than I thought that they would be. We were basically on a walk around the entire city with panoramic views at every turn. Literally walking along the walls that were built to defend the city, we saw that they stretched around the entire city, unlike Zadar which did only half the city. They were even along the cliffs of the ocean. It was also easy to see because the walls only stretched up to waist or chest high so we could always look out in any direction. We enjoyed countless viewpoints, pictures, little cafes along the way, and just the dynamic of being up there, like we were on “the watch”, scouting for the enemy from the hills to the north or from the ocean to the south. For those that got “the watch” comment from Game of Thrones, part of the series was actually filmed here, utilizing the city and walls as part of what you saw on the final product on the screen After about an hour and a half we had only gotten a little more than halfway around the city and were ushered down off the wall without being able to complete the entire circuit. We decided that we would come back tomorrow to finish it.
We counted at least 6 cats. Can you find them?
The Iron Throne -
After descending the wall, we checked out Restaurant 360 which we had randomly seen while walking around and made reservations with them for the following night and then ended up at the aquarium Dubrovnik. Cool seeing an octopus close up and some other really interesting sea creatures.
Eels -
After the aquarium, it took some real searching to find the actual place that I wanted to take Candace to dinner at, like 30 minutes. We actually passed the alleyway multiple times. Finally we did find it, as we were literally the only ones walking down, and to the end of, a very untravelled alley off of a super busy street. As we walked up the stairs and into the Restaurant Dubrovnik, we entered into a fully packed house and the manager who told us he could squeeze us in after around 20 minutes. “Perfect” we thought because during our 30 minute search for the place we had discovered a super chill alley-cafe with nice ambiance that served the drink that our Kayak guide had told us about and had a guitarist playing live spanish-like guitar music. We were quickly seated there and had a relaxing 20 minute wait enjoying the place and ending up purchasing two CDs from the guitarist before our time was up.
Soon enough we were back at Rest. Dubrovnik seated and fast learning why they didn’t have to be, and probably didn’t want to be, on the “main strip” to be packed full of people. Their live music was awesome, their service excellent, their food incredible. This was our new favorite restaurant of the trip, hands down. We ended up being the last ones there, chit chatting with Gasper, the GM, about business, the area’s history, and some of the behind the scenes things we had wondered about the operation. Here is a picture of a statue on the wall of the building next to us, on the other side of the alley of our dinner. We learned that the statue was 15th century, created by the Bonna family, who owned about 1/6 of Dubrovnik back in the day. We marveled at how the heavy piece was even stuck on the wall and staying there. Finally we ended up leaving the restaurant with goodbyes and some extra gifts and souvenirs from Gasper.
Musician playing at restaurant -
Lobster dish of sorts -
Sea Bass -
Gasper -
Parting shot of the now empty Rest Dub. -
Down to the alleyway we go -
Heading back to our “chill cafe” we had started at before the dinner, we enjoyed the atmosphere a bit more and had to try out the highly recommended “locals” drink that our kayak guide mentioned earlier in the day called nicknamed “rocky”. It’s a local spirit that the Croatians favor. It was interesting to try a few different flavors of the stuff as well as some of the other unique things served at this cafe. They had something old like George Carlin comedy streaming in black and white against the wall from a projector and some underground tunes playing in the background since the guitarist had packed and left. After a bit our conversation turned to the “buza bars” or “rock bars” along the cliffsides that we had heard rumors of multiple times during our trip in Dubrovnik thus far. Apparently they serve no food but rather just specialize in beverages and ocean views. We had soon set off in search of one and ended up finding a scraggly cat along the way before finally arriving at our first buza bar. The place we found was actually something that we had seen earlier from up above the City Walls and it was cool to just walk around and all the way down to the ocean and enjoy the sounds of the water and being alone for a bit. We decided it would be cool to check out again in daylight. Checking out the city late night, with perfect weather we walked around and explored a bit before heading home.
Cat and I -
On the way home we passed what looked like a good old fashioned huge wooden vessel like they used to sail 300 or more years ago by only sails, before any engines were created. It's actually in the pictures above as well out at sea, which we got snapshots of while on the City Walls, but here we were seeing it up close. It got me to thinking about how crazy it must have been before all of the “safe” routes across oceans were mapped along the safe curving trade winds and currents of water. Before America was discovered, and before we had satellites for that matter, we had no idea the shape of the planet, let alone where land was or the Oceans ended. It seem simply crazy to imagine going out in some random direction across a potentially never-ending body of water and into storms that literally destroy ships even today (we actually see TV shows now on how dangerous some of these waters are to sail into, and generally the only boats going there are under engine power and are fishing similar areas over and over). But back in the day, before GPS and technology, and sailing beyond charted seas, these explorers braved these waters, huge waves and storms for their kings and queens. Starving or running out of water or being lost at sea with cloud cover for weeks and no stars to navigate making it hard to use a sextant is only half of it. Imagine the strength these sailors needed in their hands and arms and bodies to control the ropes and sails of these huge ships which move without any engine whatsoever. The wind blowing or gusting in these storms, or even under just heavy air, the force of these sails and the ropes attached to them was incredible. With boats of today under engine power and sometimes barely able to control themselves in some of these storms, imagine having to use no engine and only the wind to do it and that if you don’t constantly play it right, don’t have a strong enough crew, or the storm just gets too crazy with the wind in your sails, you could hit a huge swell at the wrong angle and capsize the boat or worse. Sailing myself for years, competing in regattas and on about a dozen different types of boats I wouldn’t last a hour in one of these storms with my current skills. The force of the ropes to control the sails being so strong they can literally rip a mans arm off if not rigged right, and fly people off the ship in an instant if they get whipped or tangled by them. The sailors hands and bodies had to be so callus they probably could barely feel anything at all beyond the workings of their vessel, mainstays, ropes and sails. It’s easy to see now how these types of men with their strength and tolerance for abusive conditions could take on a trained military presence on the ocean. Hence the pirates of the sea and legends were born, the Dread Pirate Roberts and so on and so forth are all probably not too far off. Put a great sea navigator and leader with extraordinary strength that is above and beyond even that of those other tough sea hands and give him knowledge and many years experience on the ocean, some sword skill, and a decent crew able to weather any storm, and the stories begin. I have to wonder if there are any great books on the subject of the lost art of sea exploration, the way it existed for thousands of years, how sailing these boats in general worked and the lives of these type of men.
Enough digression, lets get back to Dubrovnik! The next day in the morning we slept in till whenever and woke up late, got organized, headed to the post office to ship back some goodies we had bought as well as things we realized were unnecessary to be carrying around. We were running low on “backup food” and grabbed some from the grocery store next to the post office like bread and cheese, carrots and cucumbers, apples, stuff like that to get you by between meals or on a long day out and about. It down-poured on us and we were soaked just running back to the car. We thought parking might be better now because of the rain and headed downtown to grab a great spot and start checking out the charming city of downtown Dubrovnik again. Entering the Cathedral, checking out two Monasteries and finishing the “City Wall Walk” above the city, we shopped a bit and found Candace a cool ring which made her so very happy to have.
View from the apartment balcony -
No way out - looks like a place that kept prisoners -
Dubrovnik from the city walls. This picture is enlarged so you can scroll left and right to see it all, unless your monitor resolution is ridiculous (James!). Notice that you can even see people on the city walls on the "ocean side" of the city, across from where we were.
Plane flying over city -
Cats everywhere -
The pull of the cliff bar was great and we were soon at that Buza Bar, rock bar, right on the cliffside that we found the other night. I also knew that people had jumped off of the cliffs of this place because I saw it 2 days ago when I was high up on the city walls glancing at the venue. The bartender I asked said that it wasn’t safe and to not jump, absolutely not especially when darker out. Well I knew that people did it in the day, and that I could do it, so that I was soon stripped to my boardshorts and on the precipice glancing down over the edge at what I was working with off of about a 14 meter cliff. There was quite the crowd, as the bar was relatively packed, but nobody jumping since we had got there. Soon after I had stripped down and handed off the camera to candace, a couple of guys who had jumped earlier came up and told me the lowdown. The dark water below is super deep as the cliff continues into the water at a 90 degree angle well beyond necessary measurement and they recommended jumping far out because of one of the ledges below. Soon I was soaring far out off the ledge and BOOM into the water safely completing my jump and loving every second of it! I swam around in the ocean for a bit, then came in and timed the exit onto the ledge just right to avoid the razor sharp coral that was along some of the rocks.
Soon we were on our way to Restaurant 360. This was one of our more expensive dinners, besides our Geisha dinner in Japan which will talk about coming up soon in a couple of posts. This restaurant was twice as much cost as Restaurant Dubrovnik, but not as good food and smaller portions. Don’t get me wrong, it was really good food, great service, and the ambience was kickass as we were on the ocean, with a view of the harbor with ships coming and going, including the old wooden ship I spoke of earlier.
We ended the night with a pullover to a cliffside on the way back to our apartment. Looking back at Dubrovnik’s city lights and surrounding ocean, we enjoyed the silence and twinkling lights of the city and boats in the harbor. Goodbye Dubrovnik, with a 6am flight and leaving a few hours later for the airport, we loved Croatia. But its time to head over to visit one of my best friends in the world, James McAfee (and his wife Randi), who I knew since kindergarden and who we visited in London on the Europe trip a couple of years back. Now he lives in Hong Kong, currently a republic entity in China, and we arrive there about 18 hours later with a layover in Doha, in the country of Qatar in the middle east... Cheers,
Jason & Candace
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