Monday 24th October 2011 – Dubrovnik

Good morning from Croatia and the beautiful city of Dubrovnik, the pearl of the Adriatic with its ancient walls and beautiful monuments.

The coastline is long and fringed with hundreds of beautiful islands that have lovely white sandy beaches. Hopefully by now you can see why Croatia has attracted visitors for hundreds of years before the tragic civil war of the 1990’s and now why we are coming back again.

We arrived to leaden skies but the overnight rain had long since stopped and the sun was beginning to peek through the clouds.

We had a full morning of organised tour departures to see away safely. Others who had perhaps been here before used our complimentary shuttle service into the old town.

The shuttle dropped them off at what is known as the Pile Gate, this is the main entrance to the old fortified city, perhaps the most interesting part of the town to visit.

Completely surrounding the city are the city walls that offer 1 ¼ miles of superb scenic sights over the coast and beyond to the outlying islands. In places these walls are 82 foot high and up to 6 metres thick.

The City Walls

Within the walls are some outstanding buildings and probably the best known buildings are the cathedral church of St. Blaise and the Franciscan monastery that were built using stone and remain largely the same today.

St. Blaise Cathedral

Franciscan monastery

I do not think there are as many places as pretty as Dubrovnik to visit for the day, and as we strolled the well worn flag stone streets, we soaked up the sunshine that had now appeared to warm our backs.

The Sponza Palace is another one of those special buildings here in the old city. This building is built in a classic style, its name referring to a place where rainwater collected. During the time it has housed the custom office, the mint, the bank and the armoury. Those graceful arches will pull your eyes up to see the beautiful windows above, and above again there is a statue of St. Blaise, the city’s patron saint.

Sponza Palace

Close by the Palace is another equally beautiful building, the Rectors Palace. Again here we see a building of classic style even though during its lifetime it has suffered fires, explosions and earthquakes, but today it is still as beautiful, and many stand in disbelief that such a building as survived so well.

Rectors Palace

The beautiful graceful arches support the arched ceiling above; this is a truly spectacular building, perhaps one of the finest along the Adriatic coast. By now first time visitors to Dubrovnik are probably asking why they have not come here before.

The local Croatian people are a delight of that there is no doubt, charming and always willing to stand and speak; proud of their heritage and wishing you to enjoy a little piece of their lifestyle. The Glavic family for example open their home to our passengers and two of the family entertain us whilst we sit down and enjoy home produced sausages and potatoes.

Whilst another local couple also open their home to us and we dine well on their garden grown produce of tomatoes, lettuce and home cured hams. From their home we can enjoy fabulous coastal scenery.

Other passengers enjoy the scenes over the city from various viewpoints including the newly restored cable car. This inexpensive lift whizzes us up to the top of the mountain so that we can comprehend the magnificent sight before us.

Others of course will go to the viewpoint just outside of the city where many holiday brochures depict the old city on their pages.

For what began as a gloomy start the day could not have been better, warm sunshine and super hospitality as always here in Dubrovnik. Thank you all again for allowing us to share in this special place.

Now time to relax and reflect on our day and look forward to a very special day tomorrow – Venice, perhaps my favourite city in Europe.