Dubrovnik

20 September 2018

From Solta, we caught the ferry back to Split, and then hopped on a bus to Dubrovnik. The bus ride was uneventful, and included a border crossing into, and shortly thereafter, out of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which seems to include the steepest and most uninhabitable narrow stretch of coastline.

Dubrovnik is one of the most popular Adriatic tourist destinations, and everyday thousands of tourists disembark from cruise ships and are herded around the small Old Town in numbered groups by frazzled-looking tour guides. Hoping to avoid this madness, we made an early start to walk the city walls. The walk is about 2km long, and the walls 4-6m wide, and overlook sea and the red roofs and churches of the city. At each corner of the wall, there is a fortress which can be explored, and numerous turrets in between. We spent the rest of the morning escaping the crowds and the heat by exploring small side streets and alleys, and visiting some rather underwhelming museums.

The next morning, we had another early start to visit Fort Lovrijenac, which is built on a craggy cliff and looks over the Old Town and the sea. The Fort hosts various plays and cultural events throughout the year, but is otherwise empty, and is well worth a visit for the spectacular views from the terraces.

We then managed to find one spectacular museum in Dubrovnik: War Photo Limited. It houses a very impressive selection of photos by various war photographers, and the exhibits detail the various conflicts leading up to the breakup of Yugoslavia. It was fascinating and sobering to see and read about a war that affected Croatia’s population in such recent memory.

By about 11am, the city is saturated with tourists, and becomes almost unbearable to navigate. We made a hasty exit, and spent the afternoon with our AirBnb hosts, who happened to be climbers and took us out to their local limestone crag.

The next morning we began the long day of travelling. We flew back to Zagreb, where Duncan caught a flight out to San Francisco, and I spent the morning trawling the weekly antiques market, before flying home to SA.