Sunday, April 26th, 2009: Dubrovnik, Slovenea

Bob:

After breakfast we worked like mad completing the backups from our three cameras so that we could have them empty and ready to use for our stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia. After breakfast we watched the Splendour of the Seas enter a small fjord located on the other side of an isthmus a bit northwest of Dubrovnik. As our ship worked its way carefully into the fjord, we saw a curious long bridge that was half a suspension bridge with a graceful web of supporting cables, and half a traditional bridge with supporting columns below. Usually bridges are all one type of support, so seeing one mixed like that was intriguing. Our ship finally docked at a newly constructed port facility on one side of the fjord.

As it turned out, paying for the Royal Caribbean shuttle bus service was in this instance a wise move. The drive from the port to a drop-off point just outside a gate in the old city wall that surrounds the medieval part of Dubrovnik lasted 15 minutes and covered a distance of 5-10 kilometers. I saw a scooter rental shop along the way that advertised in English, but there was no feasible way to backtrack to the shop from our drop-off point, rent a scooter, and take off for parts unknown!

Once we were inside the city gate, I was surprised, given the apparent age of the city, to find a network of streets laid out in roughly a grid pattern. We eschewed the main avenue running from the gate down to the port area in favor of exploring some of the side streets. The side streets were narrower than the main avenue and they were cross-cut by even narrower streets that seemed to go straight up the hill in a long series of steps. The particular street we chose to cut across the city seemed to be chock-a-block with sidewalk restaurants. As it was a nice day to eat outdoors, the restaurants were already doing a fair amount of business and eagerly tried to add us to their patronage, but we had brought some lunch from the ship so we declined their offers.

I did stop in at an internet shop, where I was pleased to pay only 2 Euro for half an hour of time, which was enough to both rest our feet and check our email. The sights, sounds, and smells from the restaurants that we passed after we left the internet cafe may, however, contributed to our feeling hungry rather sooner than I had expected. We veered left when we arrived at the port area and continued following the wall around the harbor. On the way, we saw a woman in native costume embroidering linen and trying to sell it. Finally we reached a nice overlook, an old fort bastion, apparently, that was equipped with an empty picnic bench, and that seemed like the perfect place to sit down and consume our meal of rolls and boiled eggs.

Relaxing on our park bench, we had a nice al fresco snack while watching the continuous activity in the harbor. A Costa Cruise Lines ship, the Costa Fortuna, had anchored about 1/4 mile out from the port area and was using lifeboats for tendering passengers to and from the dock. There was a line of people waiting at the dock to embark, so we inferred that they were all returning because the ship was getting ready to sail, as later turned out to be the case. I also watched with some amusement boys playing on the old cannon that stood watch in one corner of the bastion; from one angle it looked just like they were preparing to fire it at the Costa ship.

But we also saw a number of small boats, ferries, and excursion boats entering and leaving the harbor, so there was a lot to entertain us while we had our meal. Afterwards we walked back down to the port area and out on the dock that had so recently been teeming with people. Without the crush of Costa passengers the dock was fairly empty, so it was easy to walk around the port and out to a tiny spit of land that jutted out from the old city wall. There we purchased two ice cream cones as a dessert and ate them as we marvelled at the clear turquoise waters of the harbor. The water was clear and calm enough that I even saw small fish swimming in the water.

Walking back into the harbor, we found a small postern type of gate in the city wall that led us back into the maze of side streets in the old town area. We wandered up and down the streets, poking our heads into various shops whenever we saw something that interested us. Monika saw some dolls and some embroidered blouses that interested her quite a bit, but the prices seemed very high. We also walked past the cathedral that seemed rather normal except that it had a huge, brilliantly colored Easter egg perched on the corner of a roof. We figured the egg was a leftover from the Easter celebration about two weeks back.

Once back outside the main gate in the city wall, we tried to find something open for either a beer or a Coke, but that wasn't easy because it was Sunday and all the stores as well as most of the shops were closed. Still, at a tiny hole-in-the-wall type of delicatessen we did find a beer for Monika that she could drink on the way back to the ship.

I tried to close out the afternoon by working on the journal, but just hit a big wall of fatigue. When I nodded off while typing on Baby I decided it was time to close up shop for the day and take a nap. That way I had enough energy to get through dinner without nodding off into the noodles and even attend the evening performance by a group of four black singers. They performed Motown hits from the 60s and 70s and did a very creditable job, but after that I was all too ready to turn in for the night.