Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast

November 27, 2011
Ron and I are ‘sluts for travel’, in his words, so any time he has work we try to take a trip to explore an area new to us. When we finished the assignment in Tbilisi we headed to Croatia. We arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia and were met by our apartment host, Nives. Unfortunately our luggage did not arrive with us. The drive from the airport was beautiful, along the Adriatic coast.

Our first day, we took an early morning walk through old town and came across two women selling hand made table linens. We bought a few pieces and continued on our way. We stumbled onto the ethnological museum and loved it. It was housed in a building originally used as a grain storage house. The displays were simple but very educational. The building was fascinating.

The weather in Dubrovnik was sunny and warm, so we only needed our sweaters. We had left TBS in our winter parkas because it was snowing when we caught our 5:00 a.m. plane to Munich. In Croatia, we sat outside at an outdoor café and had espresso drinks mid-morning and again at lunch where we sat outside and by this time we had shed our sweaters. We continued to explore the town and then took the City Walls Walk. The walls were built around the city as a defense in the 10th century and modified in the 13th century. The guards could walk along the top of the walls and now so can tourists. It took about an hour, stopping to take photos. We had great views of old town and the islands off the coast. We took the cable car up the hill overlooking the city to take photos of the sunset which sets at 4:15, much earlier than TBS. When we got back home our luggage had arrived.

On day two we had a slow morning, enjoying coffee and pastries in the room. Ron and I are coffee snobs, being from the land of Starbucks so we travel with an electric teapot, good coffee and a cone with filters so we can make our own coffee. We then went to the Franciscan monastery built in 1317. Still standing was a fountain from 15th century in a lovely garden in the center of the monastery. There was a pharmacy that has been in use since 1717 and has displays of various items used in the pharmacy. We also visited the museum that contained various religious items. Next we visited the Rector’s palace, an important political and administrative center of the Republic of Ragusa (this area at the time was Ragusa). The building was built in 1435 and was a wonderful structure and contained many items of interest from the various periods in history. The beautiful locking trunks fascinated us with their intricate locking devices. We saw some
exquisite Italian ceramic vessels used in pharmacies from the 15th century. We bought a traditional Croatian Easter egg at the shop there. The eggs in this part of the world are most often dyed a deep red color and here they decorate them using a batik technique.

November 30th
Today was our 26th anniversary and we rented a car and drove up the coast for four hours to Split. Along the way we stopped in Ston on a recommendation from Penney, a friend and from our host in Dubrovnik. What a lovely area. A lot of oyster beds are found here and we first stopped at a sweet hotel on the water and had coffee outside and enjoyed the sunshine. We explored the area taking in the salt pans that have been here since 1000 A.D. We went back to the hotel and ordered a simple lunch, deciding to split an order of ‘crispy fried oysters’. The order came and we ate the first oyster and ‘had a moment’ as Sandi, Ron’s sister likes to say. The oysters were perfect: hot, light, moist and tasted faintly of the sea. After eating the plate of oysters we looked at each other and decided more was better and ordered another plate of oysters. Heavenly. Back into the car and we continued up the coast exclaiming about the beauty the entire way.

When we got to Split we were surprised to discover it is a very large city and we were lost in terms of how to get to our hotel. But after two stops and a lot of frustration, I asked a man in a parking lot if he spoke English. Lucky for me he did. He did not know how to find our hotel so called and lo ad behold he told us to follow him and he took us there. We were so grateful as we were so lost.

OMG, I about fell over when I walked into the lobby. I have learned of this hotel from Trip Advisor and never looked at the photos of the hotel online. Ron and I love simple traditional, homey kind of places. This place is out of this world. The entire lobby is white: white high gloss furniture with purple or lavender accents pillows, silver floor tiles, stark white walls. The white light fixtures are too strange to describe. Our room has a glass wall between the bedroom and bathroom so one of us can sit in the bedroom and watch the other one bathe. Weird. Our carpet is bright strips of bright aqua, soft aqua, deep purple, lavender and two tones of taupe about three inches wide. Our light fixture shades look like the three foot fringe off of a leather jacket Cher wore in the 60’s. The curtain that can be used on the glass wall between the bedroom and bath is silver. The desk chair is modern molded plastic. All the furniture is stark white with a high gloss finish. The tile wall behind the toilet is heavily dimpled and totally iridescent purple. Who ever decorated this place was very good at consistent design concept but OMG what taste. It is so not us. We managed to survive however.

We spent the next day in Split exploring what had been Dioclenitian’s palace, the Roman emperor from the fourth century. Our hotel was five minutes away from old town. It was interesting to observe how parts of the original structure had been incorporated into 16th century churches and homes of wealthy nobles and modern day shops and cafes. In its day the palace was huge. We relaxed in the afternoon with Ron working on a report and me reading on our balcony overlooking the waterfront. We got up early on Friday to drive back to Dubrovnik. We had planned to take photos of the spectacular coast but unfortunately there was a lot of haze and it made no sense to try and take photos. We arrived at the airport in good time and read until departure at 4:00. We flew to Zagreb, changed planes for Munich and changed again for TBS, arriving bright and early at 4:00 a.m. We got to bed at 5:30 and took a pill and slept until 10ish. We are staying at Leslie’s house while she is at a wedding in FL. We got up and walked to a couple of nearby shops for butter, eggs and bread for our breakfast. Ron spent the day working on his report and I lazed around the house and managed to do a load of laundry. We went to a nearby Indian restaurant, our fav and asked our friend Rick to join us as he lives nearby and his wife Dorothy is in the US recovering form surgery. Rick is the Peace Corps director here and as we were waiting for our dinner, 11 of his volunteers came in for dinner. PC volunteers in Georgia make 250 GEL a month, that’s about $130 a month. They were in town for a meeting as they all live in rural areas of Georgia. As we were leaving Ron and I paid for their dinners as a random act of kindness. We asked the cashier to wait until the volunteers were ready to pay their bill before telling them and to thank them for their service.

On Sunday we had brunch with Kirsten and her son Aquil who also live nearby. We have massages scheduled next then over to Lily’s for more goodbyes. Gia will pick us up at 2:45 in the morning for our 5:00 flight to Munich, Washington DC then on to Portland, a mere 27 hour trip! OY!