A few days after I arrived back in Milan I was skyping Eleanor. She was traveling in Croatia with other friends of ours, Ayla and Alain. They all suggested that I come! Well, this whole trip has been founded on invitations like this - one of the first being from Eleanor a little over a year ago to come on exchange. Within the hour I had a flight for 2 days' time!
So, early on a Tuesday morning I trekked through Milan and caught a bus to the airport. I was flying cheap and only allowed carry on. Wearing all your heaviest things - which does not mean most fashionable - is a daunting experience as the sun rises and sheds light on the fashionable Milanese!
Anyway, I arrived in Split and grabbed a bus to Dubrovnik, where I would be meeting the others. The coastline is breathtaking and even though I was knackered I snapped probably too many pictures of it. Dubrovnik is beautiful and I settled down the wait in the old town... And I waited... and waited. See, it turns out that the overnight bus the others were on
left on the 20th rather than
arrived on the 20th. A hazard of these sudden decisions!
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| Arriving in Dubrovnik |
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| My view for most of the afternoon - the city is also incredibly touristy so I had a steady stream of people to watch as a consolation. |
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| Oh, and there's a drawbridge that looked like it was functional, if not often used. |
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| In the evening these guys came out - I imagine they're some kind of tourist show. |
I looked for accommodation but Dubrovnik is one of the most expensive cities in Croatia so that was a no go then I climbed up into the hills to sleep there considering I had a sleeping bag and bed roll. I don't know if you've ever been to the Dalmatian Coast but the hills are rocky, steep and prickly. Eventually I arrived at the bus station, bleeding, dirty and sweaty where a cop took pity on me and talked to the ferry terminal security guard into letting me sleep there. This was fortunate as it turned out I got a better sleep than the others on their bus, crossing four borders overnight!
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| Those are the hills I climbed up |
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| More wandering |
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| Climbing |
I met them super early the next morning and we set about exploring Dubrovnik. For any Game of Thrones fans, this is the setting for King's Landing - see if you recognise some spots. Alain pointed quite a few out that I snapped photos of. We had a look through the streets and grabbed a coffee then went exploring the walls of the old town.
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| Croatia has just joined the EU by the way - making it 28 member states strong. |
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| Croatian flag. Turns out I'm a fan of flag shots. |
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| This is their reaction to 'pose'. Don't you wish they were models! |
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| All of the roofs are terracotta. |
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| We're an attractive bunch! |
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| Alain's best tourist pose. I think he pulls it off. |
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| Gotta get that shot... |
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| And this is what it looks like from Ayla's perspective. |
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| I think this was one of the King's Landing spots. |
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| The danger of traveling with climbers around so many stone walls - we like to see how easy they'd be to climb. If they feel nice we all gather round and have a hold. When there's a huddle of four of you exclaiming over how nice a wall is to hold, and all taking turns, you tend to get odd looks. Also, I won't condemn all climbers - this may just be us. |
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| Boring photo but... those people are walking on a 1.5m ish wide pathway - and that window underneath cuts straight through it making it look 2D - well, when you're there it does. The photo may not be quite as good... |
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| Eleanor acting out being pushed off by Alain. Alain refusing to act with her. |
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| Oh yeah, and you could pay this guy to put a parrot on your kid's head because you're tourists and that's the kind of thing you do. |
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| Another game of thrones scene apparently. |
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| Keep going down and you get to a bar with what has to be one of the best views in the world. |
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| We were the macpac crew... except for me. I had a small black handbag. I have to argue for handbags though - I once climbed Mount Robert with a handbag and it worked just fine even if I did get mocked the whole way up. |
So that's Dubrovnik. I was actually going to try to do all of Croatia or maybe some of Montenegro (the next post to come) until I realised how many photos I took in a 24 hour period - I thought you guys could do without a 30 page post!
