At the other extreme from Hvar was our visit to Dubrovnik, a world heritage site. The picturesque walled city was worthy of our 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. stay. Michael had visited Dubrovnik about six years ago. He strongly recommended a hike around the top of the city walls. We began early: again in the first tender ashore. The walk took about two hours. The last time Michael was there the walk around the city wall was free. This time it cost the equivalent of about $15.00 apiece. The attendant who sold us the tickets apologized and explained that the money was needed for restoration work. Dubrovnik had been shelled heavily by the Serbs during the 1992-5 war. The wall took heavy damage and most of the buildings inside lost their roofs. Everything has been or is in the process of being rebuilt.We certainly could appreciate the reason for the cost of our tickets.
The walk was well worth the $15. When Michael visited in the early 2000's, only half of the city wall was open to pedestrians. Much of the rest had still been rubble. The entire wall has now been restored. Most of the buildings have new roofs. Several church steeples are still covered with scaffolding but the city is delightful. The views from the wall were impressive. Both the sights in the city itself and the landscape surrounding it made excellent photo opportunities. We saw a number of dogs, a poodle, a basset hound and a mutt for example, and we joked that these must all be Dalmatians as we were on the Dalmatian coast.
After completing a circuit of the wall, we walked the city streets. It was getting hot and we kept to the narrow side streets, which were shadier. We looked for potential lunch spots. It was still early but nothing looked promising. All those pizza places! The more up-scale places, away from the main streets served very expensive sea food.
The citizens of Dubrovnik have erected a tram to the top of the nearby mountain. It opened in 2010 so Michael had not taken it. I suggested a tram ride to get out of the increasing heat and as way to get a most scenic view of Dubrovnik. We walked the few blocks uphill from the city to the tram station and ascended to the observation platform above. This was a three level structure on the mountaintop that had a "restaurant" whose menu consisted exclusively of wine, beer, cocktails and soft drinks. We settled for Belgian made "Bavarian" beers and shared a small package of potato chips from the airline Michael had saved for weeks in his backpack. Michael spotted Gabor, the Silver Wind's tour desk manager, and invited him to join us. The three of us spent a pleasant half hour chatting and watching the clouds roll in and out, obscuring and revealing the view of the city.
We took a hike around the mountaintop, rode back down the mountain through the now obscuring clouds, went back to the pier and tendered back to the Silver Wind for lunch.
Later in the afternoon, we went back into Dubrovnik and took another walk. We ended at a Franciscan monastery that claimed to have a continuously operating apothecary shop since 1317a.d. We saw a modern pharmacy and further on a museum of mostly religious art that also housed cabinets, implements, bottles and jars from early times. We took a pleasant walk in the cloister gardens and then returned to the ship for teatime and to watch the departure from Dubrovnik.
Dubrovnik wasn't Venice, but it was fascinating in its own way. Both live on tourism and antiquities. Dubrovnik is more like Colonial Williamsburg without the re enactors and more gift shops. One can imagine the shopkeepers closing up at the end of the day and going home somewhere else.
We were on our way to another tourist town. This time it was Taormina in Sicily.
No comments:
Post a Comment