Day 12, June 4th, 2008. Dubrovnik, Croatia. Lokrum, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Our first full day in Dubrovnik and we started our day by immediately doing what all first time visitors to the city should do – walk the city walls! Beautiful views and vistas greeted us around every corner as well as Japanese tourists. We were able to look out over the terra cotta rooftops of the entire city from all angles and from within both the Pile and Ploce gates. Our tickets even granted us access to the Lovrenj Fort which is opposite the walls and creates a little cove between it and the Old Town. The walls of the Old Town are very thick but much thicker on the side that faces land vs. the side that faces the sea. The point of this would be greater effectiveness against a land invasion by invaders who didn’t possess advanced navies. We began this long walk around the walls by picking up the route right near our room at the Renata House. We could actually see our room from the walls and see the walls (and the people walking on them) from our room.

After touring the walls we ventured over to a small art gallery upstairs from the main tourist avenues and a block from the main stradun. This gallery showed us in vivid phot-journalistic style the horrors of the Balkan Wars and was a grim reminder of what this region of the world endured in the early 90’s. The city of Dubrovnik was actually shelled by the Serb-Montenegrins who destroyed nearly half the city in 1991. This was an award-winning gallery that had been positively reviewed by numerous art critics. Started by a journalist originally from New Zealand, this gallery also included photos of the unrest in Burma and Iraq. Another part of the exhibit was a film that recorded the reaction of Serbs who saw the Balkan War exhibit when it debuted in Belgrade in 2002. The film documented how Serbs are dealing with the aftermath of the war and displayed some repressed feelings still held by the general population sparking lively debate amongst many of those who saw the photos.

Later, we went and had pizza at a recommended pizza restaurant via Lonely Planet. The Lovrinj Fort was just across from this walled city and we crossed over at the Pile Gate and into the fort. The fort was quite large and gave us the picture-postcard expansive all encompassing views of the Old Town and the cove itself along the harbor. By this time, it became time for us to get ready for our sunset paddle on the Adriatic with Adriatic Kayak Tours. So we returned to the room to change into our swimsuits.

We walked out of the Ploce Gate in a southward direction down the coast toward Cavtat and out of the Old Town. It had turned into a bright sunny day from an overcast start and we passed impressive luxury hotels and plush villas on our way to a secluded rocky beach where we were to meet our guide. Adriatic Kayak Tours is a company run by an American woman originally from Westwood, MA. Her daughter was our guide. Here for the summer, Nina briefly told us how to dress for the kayaking and how to get in but curiously nothing about the act of paddling itself. Most of this we learned from watching her while we were already in the water. The tour took us from the beach beneath the main road to a rocky beach on the island of Lokrum. Jess and I thought our journey would just take us to the island and back but much to our surprise we ended up circling the entire island. Not something we expected to do as beginners. Before arriving on the island we hit some relatively rough seas as we made our approach to the beach on Lokrum. This far side of the island was farthest out into the Adriatic Sea. When we finally reached the island we stopped for the wine and cheese. The wine was local and fabulous, the cheese not so much. There was also bread, crackers and olives. We walked around the island, saw the botanical gardens and the ancient monastery that was being restored and then returned to the water to finish our trip. Before getting back in the kayaks though we saw many peacocks that roam the island and have done so since the 19th century when they were left on the island by an Austro-Hungarian royal. This royal initially claimed the island for himself and kicked out the monks in the monastery. Asking monks to leave a monastery that they had inhabited for centuries turned out to be a bad idea. Shortly after settling the island, strange calamities befell this royal as he suffered through the death of his wife and children. With his family devastated he vacated the island and Lokrum returned to its previous state. But in the aftermath of this drama, the island earned a reputation for being cursed. The royal has long since gone but the monastery never returned to its former prominence and as a result locals never stay overnight on the island thinking that revenge will somehow be enacted upon them. We paddled back (with Jessie barely carrying her weight) and said goodbye to Nina. It was beautiful being out on the sparkling water and seeing Dubrovnik from that vantage point. Before heading back to our room we stopped at café Buza for a drink. A famous café in the actual walls of the city, we had a drink while looking out over the bay and the island of Lokrum that we had just circled on kayak. It looked like an impressive feat! The cool breezes swept up the walls and relaxed us as we reclined at café tables and sipped Karlovacko beer. This was a truly beautiful place and it was very hard to leave. We could have spent the rest of the day there drinking beer and looking directly out onto the water.

Later that night, we found dinner at Wanda, a highly recommended restaurant from Time Out that had top notch food on a narrow street a block off the stradun, the major thoroughfare in Old Town. Jessie’s salmon was maybe the best she’s ever had she boldly stated. A drink at a café on the stradun ended our night. Sampling the local grappa has also been a fun pastime of ours.