Thursday, 26 May, 2016 – Dubrovnik

Weather report: Excellent

Today we are just roaming around Dubrovnik. Andrew will not join us at all. Julie and I start out early and get a breakfast from one of the many nearby outdoor restaurants.

We did not go back to that place again. Andrew has booked us a guide to show us around town. We meet her, she is on the phone and was for a significant part of the tour. Eventually the rest of the troops come down and the tour begins at the market in the square that lasts until around noon.

We must not have been that excited about the tour as neither Julie and I have any photos from it. One thing that the guide did do was introduce us to a wine shop, run by an Aussie, whith whom we could organise wine tastings.

The wine shop, and a brewery across the way were in one of the many narrow lanes with a large array of steps going up to the top of the wall. We move along another couple of lanes and decide to stop at one of the cafes for a drink.

We walk back towards our apartments but stop by the Hotel in town where Jan & Hugh will stay on Saturday night. BTW: while we were at the Hotel the nice lady receptionist booked a restaurant for the four of us that night. We then go around the corner and select an indoor bar which turns out to be attached to their hotel to be.

We had not eaten since breakfast so ordered some snacks. I ordered pork crackling which was just pork fat with no crackling and the guys had a reasonable cheese platter. We then go back to the apartments except that Julie prances around Dubrovnik and here are some of her photos.

We learned later that 6 cruise-ships were in port which made the town quite crowded. Apparently in August there may be as many as 9 cruise ships and it is virtually impossible to move with all the passengers crowding the streets.

Later, the four of us reform below to go to the wine tasting. We arrive there and Boris and Viktorya arrive a little bit later. Inside there are a number of cute sayings:

The drinks menu had three different kinds of flights of wine for tasting among other standard orders. The three were all Reds, which Hugh and I selected, a white, rose and a red that Jan selected and all Whites as selected by Boris and Viktorya.

We are guided through the tastings by the Aussie owner. He seemed to know his stuff as he had a lot to say about each of the wines. We eventually decide to buy an additional bottle of Red #1 to share to finish the tasting. Hugh does go across the way to get himself one of the brews. We say good night to Boris & Viktorya, who have booked into Restaurant 360, and head to our restaurant for the night, Proto a fish restaurant.

The Hotel receptionist had booked us into the favoured upstairs patio. The weather is still good so heaters were not necessary.

Well, that’s it for the night. The end of a pretty good day where we did nothing!

Editor’s note: this and the previous Post were prepared after we returned to Australia. Even then jetlag had set in and there was another 5 days before I got back into the swing again. I should be able to finish up the rest of the days, still a few to go, relatively quickly.

For those readers who have been following along as each part is Posted, I have gone back and did significant updates to the Post “Friday the 13th” and also important updates to “Goodbye Hungary …” to reflect the relationship with an Anthony Bordain No Reservations menu. Please have a look.

Wednesday, 25 May, 2016 – Perast to Kodor to Dubrovnik, Croatia

Unlike yesterday, the weather today is great. After breakfast, checkout and load our luggage in the van.

Then we catch a public bus around to Kodor, Boris and Viktorya have taken an earlier bus. We arrive at the town and meet up with Vesna, Boris and Viktorya.

There is a street market near the entrance to the old town. We go to it and Vesna picks up a number of fruit and vegies which she puts in a big basket. Boris also buys some fruit. At some of the stalls, we are given tastes of their wares.

We then enter the old town and the guys go on a tour with Vesna. In the mean time, I go to an outdoor cafe attached to a Hotel and wait until they return.

The guys return from their tour. We go get something to eat, Andrew heads off to a meat restaurant, Julie goes off to climb the walls and hills and the rest of us go to a seafood restaurant in the bowels of the old town.

In the mean time, Julie is wandering the wall and higher in the town. A few shots from her.

The cruise ships, when they are in, are what are the major cause of the population flooding / crowding. We are nearly finished with our meal when Julie returns. She has a coffee and Jan’s leftover risotto and is quite OK with that. We leave the restaurant to meet up with Andrew and Vesna.

We wait for a while and meet up with Vesna and Andrew and then outside where we catch Boris and Viktorya back at the market. We say goodbye to Vesna and then catch the public bus back to the Hotel. Once there we hop into the van and begin the trip to Dubrovnik. It is along picturesque, coastal roads and takes about 3 hours. There is a long queue getting into Croatia at the border but this time the time per car is much less than when we previously entered so not a massive delay. We eventually arrive outside of Dubrovnik. It is a walled town and we have to stop outside. Andrew had called ahead and the owner of the apartment in which we are to stay is there to help us with our luggage and directions. Another guy is with him and loads most of the big suitcases onto a simple trolley.

Andrew is staying outside the town and heads out to his place. We follow the owner to walk to the apartment which is a fair way considering over cobblestone streets.

When we get to the apartment the guy with the trolley is taking up the suitcases by one at a time loading them on his shoulder and then carrying them up two or three flights of stairs. Every time he comes down, it looks like he is about to die.Eventually all the bags are up the stairs and I fight my way up the two flights of slightly dangerous stairs, for the next 6 days. After some discussion we settle into our nice rooms and have a bit of a nap.

Andrew is supposed to join us for dinner. However, when driving back to his place to stay, there is a major traffic accident which slows him down badly so he sends us an email to say that he won’t be coming and that Boris will be MC for the night. Eventually we meet down stairs to go to our restaurant for the night. It is up a long flight of stairs past the square to our right, a lot of stairs, no photo sorry.

Kopun apparently means Capon which is to be a Male Rooster that is castrated at a young age. It is supposed to make the best chicken flavour?? We make our orders.

Jan and Hugh and Julie and I each ordered a famous Capon with a couple of fruit treatments.

I think that the overall consensus was that although interesting, the chook (Capon) was over cooked and totally dominated by the sweet fruit in which it was cooked.

Time to go; back down the massive set of stairs and then up the levels of stairs again in our apartments. End of a good day.