Dipping Our Toes Into Dalmatia

(Dateline: Chris)

Our AirBnB host picked us up from the Port of Dubrovnik and dropped us off at our flat, where we would stay for a month. We were all on our own, in a country none of us had ever been to, where we didn't speak the language at all and there were signs everywhere for things like ljekama, ulica and tisak. For example, here's what it says on our wine bottle: Vinarija Dingač Plavac 2011 Kvalitetno vino plavac mali Vinogorje Pelješac. Right, I'll have the red.

????!!! Go right I guess?

In Italy, sure, I don't speak Italian, but with the French I have and a fairly solid grounding in English (My mom says so!), I can often figure out what a sign means. In Croatia, we saw our first road sign and never thought we'd know anything again.


Luckily, it turns out that Croatia is super easy. Everyone here speaks nearly flawless English, way more so than in Italy. Jen, Otis and I have tried to learn some Croatian so that we could at least say hello (dobar dan), please (molim) and thank you (hvala) to the very many helpful Croatians who stopped us from stepping in front of a bus.

It also made it easy on us that we chose to stay in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a small city (50,000 some residents) on the Dalmatian Coast, that looks like it is out of a fairytale (and indeed, it is where a lot of Game of Thrones is set). As you may have seen with Jen's Facebook art piece "What's In Port Today," Dubrovnik gets tons of cruise ships with tons of tourists and the locals are very used to us, and accept us, I believe, as the cornerstone of the Dubrovniki economy.

See more comparison photos between real-world Dubrovnik and Game of Thrones here

Dubrovnik has cheap and easy busses, 12 Kuna ($1.80) for an hour's worth of rides. It is geographically small and easy to walk, and it is largely set up on cliffs above the crazily beautiful Adriatic so every walk will provide you with a view. 

The sunset at President Beach, a mile or so from our flat

Dubrovnik has a number of neighborhoods. Most important for a tourist are Old Town, where all the fairy tales are, and Lapad, where the swim and sun resorts are. Our Airbnb being in Lapad also helped make life easy.

Jen and Otis at the Croatian "beach," which is often a nice rock to sit on, with maybe a ladder to help you in and out of the crystal clear water

Just up the road from us is a small market called Pemo, and (while it took us a few days to realize this), there's a larger market another two blocks away called Tommy (which comes in regular, super and hyper sizes) so shopping is easy, and Lapad has a promenade that leads down to the bay. Lapad is like the Epcot Center version of San Diego. Sun, sea, resorts, gelato and palm trees.

So, after few days of acclimatization, we found ourselves in a VERY easy place to live. Some of the best swimming we've seen is a short walk away, a magical UNESCO world heritage site is about 2 miles away and our comfortable and affordable apartment was a perfect base for explortation. We will stay in Lapad from August 30 to September 29, with a few side trips (Kotor Montenegro, Mostar Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Elaphite Islands and Mjliet are popular junkets), and catch you all up on our adventures as soon as we can manage.

Otis with the sub-marine GoPro selfie

One of our first views of Kings' Landing Old Town Dubrovnik

One of our favorite spots in Dubrovnik is this bar that advertises itself has having "Cold Drinks With the Most Beautiful View;" the drinks were fairly cold, but the view was as advertised 

A panoramic view of Old Town from the top of the Dubrovnik Cable Car

Old town from the City Walls, I am told that the homes with bright orange tiles were homes that replaced their roofs after the shelling perpetrated by Serbia & Montenegro during the Siege of Dubrovnik in 1991-1992