Day 14 - Dubrovnik

I wasn’t entirely certain what we were going to do in Croatia… did a little reading about it, and it’s all interesting, esp if you go back more than the obvious history of 10 years ago… but WOW, what a view. The city actually has roots back to the fifth century and the “old city” is surrounded by a large wall and sits up against the sea along the coast. It was BEAUTIFUL! Cloudy… drizzly in the early part, but BEAUTIFUL!

Up the stairs, around the wall, down a few stairs… around more of the wall… up some more stairs… there was a lovely little café’ along the top of one side of the wall where we ordered 3 hot chocolates & an espresso for FIL. The hot chocolates were INCREDIBLY thick… and delicious … FIL’s espresso turned out to be a cappuccino… which MIL offered to drink, and they ordered another cappuccino and the nice lady said, “Cappuccino” and yet brought back, “Café’ Americano”… regular coffee.

No matter, it was hot, and in this weather that meant a lot. We drank our drinks and verified that it would be alright if we ate the sandwiches we brought with us (something that would have cost an arm and half a leg in Italy)… and then attempted to bus our own tables when the lady came back outside, rather horrified that we would gather up our own trash for disposal. We assured her we didn’t mind cleaning up our own mess, that “McDonald’s had trained us well” LOL… and she and the other woman in the store let it go (under continued protest).

Down and around the wall some more (it’s 3+ km all the way around) and we journeyed into the main part of the old city to take pictures of the churches & find a souvenir or two and discovered something wonderful… Dubrovnik is MUCH MUCH CLEANER than any city we’d seen in Italy. In addition, the people there are much FRIENDLIER than most we’d met in Italy, esp in Venice. Also, purchases can be made in Kune (the local currency), or Euro, or even American dollars… and they do the exchange rate right there on the spot. 

Back to the ship to tell our waiter “Hoala” (hello in Croatian) and he seemed very pleased we took the trouble to learn something in Croatian, but everyone in Croatia speaks at least Croatian & English, and most speak more than that.