Dubrovnik

We arrived in Dubrovnik on a Monday evening coach and after some minor directional problems, hauled ourselves and our backpacks up a few billion steps to our hostel, near the top of the hill. We sat for an hour in the terrace garden - grape vines hanging overhead, lime and pomegranate trees around us, and then explored the old city.






Dubrovnik’s old town literally sparkles like the ‘Jewel of the Adriatic’ it's claimed to be. It’s made of marble - entirely made of marble. The streets, the walls, the towers, gleam white under the moon and the streetlights. The streets are the cleanest I think I have ever seen - it looks like the whole city is swept and polished every night. The whole place felt like a fairy tale as we wandered the little alleyways and strolled the main boulevard, perusing menus we knew were too expensive for our budget.

(Tragically, it’s spoiled by the tourists. And I know that I am being entirely hypocritical because I AM a tourist, but it’s a well-known fact that tourists dislike other tourists. Especially ones who stand dead-centre on a busy street, gawking and taking photos and blocking those of us who are strolling along. I know it's pretty. Stand on the side of the street please. Rant over.)

As Dubrovnik is a must-see on the itineraries of everyone from cruise-shippers to backpackers to holiday-makers, it’s busy busy busy, all the time. I’m glad we saw it, but two nights was certainly enough.

So, having seen the city on the first night, and having no desire to visit museums, what do we do in Dubrovnik?

Along the side of the tall, looming wall, away from the little harbour, there’s a swimming spot with a couple sets of stone steps, rocks to leap off of and space to sit in the sun. So we picked up a two-litre bottle of beer (yes that is a thing) as we walked through the city that afternoon , and with a couple swigs inside us, we jumped from the jagged rocks into the salty Adriatic. We splashed around, hauled ourselves back up the slippery, algae-covered steps, retired to our beer bottle and repeated the whole thing when the sun became too intense.

Not a bad life, drinking beer and swimming under a magnificent city wall. There were other people there, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as the inside of the walls.

Eventually, many litres later, we decided it was time to be good tourists, so we abandoned the swimming hole, grabbed some pizza to sober up, and bought tickets to walk the walls. It’s better than it might sound - it makes for several kilometres of walking, the walls are kept in fantastic condition, and the views over the city both inside and outside the wall, and of the sea as the sun was setting, were beautiful.

And if you just looked at the sea, you couldn't even see the crowds.

S.