Dubrovnik and Montenegro

Ed and I spent four nights in Dubrovnik which is an amazing place. There is something magical about the imposing city wall, red-tiled roofs, and marble streets. We stayed in the Old Town, the walled city that is the historic centre of Dubrovnik. We walked the city wall one morning with an audio guide. The walk is about 2 km long and it took us over 3.5 hours to complete our tour and I took a gazillion pictures. It was just so beautiful. I'm glad we stayed within the city walls because we felt part of the place as I scoot over to the bakery to buy some bread or the store to buy a bottle of wine. The best time to walk around Old Town is either early in the morning or late at night when the throng of tour groups are gone. On our third day in Dubrovnik, we went on an excursion to the Elafiti islands just off the Dubrovnik coast The boat took us to three islands and we got some beach time in two of them. The other one was where we stopped for lunch. The last stop brought us to Lopud island where Sunj beach is. Boasted as the best beach in Dubrovnik, it did not disappoint. (Zlatni Rat in Bol is still the best beach we visited in Croatia.) The grilled fish we were served for lunch was very delicious.

On our second day, we did a day trip to Montenegro which is the country just south of Croatia. It was part of the former Yugaslavia like Croatia was. The tour was okay; Montenegro was beautiful. Going on the tour reminded me why I don't like going on them - a big group being sherperded around and being told we have 1 hour to look around. But if we didn't go with a tour group, it would have cost us a lot more to go and probably wouldn't have covered as much ground. Oh well. Okay, back to Montenegro. We drove to the Bay of Kotor and stopped at the town of Kotor. The have an Old Town, too, but not as impressive as Dubrovnik's. It reminded me of Trogir in Croatia. The bay was very picturesque. Then we took this crazy road with tons of hairpin turns up the mountain to the town of Njegusi where stopped for a quick lunch. We then went to the Museum of King Nicola which is his residence that has been converted to a musuem of his stuff. Afterward, we went to the town of Budva which is the touristy beach resort town in Montenegro. You can tell there have been lots of development in recent years as the buildings all look quite new. Budva,too, had an old walled city that is now, like all the other walled cities we've gone to, a shopping area.

Now, Ed and I are on a ferry en route from Dubrovnik to Bari, Itally. The crossing takes 8 hours which seems short now after enduring a 22-hour train ride. I've been sitting on the deck enjoying the sun all day.

We really liked the Adriatic coast of Croatia. There is a laid-back atmosphere here that was very relaxing. The ocean breeze and the sound of waves are never far away. We'll add Croatia to our list of places to (hopefully) visit again.