Dubrovnik, Croatia

This is the first Balkan road trip, the first European trip. We’ve been very excited to go driving through a handful of countries, to get out of the city for a little while, and to take the car for a drive of more than 2 miles. We were surprised by the quality of the roads on the drive up. Through Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia, the paving gave way only a handful of times. There’s no real system of highways like in the US, not even connecting countries – most of our drive was on two lane roads, some that barely fit one car at a time. A lot of it was back-country winding where we encountered horse-drawn carts and cows wandering in the middle of the road. The entire drive is only 180 miles and we did it in 6 hours. You spend a lot of time weaving through many little towns, going back and forth (and back and forth) through hills, so while we were lucky with no real traffic to speak of, it’s rare to get above 30 or 35 miles per hour. All border-crossings went smoothly

Dubrovnik is a beautiful city that falls just short of enchanting only because it relies so completely on tourism that the shops and restaurants sometimes seem to extend their hand a little forcefully in the face of the city’s old world charm. And we are talking some serious Old World charm. The city has been here for hundreds and hundreds of years and is still encircled by a defensive wall that was built to keep back the ever-encroaching Ottoman Empire. To this day, in order to enter the city, you must walk across one of two drawbridges and through some winding corridors before reaching the wide boulevard that runs the length of Old Town. Outside of the city walls, a small mountain reaches upward on one side and the Adriatic surrounds on the other three. So the defensive wall, along with this limited access, kept all invaders and malicious parties out of the city (at that time city-state). The only one to ever overtake Dubrovnik was Napolean, who was allowed inside the walls with his army only after he had sworn no funny business. He lied. This set into motion the events that would bundle Dubrovnik into greater Croatia, which was later bundled into greater Yugoslavia, until the early 90s, when Croatia declared independence – one of the first steps in the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. Dubrovnik was shelled pretty badly by the Yugoslav army but they very quickly and very efficiently put the pieces back together to the point that it’s difficult to imagine that the attacks occurred less than 20 years ago.

I get caught up writing so much about the history because to walk the streets of Old Town is to come face to face with history at every step. Even as they rebuilt after the war (referred to here as “The Yugoslav Aggression,” nothing about declaring independence), they kept with the old style of the city. Hundreds of years old churches can be found every few blocks. Because the city is built up on a hill, all of the side roads on one side of the city are essentially staircases. These are the same stairs that were built and used hundreds of years ago as the city was built and expanded (before the wall was built). There are no cars inside the walls, so the streets were never re-engineered, allowing the stairs to remain instead of sloped streets and the streets were allowed to remain narrow and winding instead of being straightened and widened for vehicles.

Physical descriptions aside, the bulk of ones time in Dubrovnik is primarily spent wandering these old streets, visiting the old churches that pop-up every few blocks, exploring where the streets narrow and wind around the city walls, and... well, that’s really been the bulk of it. During the warmer months, this is very much a beach town and our hotel has a lovely set-up with sea access and a pool or two, but even as the rain has ceased, the cold snap is still in effect here. So it’s been two days of city exploring; with a small city, exploring only lasts for so long. Today, Wednesday, will be spent in town just for a little while, and then probably be spent working in the lobby of the hotel or out near the water. Even the lobby is a great place to spend time because the wall facing the sea and the Old Town is just glass and it’s a beautiful place to watch the water – not to mention thy have great cappucinos and espressos to pass the time with.

**Update** - not actually Wednesday, as noted above. Just to wrap this up though (again, have to work on these where they come together over numerous days and get ramble-y), we walked the city walls Wednesday afternoon after Margo got out early from her conference, and it was the highlight of the trip. Almost 2 kilometers in distance, you get the breathtaking view of the Old City, of the towers built around the walls, of the surrounding areas and islands, and of course, the unobstructed view of the sea. We caught this just before sunset which gave us more than a few really beautiful seascapes to gaze on. Amazing.

The drive back was uneventful – 6 hours even, again. Rained the entire time. Seriously, the wipers were off for maybe 10 minutes. No border problems, but we only got fast-track edat one of them – oh well, not something to rely on but to appreciate only when it happens. What a trip – I highly recommend a few days in Dubrovnik.

I also recommend writing blogposts in one sitting so that they don’t ramble on like this. Sheesh.