Dubrovnik (Friday)

The New Amsterdam departed Corfu around 10:30pm Thursday night for the short hop up the coast, and back in time by 1 hour into Croatia and the city of Dubrovnik. The Friday morning sky was clear with lots of sunshine.  The ship had docked by 8am and passengers were disembarking soon after.

This is the view as we sailed into Dubrovnik.

The place to see in Dubrovnik is the old walled city.  As usual the ship had organised bus transfers to the Old City at US$32 return per couple. Others used the local bus service, a 1 minute walk just outside the port's gates with same return deal at a little over US$6 per couple return.

We actually shared a cab to the old city and still saved heaps of money. We returned to the ship a little after lunch totally exhausted via the local bus service.

Just to complicate things, today was a public holiday in Croatia so the 2000 passengers on our ship weren't the only ones looking for things to go and see.

The old walled city of Dubrovnik is a fantastic place to see. You really do feel like you are stepping back in time.  Much of the city was damaged during fighting in the early 1990's between various ethnic groups but has now almost totally been rebuilt.

Among other things we walked the entire city wall. You had to be part mountain goat going up and down stairs. The trek took us almost 2 hours.  Around each corner was a new sensational view.

The town is surrounded on a couple of sides by the sea and you could look down from high up on the wall into crystal clear waters below.

After completing the walk around the wall, we found a place that sold us a small bottle of Coke for a little over $3 but had seats, toilets and free wifi. We each enjoyed a soft drink, updating the blog and Facebook, and a quick trip to the 'loo' before making our local bus trip back to the ship.

We will most likely have aching legs for our last port of call to Kotor in Montenegro tomorrow.

If you are planning a trip to Europe in the near future, put Dubrovnik on the 'should visit' list.

The slide show below was put online some time after we had visited Dubrovnik.  All photos are from in or around the Dubrovnik old walled city.  Dubrovnik was attacked during the wars in the area in the 1990's and the city was shelled from the hills just to the rear of the old walled city.

How anyone could set out to damage such a beautiful historic place defies all human logic and sensibilities!

Many of the roofs on the buildings are of new roofing tiles and fortunately the city has been restored to its former glory!

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