Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik
Monday, July 27, 2009
12:09 PM

Everyone slept well in Edi's apartment and for breakfast we feasted on pastries, bread, and cheese with yogurt and juice from KONSUME which quickly became my grocery store of choice. I was given the duty of being the tour guide for the old town. We quickly found out that although there were plenty of specific sights to see, they all charged more than we wanted to pay, and from the comments of others that went in, were unimpressive. What was impressive was the entire structure of the old town itself. Dubrovnik is basically a castle with 40-50 foot walls that run around the entire city which is on the immediate coastline. So after wandering around and taking in the beautiful city we headed to the beach for the rest of the afternoon.

The Adriatic is much saltier than the Pacific or even the Mediterranean, but the water is clear for 100 feet and as blue as anything I've ever seen. The clarity was attributed by many to the fact that where we were was a pebble beach rather than sand. I'm not sure how much that has to do with it as I've seen plenty of clear sandy beaches but it did make sense. The water was pretty damn cold though, probably no more than 55 degrees, but that was fine after I was laying out for awhile because it was really hot.

From the beach we picked up some pizzas at a bakery and headed into the city to walk the walls. The regular rate was about $10 but with our student ID's it was only $4 which was great. The views from around the walls were pretty much all breathtaking and it was great to imagine what it must have been like to defend the castle from attackers. Mitch figured that Dubrovnik must never have fallen to an outside force because you were protected by a mountain behind you and from the higher towers you could see miles out to sea.

For dinner we headed to Taj Mahal which didn't serve Indian food and was as Edi described "alright and overpriced but still by far the best food you can get anywhere around here". It was still fun sitting outside in the city. The bill ended up racking up to about $15 a person with drinks, so again, not terribly expensive but still you’d think Eastern Europe would be cheaper. We turned in pretty early as we needed to wake up early to catch an 8am bus to Mostar.