Dubrovnik Day 2 - Out and About and On the Wall

Saturday, 3rd August

I asked our landlady for an extra pillow and when we returned from our morning activities the extra pillow was there. We now know why the bedding ads on Croatian TV are so frequent. The pillow was like a huge bag of sand, or at least some sort of stuffing that dates back to 1898, the start of Dubrovnik tourism.

We walked up our street to near the wall and found a perfect breakfast spot. A little terrace on top of someone’s home, they have converted to a restaurant. We sat under the grapevines drinking tea, eating cold meats, cheese bread, jam and butter while gazing over the roof tops to the beautiful emerald green Adriatic. The colour of the water changes from deep blue, to turquoise to dark green. Gorgeous.

We plan to have dinner there tonight, when they fire up the barbecue and cook the meat and fish. It is called Lady Pi –Pi and is named for the cute little fountain depicting a lady pi-piing. See the photo!

We caught the local bus back to the bus terminal to buy our return tickets to Split and then caught another bus to do the round trip around the New Town and then back to the old. We passed the Port and ginormous cruise ships and watched as bus loads of cruisees/cruisers/passengers scrambled to get back on board. For those in the know, think of the chook trucks. We had a good look around the ‘burbs of Dubrovnik.

Dick is very happy to discover that one litre of beer can be bought for the equivalent of $3 in the new town.  Happy as. Actually, while we were having breakfast a couple at the next table were also breakfasting – with beer. It may be a problem getting Dick to leave.

The Wall – the best wallk ever. George Bernard Shaw – “Dubrovnik…….paradise on earth”. He must have taken the 1928 metres stroll around the ramparts. Every step is either up hill or down dale. The perfect exercise regimen. Because you feel no pain as on each and every step one is distracted by another totally new sumptuous and perfect perspective of the: pure cloudless blue sky, over the mysteriously powerful and massive dalmation mountains hovering in the background, over a desolate park or forest of stunted bushes which are about the only thing that has somehow grown out of the rocks, over the township and holiday houses, over the ancient wall which were completed about 1460 to protect the Grad the old township which had become rich as a  trading centre (by having a monopoly of trade between Turkey & the byzantine east and the west) above the beautiful turquoise, emerald, azure Adriatic. One could spend a lifetime photographing every visual treat at every step yet will never capture one umpteenth of the fabulous splendour of the way sea, earth, buildings and sky blend together. It is truly the best 2 hour plus walk to be had. And somehow this walk has survived a totally devastating earthquake in 1667 when every building inside the walls were flattened and the war of 21 years ago when 70% of the buildings inside the old city were hit and 469,000 roof tiles had to be replaced. It is impossible to fathom that the whole city of Dubrovnik took shelter behind these walls. And to look over the new roof tiles is a terribly beautiful experience.

Please send me the price of the airfares you have saved, if after you have seen my attempt to capture the spirit of Dubrovnik on a perfect day from every possible angle, you decide you now do need to go to this amazing place. I watched a couple of blokes come back into harbour in their little runabouts and imagined Jules and Ciaran would be in 7^th heaven.

But hold onto your hats just when we think let’s quit whilst the going is good and crash out early after drinking 5 litres of water to prevent dehydration as we do the “Dubrov wallk” in the heat of the day, but hang on a moment just when we think it cannot get any better – we get a table for two overlooking the 1,000’s of red cubist shapes and shadows created as the million terracotta curved tiles are hit by the angling setting sun sparkling on the Adriatic under the grape vines of Lady Pipis roof top garden enjoying the best bbq’d mixed fish grill we could imagine – the end to a perfect day. I guess the only thing we could suggest to even perfect the perfect day a smidge is for Lady Pipis to offer a complimentary bath and shower for its guests prior to seating and commencing dinner. Especially for those who have raced to the restaurant because the restaurant does not take bookings (as people are content to wait in long queues) following the exertions in the relentless sun.