So our trip was off to a fun start!

Saturday morning I got to our airbnb in Dubrovnik and promptly crashed for SEVERAL hours. I fully intended on making the most of the time, but I just couldn’t function without some sleep. I set some alarms and slept right through them, so clearly I needed it.

Around 4pm, I woke up and messaged Celesta (my friend) because she was supposed to be taking off for her flight to Dubrovnik. She told me that her flight was more delayed, and she wasn’t getting home until 11:00 or later.

So it was then that I gathered myself and set out by myself and see what there was to see while I waited for Celesta to land.

I decided to do the Dubrovnik cable car to the top of the mountain. It was an easy activity that could occupy an afternoon and I could do by myself without too much worry.

Problem was as I walked, it started to rain! And with rain sometimes comes thunder and lightning, and the cable car shuts down with storms. So I just got to spend some time sitting under on a terrace waiting out the rain. After maybe 30 minutes, it stopped, but the cable car was still closed. Not to waste my afternoon, I walked to a few photo spots and took a bunch of pictures.

 

 

After a while, I thought I would walk back to the cable car to see if it would open again for the evening. And as luck would have it, it was! So I got to go up and catch the sunset from the mountain.

 

Afterwards, when the sun went down, I traveled back to the main square to grab my first meal in days. I don’t know why I didn’t eat anything before then, but I guess I was running on stress and adrenaline. Well, and in-flight pretzels – I did have several bags of those.

So because I hadn’t spent any money on food in days, I treated myself, and ordered whatever I wanted. And I decided to go big or go home. So I ordered squid ink pasta with shrimp and a fancy mocktail. The waitress kept asking me if I was waiting for someone, and I got to say “no, I’m eating alone”.

 

After dinner around 9:30, I began my walk back to our airbnb. From there I got a message Celesta’s flight would be landing around 11:30pm, and then with a taxi to our condo, she would get there around midnight. So I waited up until she got there, and it was a great reunion. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year, and after all the travel troubles we both had, it was nice to see a familiar face. After ranting and chatting, we finally went to bed, to awake after 10 the next morning.

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Day One (technically?)

We didn’t get moving until late in the morning (after 10), and our checkout time was 11, so we just packed up our stuff and headed into the main part of the city for our day. The main part of the city is a walled fortress, which you can walk the entirety of, with towers and churches, and such.

 

I will say, walking up and down stairs along a castle wall in 36 degree heat and with a backpack on your back can really put a damper on your day. And I will be the first to admit that my physical fitness is below average, so I struggled a little with this one.

We stopped for food and ice cream, and sat in an open square surrounded by birds, which Celesta was very unimpressed with (she hates birds). We decided along this trip that museums and art galleries were not in the travel plans for us, as it would take lots of time and money, when we could be out doing other things. So within the city walls there were the walls, the church/cathedral, a couple museums, and tourist shops and restaurants. Surprisingly little else was in the fortress.

Which is in the early evening, we decided to head to the bus station, and board a bus to Split, which is another city in Croatia. Its a 4.5 hour bus ride, which is quite a commitment. And it actually ends up crossing a border while on route to Split. Some research while planning our trip let us know that as American and Canadian citizens, we didn’t require any visas or paperwork other than our passports to pass through.

By the way, we passed through Bosnia and Herzegovina on the way. If you look on a map, there is a little strip of land in BH that cuts Croatia in half and touches the water. So we had to go through border control on the way.

At the border, all the bus passengers had to get out of the bus and go through passport control individually, before getting back on the bus and continuing to drive.

About 12 minutes later, we got to the next border crossing, where a guard walked on the bus and checked all our passports to make sure they were stamped, before we carried on on our way to Split. Our trip ended up being over 5 hours, which is SOOOOOO fun. But we got there eventually.

We were also there when Croatia was in the world cup, and in the last hour or so of our trip the bus driver turned on the radio to listen to the football game where Croatia was playing. Now, I don’t speak Croatian, so I could only ever tell what was happening based on the noise the driver made at the commentary. Croatia would win, in case you were curious.

 

From the bus station, we had a 30 minute walk to our airbnb, uphill, which is fun.

 

And that is where our post will end, as Split and other adventures will be covered next post! Stay tuned!

 

emma.k