Dubrovnik, Croatia

Thursday 2nd May

We travelled from Montenegro to Croatia today and arrived into Dubrovnik at 6:30pm making our journey only 3.5hrs thanks to very quick border crossings this time on both sides!

Sam also made a friend at the border!

You know what coming back into an EU country means? Our phones work again! We can use maps and translators! Yay!

We drove into Dubrovnik up on the mountain side with spectacular views of the coast and the old town and it really does look like King's Landing! The whole of Dubrovnik looks like a little island jutting out from the coast, it's really nice!

We arrived at the main bus station on the other side of Dubrovnik and start the walk to our accommodation which is about half way between the station and Old Town. We passed the gorgeous harbour with all the beautiful looking boats, and then headed up the steepest hill ever, and with our packs on we were drenched in sweat by the end!

Our little Airbnb is lovely! Tucked away in a nice little private square of houses on a really nice street full of cafes. Dubrovnik, or at least the part we've walked through today feels completely different to Kotor. I feel like I've got a bit of whiplash. We've come from what feels like a very small, quiet, developing town in Montenegro, and suddenly we're thrust back into people and cars everywhere, it definitely feels much more developed here. There are proper roads everywhere, signage, the houses and buildings appear to be newer and it almost feels as if we could be anywhere. I felt as though we were walking down a street in Sydney. It felt very strange after coming from our little place in Montenegro. It's lovely though.

Our apartment is so lovely with everything we need!

After settling in we headed out to the local grocery store which is a very small shop only five minutes down the road to grab some dinner and then headed to bed nice and early.

Friday 3rd May

It was a beautifully sunny day, although deceptively not very warm!

We made our way over to Old Town Dubrovnik (aka King's Landing!) to spend the day exploring.

The Old Town is really beautiful, the buildings are all really well kept, and the stone structures with little red roofs make it feel very much like a mediterranean holiday.

It is so incredibly busy though! There are sooo many people around. The numbers visiting everyday are so vast that they have the little rope divider thing at the entrance creating an entrance and exit line into the town!

We spent the day just wandering around the Old Town exploring, it was so beautiful.

As a lot of Game of Thrones was shot here we of course visited all the major spots where scenes were shot. It was really cool, and felt a little funny seeing that a number of fictional places that we've seen in the show, actually exist architecturally.

We also found a store that had an Iron throne in it, and you know we sat in it!

After all our walking around we were getting hungry so found a bakery and got a big slice of pizza for lunch which was so fresh (we watched them make it) and so tasty! We took it and sat overlooking the harbour.

Today was the only day we are here that is forecasted for nice weather so we tried to make the most of it. After we had spent the day exploring the Old Town, we headed across to the Lapad area for the evening.

It is gorgeous down here too. It feels very flashy. There is a pedestrian street that we walked down and ended up at Sunset Beach, at you guessed it, sunset!

The beach was gorgeous. It seems to be a very affluent area, with a resort looking bar set up right on the beach, and then in the little cove beach (which is pebbles) are rows of deck chairs! So we settle ourselves into a chair and relaxed, enjoying watching the sunset set, right in the middle of the beach, I guess hence the name!

It wasn't exactly summer lounging though, a wind had picked up and by the time we left we were freezing! We started making our way back home after our big day, but first stopped in at the grocery store (the main grocery store in Croatia is called Tommy).

This grocery store is the most similar to home that we have seen in a long time and it was such a comfort! Also there was a cat out the front!

Saturday 4th May

Today was unfortunately a rainy day and it was super cold again! So we spent the day inside staying warm, catching up on writing, and drinking cups of tea.

Sunday 5th May

The skies were clear when we woke up, so we set out this morning to hike up Mount Srd just behind the Old Town.

It was so much fun, and very different to the hike we did in Kotor. It started out quite foresty and it was a very rocky path!

We got very hot and sweaty making our way up the numerous switchbacks, but it was such great fun and we were rewarded with amazing views of the coast line.

Once we had gotten high enough we had ‘The View’ of the Old Town, it was stunning and the photos don’t do it justice. The beautiful old town with the little orange roofs backing onto the coast and then looking out at the deep blue water and surrounding islands, it was just spectacular.

It’s also funny to note that there is a cable car that can take you to the top of the mountain we were hiking, except that it was closed because it didn’t meet the inspection standard a few days earlier!

We made it to the top!! Woohoo!! What a view! Sam’s watch tells us that we just climbed 99 floors!

We spent some time up the top and had a wander around, clambering around rocks and taking in the views. On the other side of the mountain from the coast, there is a valley and then more mountains and we could see Bosnia and Herzegovina!

It was such a fun hike! We eventually made our way back down the mountain and to our accommodation and I can tell you we slept well that night!

Monday 6th May

It was another wet stormy day today, we even had hail! So we spent most of the day inside staying warm and dry.

Later in the evening the rain had stopped so we decided to go to the movies! We found a cinema in Lapad that was showing the 'Avengers: Endgame' in English! It was a really nice cinema, better than a lot of cinemas at home actually! The screen was an extreme screen so was massiveeee and the seats were super comfy. They had "couples seats" which was essentially two chairs joined up as a lounge chair without the arm rests in-between. As a bit of a treat because the movie tickets were so cheap we decided to splash out on some popcorn and have the whole movie experience!

It was really good fun to do something normal like going to the movies, except in Croatia!

We stopped off at the grocery store for some dinner and enjoyed a nice stroll back to the apartment.

Oh, and the movie was fantastic in case you were wondering!

Tuesday 7th May

We spent most of today organising where we would be going next and just getting organised.

The sun is setting quite a bit later now, a bit before eight. So we had our dinner, and then headed for a walk through Lapad and down to Sunset beach to watch the sunset (what else would we do!). It was beautiful! There were a few clouds in the sky to give some beautiful pink and purple hues. It was a lovely way to spend our last night here in Dubrovnik.

Wednesday 8th May

It’s our last day in Dubrovnik, and the weather is fantastic!

We headed out bright and early to Old Town and had another meander through the streets and out to the pier which was much less windy than the other day. We sat out there in the sun, just relaxing, watching the boats go by for an hour or so, totally enjoying where we were. We even pulled out our picnic lunch and had it here!

It was then haircut time! We walked back across town and towards Lapad. There was this little local hairdressers that we walked passed each day on the way back to our apartment that looked quite nice. It’s very much a locals place.

When we entered there were old women nattering, and the hairdressers were just chattering away to their clients in Croatian. We had to wait until the one girl who spoke English came back from her lunch break and then we were both put in the chairs. They were lovely, the girl that spoke English came over and translated what I needed done to the girl that would be cutting my hair and then she went back to do Sam’s!

It was so fun, I could hear Sam chatting to his hairdresser, and then they put a big pot of Coffee on and asked if we’d like some, and then brought round some boiled sweets, it was so cool! There was a lady who was waiting for her hair to be done who had heard me speaking and came up to talk to me to tell me how much she loves English people!

I have to say, we both agree that it was one of the best haircuts we’ve both ever had. They took such care in what they were doing and it was so fun to have a locals experience. The best part though was the price! Sam’s was $7 and mine was $10!!

We both had quite a bit taken off and love it!

We left our amazing hairdressers and went for a walk through Lapad and of course down to Sunset beach one last time. It really is so beautiful here.

It was then time to collect our bags (our host very kindly let us leave them at the accommodation after checkout) and head to the Harbour for our Ferry!

We are spending the next couple of weeks Island hopping up the Croatian coast so the ferry will take us to our first stop, the Island of Mljet.

The ferry was a huge, beautiful catamaran, with the most comfortable seats ever and great luggage racks in the back! It was essentially bussing in style!