Our four days in Dubrovnik!

We made it to Croatia! We had a great time in Italy but I was definitely ready to get a move on to Croatia, which was the new country I was most excited to visit on our trip. I shared our Croatia itinerary a few weeks ago (thank you for the suggestions!) and I think we’ve been doing this country pretty damn well. Our first stop was Dubrovnik, which we loved instantly and was a great start to our Croatian adventure.

To give a little background, Dubrovnik is a city of a little over 40,000 people and has been very well preserved, even through the recent wars that Croatia has been through. The Old Town is walled, and because of this (among other things), Dubrovnik is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city, and especially Old Town, is very popular with tourists, and often gets swarmed with cruise shippers. It’s easy to see why it is so loved though, and so you can’t really blame so many tourists for wanting to visit it.

In total we spent four days in Dubrovnik, arriving on a flight from Rome, and leaving on a ferry to Hvar. Sadly, Damian was still a little sick while we were here (some sort of tummy virus sort of thing), but it was a nice excuse to take things slow. Ok, so let’s go explore Dubrovnik!

Day 1 – Chill and explore

We arrived in the afternoon, and got to our awesome apartment, Studio Sonnet, which was such a great find. It was right in the Old Town, had an amazing and informative host, was super cute and sent a driver to pick us up from the airport. By the time we got there Damian was feeling pretty sick so he settled in for a nap (which turned into a night-long sleep), and I headed out to get a late lunch and explore. What I found was the cutest town!

The way Old Town is organized is that there is a main thoroughfare called Placa Stradun, a few parallel streets and then all the perpendicular streets have lots of stairs. So basically the outer edges of the old town are much higher than the center. It made me pooped but also made for some beautiful sights!

I ate lunch at Lucin Kantun, a little tapas place our host recommended (so delicious) and then wandered in and out of the streets. There are a lot of (weird) candy stores (I counted at least three), a ton of good places to eat, energetic bars and shopping. I came home after a few hours with some nourishment for Damian, did our laundry (and in true Croatian-style hung it outside of our window) and settled in with a book for a restful night. It was a great first day getting the lay of the land!

Day 2 – Cable Car and Museum of Croatian War of Independence

On our second day Damian was feeling a little better, but definitely wasn’t a 100%, so we decided to do activities that were a little low key and less strenuous. We slept in, ate lunch (at Lucin Kantun again!) and then walked over about five minutes to take the cable car to a view point atop the city.

This is where we had a “dang, the world is so small” moment! We got in line for the cable car and I look behind us, and who do I see but a guy I know from high school, Kenny, and his fiancé Shaina. Kenny and I weren’t close friends in high school, but we definitely knew of each other (our school was super small) and, even after 19 years (yes, we are old), recognized each other immediately.

I just found it so random that (a) we are in Croatia at the same time (b) we are in Dubrovnik at the same time (c) we decide to go to the cable car the same day and (d) we did it at the exact same time so we ended up right behind each other in line! The world really is tiny. We chatted a bit and then headed up on the cable car.

The views were so beautiful already as we were going up on the tram, and then even more breathtaking at the top. I just thought it was so neat that you could so clearly see how the city was walled in from the gorgeous water surrounding it.

It was also really pretty on the other side away from the water. There were big beautiful mountains to gaze out at, and also a little amphitheater where they hold small outdoor performances.

Our second activity on top of the mountain was visiting the Museum of Croatian War of Independence, which is located in Fort Imperial. The fort was critical in defending Croatia and Dubrovnik during the war and the museum was extremely moving. You could go up to the top of the fort and imagine the soldiers camping out and protecting the city.

So again, I am not a history buff and am sure I won’t get all the nuances right, but the fact that Croatia was so recently in a war, and has in 25 years become a vibrant, tourism-fueled and prideful country is so amazing to me. It’s the first country I’ve been to where people of our generation could remember the war and their experiences in it, which is crazy too.

The essence of the war is that Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence in 1991 from Yugoslavia, but the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) attacked Dubrovnik soon after, claiming that Dubrovnik should not be part of Croatia. Even though the city had already been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was attacked for seven months and about 60% of the buildings were damaged. It’s pretty moving to look at the same scenes of Dubrovnik during the war and today side by side.

After that we took the tram back down to the city, got some low key food for dinner and chilled and rested for the night.

Day 3 – Jet skiing around the city and dinner with old friends

On our third day we decided to see Dubrovnik from the water! Most people do a kayaking tour around Dubrovnik and Lokrum (the island you see in some of the pictures from above), but to make it a little less strenuous we decided to rent a jetski for four hours instead! We did a ton of exploring around the waters and really enjoyed it (though more than two hours on a jetski gets a little rough and chilly).

We basically went and explored the little islands north of Dubrovnik’s Old Town, which you can see on the right of the picture below. There were lots of little caves and coves (one of which had a rope swing!), and even a beach to head to and relax on. We would just drive up, drop our anchor, jump off and swim on!

We also went and drove around the Old Town, which was neat because from the water you can really see how protected the city is by the walls. There were also a bunch of folks swimming and doing cliff jumping from a few areas along the way, which looked so fun!

After we got back we showered up, relaxed for a few minutes and then went out to meet Kenny and Shaina for dinner! We decided to go to taj mahal restaurant, for Bosnian cuisine, and it was so good. We had never eaten Bosnian food before and really enjoyed it, taj mahal definitely is a must-go for anyone in Dubrovnik!

After that we walked around town, got some drinks and just chatted more. We had such a great time with Kenny and Shaina and can’t wait to see them the next time we are in Virginia or the next time they are in New York!

Day 4 – Dubrovnik Old Town wall walk and then on to Hvar

One of the really neat things you can do in Dubrovnik is walk on top of the Old Town walls (the one you have been seen in all the pictures). The walk is about 2km in total, but it is in the direct sun (aka, super hot during this time of year) and with some up and down, so it took us about and hour and a half to do it all. We really loved this activity and again would consider it a must-do for anyone in Dubrovnik!

(Also, this walk produced one of my most-liked pictures of this trip, which is at the very top of this post!).

Next up – Hvar!

We really enjoyed our time in Dubrovnik and would return in a heartbeat (but probably outside of peak season). There are some awesome day trips you can do to the surrounding countries, which look really interesting, and just a lot of other nooks and crannies to explore. But, we had big plans to relax and do more swimming in Hvar, coming up next!