Staying Active

Douglas’ sister Kathryn, from San Francisco, flew into Dubrovnik for a week and knowing that she likes to stay active, we lined up kayaking, hiking, sailing, and shopping.  Well, let’s back up just a bit.

We took an early morning ferry from Hvar back to Split to pick up my sister who was arriving in late afternoon in Dubrovnik.  On the way we got lost in Bosnia.  Big time lost.  So lost that we had to ask some guys on motorcycles who were taking a piss on the side of the road if they could help us.  “Excuse me, sorry to bother you at this time but could you help us find our way to Dubrovnik?” It’s super easy to get lost in this area.  If the country lines and boundaries were redrawn in the mid 90’s, the highway signs don’t match your GPS and Apple maps (Tom Tom Data) on your phone doesn’t show a single road in Bosnia, you are screwed.  Sometimes you get lost and get to see an amazing view you would have never seen…

or you just get to go thru Passport control again and drive aimlessly in the mountains.

Anyway, we picked up Kathryn a little late and walked into old town Dubrovnik to explore a bit.

We went with Croatian Outdoors for a day long kayaking trip ( http://outdoorcroatia.com/ ) called the Arches, Caves and Islands tour. We visited three islands in the Elaphite Archipelago, paddled rough seas, saw another group capsize their kayaks in a cave, swam into a luminescent green cave, jumped off cliffs,and ate at a local restaurant. Our guide was Johnny, and he was quite entertaining — I can imagine his co-workers reading this and laughing a bit. He was prepared, well-trained and only moderately insane. When you live in the USA, tour operators will only let you do certain things in order to provide safety for their clients.  When you travel to places like Australia, New Zealand, Croatia– the spectrum of what is known as ‘safe’ is much wider.  All that fun commentary aside, we can recommend Croatia Outdoors.  

The out of focus photos are taken by Johnny, all rights reserved. <SMILE>

After a day in the surf and sun, we took a recovery day and spent some of the afternoon checking out Old Town and walking the Dubrovnik City Walls. The walls seem a bit pricey, but are a must do.  Hit them early in the morning or an hour before they close. (ED. hmmm…if everyone says this, how long until this is no longer true and everyone starts going in the morning or pre-dusk?) While we were in the ticket line there was a woman arguing with the ticket guy that she was a student and should get student pricing, but the ticket guy said her ID ‘didn’t say she was a student’. I walked up to the counter and when asked how many tickets, I said ‘three’ and I hear from behind me, Lisa’s voice hollering, ‘we are students. we get student tickets!’ We all laughed, but the original girl was not amused.  TIP: When traveling in Europe, make yourself a nice Fake student ID and get discounts all over the place.  We will start working on our LSU or UT IDs when we get back.

‘On to the next adventure’ is usually the phrase that is said every morning after our coffee. BTW, coffee is so important when travelling, we bought a Nespresso machine that has now visited two continents!

The next day was our sailing day on the Adriatic Sea, –light winds, so we used the iron sail and motored to a swimming hole that featured a Blue Cave and then chased the wind a bit more before having lunch at a ‘fancy place,’ as our guide called it. After eating we hit the sea again and winds blew a bit and we plundered. Here are some snaps:

‘Croatia is the land of a thousand islands and less than twenty are said to be inhabited,’ is something you will read or hear. But what you may not have heard is that it is the land of millions of stairs and we have been climbing them daily in Dubrovnik between our AirBnB apartment and the old city or the port.  We had an incredible view from our AirBnB.

 Next stop on the active list was a trip to check out Lokrum island, which is a simple swim from the mainland of Dubrovnik if you don’t mind dodging kayaks, small ferries, water taxis and pleasure boats. We took the ferry.  The price of the ferry ticket included the island ticket or is it that the island ticket included the price of the ferry. I’m not sure. Lokrum has some fortress ruins, the French built Fort Royal, botanical gardens, a monastery, a nice restaurant, and a curse! There is also a lot of information about the filming of Game of Thrones and even a throne that you sit in and have your photograph taken. Pretty much a free Thrones tour.

Curse! The Benedictine monks that had lived on and cultivated the island before being pushed off the island in 1808 are said to have put a curse on the island and anyone who tries to seek it for their own pleasure in the future. They walked the perimeter of the island with lit, upside down candles that dripped wax along the way. The only way for the curse to be removed is for every last bit of wax to be found and removed.