Climbing the walls in Dubrovnik
Before I start on Dubrovnik, I will provide an update on our situation onboard. Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon, around 4:00, I received a call from the Hotel Director. He had seen my posts on this blog and on Cruise Critic. He asked me if he could come up and see me. I told him I had been thinking about doing that, but I wasn’t sure what to say. But I said I would love to discuss it and I would come down to his office. Suffice it to say; everything has been settled; he is a wonderful person and has assured me that things were taken care of. I believe him, although we still had problems last night in the dining room…for a while. More about that later.
But the big news here is that while Kathleen was locked away in food poisoning prison, I got to do the shore excursion tour I had planned to do. I had already planned to do this one on my own as it was listed as “strenuous” and it was—STRENUOUS!
The tour was called “A Guided Tour of the Top of the Walls in Old Dubrovnik.” What that meant was we climbed to the top of the Old Dubrovnik fortifications (see photo above) and walked all the way around the city. My watch told me that my elevation had changed enough for me to have climbed 37 flights of stairs and the walk itself is around three miles with a ton of ups once you are on top of the wall. Funny that I can’t remember anything going down until we finished the walk and were leaving.
Suffice it to say that the views were amazing, the walk was an awesome place to take pictures and the guide (Nicolina) was the best we have had on the entire trip. We left the ship at 9:45 (I wish we had left earlier so the climb would be a little cooler) and took a coach downtown arriving in about 20 minutes. Lots of one-lane roads make for some really fun traffic. As soon as we were off the bus and in the old city, Nicolina had us climbing the walls. From that point on, I am going to let my pictures do the talking (or viewing), but I do want to say upfront that you may recognize some of the things in the photos because this is where much of Game of Thrones was filmed. Dubrovnik was the stand-in for Westeros. So keep an eye open for things you might recognize if you are a fan of the show. And again, don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
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- We woke up to our ship pulling in behind a German cruise line’s ship
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- And next to a really big bridge
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- In a busy harbor
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- With lots of boats coming and going
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- But some peaceful spots as well
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- We were off to the walls with Nicolina
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- That’s where we are headed
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- Up these very steep and slippery stairs
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- FInally got to the first level
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- The round thing is a well that still has drinkable water
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- The rest of these shots are so many views from the walls.
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- I am not going to caption all of them unless there is something special about that shot.
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- Just know that we walked and walked and walked.
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- The fortress across the way. Nice neighbors.
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- A small bay below the walls
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- So many kayaks.
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- Everywhere we went it was laundry day.
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- People actually live in and next to the walls.
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- Nicolina leads us onward.
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- There are restaurants on the wall itself.
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- More laundry
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- More views
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- More laundry
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- Finally saw someone hanging it.
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- An actual high school that backs onto the walls.Maybe they need a yearbook?
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- Lots of boats passing by.
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- This is so reminscent of San Juan, Puerto Rico
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- Resorts with water access were all along the walls
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- Looking back at the walls that we had already walked.
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- The front of the palace.
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- Biggest tighty whities we have ever seen.
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- Boats entering the yacht harbor.
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- Loved the splash of red here.
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- The yacht harbor.
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- Looking down into some pretty spectacular gardens
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- In the distance is the Dubrovnik version of The Spanish Steps
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- These balconies were some of the only ones to survive an earthquake in the sixties.
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- There are cable cars going up the mountain above the city.
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- This is the highest point on the wall. Of course I had to go up.
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- Here’s the view from up there
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- On our way down.
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- The gardens of the Benedictine Monastery.
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- Back on the ground
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- And the spigots on the well look like this. Lots of people filling water bottles.
I think that is where I am going to stop with Dubrovnik. We are about to get to Chioggia, our port for Venice. Just a note that we will be off the ship until Sunday and staying in Venice. We will be back on the ship on Sunday and I will fill you in on our visit to Split, Croatia, as well as on our three days in Venice and our time onboard.
We build too many walls and not enough bridges. —Sir Isaac Newton