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Trip Report - Croatia, Sept 22 -Oct 12 (Slovenia, Bosnia..)

Trip Report - Croatia, Sept 22 -Oct 12 (Slovenia, Bosnia..)

Old Oct 28th, 2015, 07:29 PM
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Trip Report - Croatia, Sept 22 -Oct 12 (Slovenia, Bosnia..)

This forum was invaluable in planning my 3-week trip to Croatia. Everyone was so helpful. All of our questions were answered ,either by me asking questions on my own posts, or by searching through threads of previous posters. I owe it to everyone, now that I'm home, to write (my first-ever!) Trip Report. It's kind of a thank you for all your help and guidance. You deserve to know how I fared, after all the help you gave me.

First, a little background. This was our first trip to Croatia. I went with my fiance (we are in our mid-fifties, my son, 26, my daughter, 29, and her boyfriend, 35. There were 5 of us. My daughter and her boyfriend were unable to get three weeks off, so they chose to split their time between Croatia and Italy, and were with us for 8 nights.

Our preliminary itinerary was: Dubrovnik, Trogir or Split, Hvar, Plitvice, Rovinj, Zagreb, and originally, we were planning to leave in mid-October and stay through early November. We learned early on that the weather tends to change dramatically sometime in October. It can get very cold, very windy and very rainy. October generally starts the end of tourist season - some restaurants start closing, some ferries start winding down or cease entirely, depending. When we learned this, we all looked at our calendars and fortunately we were able to depart a little sooner than we originally expected. It was definitely the right decision.

We changed our itinerary as well. We decided to go from Dubrovnik to Hvar instead of Dubrovnik to Trogir (or Split) because Hvar was somewhere we all wanted to see, and the only way all five of us could go there was to switch things up a little. It made for a longer journey to Trogir/Split afterwards, but at least everyone got to be in Hvar together. We also decided to go to Rovinj first and then go Plitvice, instead of the other way around, but I can't remember why we switched it. It sure was a long drive from Rovinj to Plitvice! Maybe I'll remember when I get to that section of the trip report. I'll be sure to fill you in on those details.

I'm sorry to say that it's already past my bedtime, so I have to stop already. I will keep posting here and there in the weeks ahead. Since arriving home, I've been waking up early due to the time change, and I 'm trying to use it to my advantage. I'm hoping to switch to becoming a morning person, and the only way to do that is to get used to going to bed early.

Goodnight for now! (Going to Florida in a week, so it might be difficult to write a lot, but I'll do my best!) I'll get it down, one way or the other, no matter how long it takes me!
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Old Oct 29th, 2015, 11:15 AM
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Looking forward to more!
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Old Oct 29th, 2015, 11:16 AM
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(Keep in mind that there have been some occasional posting problems lately on Fodor's - therefore, I suggest you type your report first into a text editor on your computer before typing it into the reply box here, so you won't lose it all if something goes wrong!)
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Old Oct 29th, 2015, 02:45 PM
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Sounds like a nice trip.
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Old Oct 29th, 2015, 03:21 PM
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We were there at the same time...I'll be reading

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...a-slovenia.cfm
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 11:55 AM
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Hello again, I thought I'd try to take a least a half an hour today, to get some more written... thank you for your advice and support.

My son is from San Francisco, and my daughter and her boyfriend are from Nantucket, so on Sept. 21st, we all met in Boston, where my other son lives, and the 6 of us went out to dinner that night before our Lufthansa flight departed at 8:10PM. It was nice to see Michael before our big trip!

I bought a 24" Lucas Vortex Ultra Lightweight Collection suitcase from Amazon even though I was planning to use the IT suitcase I'd bought from Marshalls... My suitcases are in need of replacement any way, because they're too heavy. I decided on the Lucas because it was expandable, whereas the IT wasn't, plus, there was about an inch of extra room in width and height. My carry on was a duffle bag by Kyoden, 18" long by 9" wide by 9" tall.

I wrote down how much my bag weighed at the airport, but I can't find the note now, - if I come across it, I will let you know.. because my focus was to PACK LIGHT!!! (For the first time in my LIFE!)

Our flight was very comfortable. We flew to Frankfort, arrived at 11:10, then at 15:10, we flew from Frankfort to Dubrovnik, arriving at 5pm. Managed to sleep a few hours on the plane.

At Dubrovnik, we caught a cab to our hotel, Hotel Bellevue, Dubrovnik. We had wanted a hotel closer to Old Town, but they'd been booked. This hotel was excellent, and it wasn't a long walk to Old Town at all... it was probably one of the best hotels in Dubrovnik, and I hadn't expected the views from our room, oh my God, it was just gorgeous! We looked down onto a beautiful turquoise bay, ringed by cliffs, and the hotel's beach. My son, daughter, and her boyfriend got right in their swimsuits and found their way down to the beach and went swimming while I put away my stuff. I would like to share a picture I took from our room, but I am not sure how to do it here. I am going to hit "Submit" now, in case any of this gets lost somehow...
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 12:03 PM
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The best way to share picture(s) in a Fodor's post is first to upload the picture(s) to some photo sharing website like Google Picasa, Yahoo Flickr, Photobucket, something like that. Then you can add a link to the picture/album on the photo sharing website in your posts here.
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 12:14 PM
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After their swim and a quick shower and change of clothes (I put on some capris I'd bought from Job Lot, sweater that matched it, and my gray cargo jacket I couldn't leave home because I loved it so much, and a pair of leather Tieks because they looked better than my Clark Wave shoes with socks. I'd bought a Travelon pocketbook for the trip, and brought that along too. I didn't end up liking that bag at all. Too many zippers (I never knew which compartment I'd put something in) and the strap was too wide to be comfortable.. I didn't like the texture either. I didn't use the bag much, I switched to the Outlander day pack someone had suggested for basically the rest of the trip...)

we decided to walk to Old Town and find dinner.

WOW.. we were really impressed with the entrance to the Old Town... "Pile Gate" (I was keeping an eye out for the calico kitty Andrew had mentioned he'd seen twice in two separate visits) and once we went inside, we were even more impressed, all that stone!!! And then, when we reached Old Town itself, we were really stunned to see this surreal village.. I couldn't get over the limestone walkways.. the polished limestone walkways, so wide, with "gutters" on either side for when it rains... I've never seen anything so beautiful, the moonlight was shining on it, it looked wet, glistening, but it was only because of thousands of years of pedestrian traffic (no cars in old town)...

It was just so enchanting and lovely and otherwordly. I had no idea it was going to be like this... Old Town.. full of restaurants, cute little shops, all sorts of wonderful things!

We were looking for a restaurant that served pasta because my daughter is a vegetarian and we figured a pasta restaurant would offer more choices. It was a little difficult finding a pasta restaurant with a lot of options, but we found it at "Segreto Pasta & Grill" We sat at a little table outside of the restaurant, and it took the waiters a long time to get to us, but when the food came, we were in heaven! One of my favorite splurges for dinner is pasta carbonara, and they had it on the menu. They made it perfectly, I think without heavy cream, and that was a blessing! Now, this is the moment when we discovered a great thing, the Croatian wine!!!

I hadn't gone to Croatia even thinking that wine was going to be a pleasure... but when we tasted the "IVAN BUHAC" Grasevina 2014, man oh man, it was nirvana for me!!! Everyone loved it! Grasevina was my mantra for awhile after that.. always looking for Grasevina... (later on, I discovered other wines that were just as good. I was reminded that I was in another country, and I should be sampling other wines, and they were right.. but I do love Grasevina!!!)

After dinner, we sauntered around a little bit in Old Town, feeling so lucky and fortunate that we were actually here, and we had three whole weeks ahead of us, this was going to be a great trip, we could just feel it!
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 12:29 PM
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The next day, Wednesday, Sept 23rd, we got up and decided we'd "walk the wall". I forgot what we did for breakfast... so the five of us walked the pleasant walk there.. it was a really nice day! Hot even! I wore my little A-Line skirt a tank top, and my new leather Teva sandals I believe...
I couldn't believe it when I saw a calico kitty just inside of Pile Gate!!! She was sitting right there, outside of a doorway inside the gate, and she was allowing my fiance to pet her, but then when I approached, ready to take her picture so I could share it with Andrew, she bolted and ran into a "safe zone" inside the gate, in between some metal bars where she knew no one could get at her, and laid down and started grooming herself. I took some pictures and when I figure out how to post them here, I will certainly do that, because I'm dying to know if she's THE cat Andrew saw before! My fiance and kids thought I was nuts, thinking this was the same cat,(my daughter's boyfriend knew enough not to say what he felt) but I believe she is... there aren't many calicos just inside Pile Gate... in fact, she was the ONLY one!!!

The walls were so much fun to do (fun is not quite the right word). I mean, I had no preconceptions as to what "walking the walls" meant because I was too busy asking questions on Fodor's pre-trip to do any advance research, so basically, I went to Croatia without any idea about anything, really. I thought the walls were just big high things going up hills and stuff. I didn't know they surrounded a city, a tightly packed city, somewhat small, with the beautiful ocean on one side or anything! It was pretty cool being so surprised by everything, I liked it. Kind of felt like a little kid at Christmas (the kind of kid who doesn't write a list and gets everything they asked for and knew it beforehand,know what I mean?)

We could see all the rooftops which had been replaced since the war and noticed that it appeared that all the churches were spared... We were lucky that it was not mobbed on the wall. We didn't have to do any shuffling, we could walk, stop at will, continue. Very pleasant, with the sun shining on our shoulders.. we really appreciated the moments on the wall, definitely. We stopped at "COCKTAIL SALVATORE" on the wall, and we ordered fresh smoothies made from just fruit, they were absolutely delicious!!! Just the thing for a hot day. We sat down on some chunky wooden benches under a big umbrella in a corner of the wall where the restaurant was, and enjoyed our luscious drinks, then we continued on. At the end, we climbed up the tower and enjoyed the wonderful views. All in all, we spent maybe 2 1/2 hours on the wall.
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 12:34 PM
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Tagging along for the ride - and your take on two counties I love - Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina (yes, one country inclusive of two entities, one of which is The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the other is the Republic of Srpska. And each of these entities includes part of Bosnia and part of Herzegovina. Mostar is not in Bosnia though, it's in the region of Herzegovina.)

Like you, I loved Grasevina!

Looking forward to more...

PS another way to share pics is to make an album on facebook, and share it by making it public. I find it a lot easier (and cheaper (it's free!)) than using flickr, picasa, etc.
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 01:00 PM
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I didn't take notes so I don't know what we did after the wall. I think we walked around old town.... we went to somewhere where there were boats.. a marina... and there was an odd looking boat with a big black window on the front of it that looked like a huge space age thing. When we saw it coming in, we asked the lady at the podium what it was (she was the person who signed people up to go on it), and I think she said that you went inside, and you looked out the window and could see through the water...
We politely declined her invitation to go on it, saying "Maybe tomorrow..." but she said, "No. Not tomorrow. It's going to RAIN tomorrow."
Rain?!! What? Does she mean rain-rain, like an all day rain, or maybe just a chance of rain?
We went looking for dinner wondering if it was going to rain and how it would impact our day. We had been thinking of going to the Bay of Kotor tomorrow.
We walked around, looking for pasta restaurants. We really couldn't find any that had a lot of options... mostly fish, meat...
There was a nice girl standing against a corner near Segreto's restaurant, trying to get customers to go to Segreto's. When she asked us if we'd like to dine with them, I said no thanks, we were just there last night - I'd love to go again, but the other's wanted something different. I explained that my daughter was a vegetarian, and we were hoping for pasta.
She said she knew just the place. She led us down a street and brought us to "THE DUBROVNIK". She said to wait and she'd run up the stairs to ask if they could take us... she came back and said they said sure. But we'd been looking at the menu, and it didn't look right for our needs.. and it appeared to be fine dining. We weren't dressed for that, and we were tired. Tonight wasn't the night for this kind of restaurant, but she assured us it didn't matter how we were dressed, and that she'd spoken to someone there, and they could modify the menu to suit.. somehow or other we ended up ascending the stairs, but when we got to the top, we wanted to run back down, it was so fancy! White table clothes, people really dressed up, hushed tones.. but we felt like we had come this far, so we were seated, and they brought us the big thick menus (?wooden covers?) and the menu had all sorts of things on it that no one even felt like eating, and the prices would not inexpensive, so what's worse than ordering something you don't even want, then paying through the nose for it? As nice as the restaurant was, it wasn't for us, even IF they could modify. It didn't seem right to ask for things a certain way in this place. It would have been uncomfortable for us. I said we should just explain and leave, as uncomfortable as that would be for us.. but at least we'd be out of there, and not enduring a long drawn out dinner eating something we didn't want. It took some coercing, and everyone just decided to just get up and go, especially since they had not yet brought our water or anything to us yet.
We apologized and left as discreetly as we could, and right in between The Dubrovnik and the corner where the girl was looking for customers for Segreto, we found a place that looked okay - it had a cheese plate at least, so we decided to sit down at one of their outside tables. It was late, and we were really hungry, and embarrased now, and we tried to act like it didn't really matter that we find the perfect place.
I'd say this was the WORST restaurant we ate at, possibly during our whole trip. It was called Konoba Buffet. The wine came in those little bottles. I had a chardonnay that no one liked. The guys got HUGE steins of beer which they liked very much. The menu had some soups on it... vegetable soup, beef soup, some others. I asked the waitress about the soups. She said that she would suggest that we get the "beef or the (I forgot which one) soup" and I asked why. She said, "Because they're home made". I guess that meant the others came from cans. My daughter and I had cheese and olive oil and grilled vegetables, and I ordered an omelet with ham even though I don't eat ham (I'm a quasi-vegetarian myself, but not as strict as my daughter is). I hardly ate any of it.
The restaurant was pretty strange. We used the bathroom inside. It was not a very clean restaurant...
After we ate, we found a wine bar and went inside. I don't have the name of this place, but I'll try to get it somehow. It was so great in there, the people who ran the place were extremely pleasant and helpful. We sat at a curved round table in the corner of the little place, it was so cozy inside, so intimate, we were in 7th Heaven in there!
After that lousy wine at the buffet place, we sampled some really wonderful reds and whites in flights...
We drank a lot of wine and were definitely ready for bed by the time we got back to our hotel. How could I not have any pictures or notes for this wonderful wine bar? Someone in our group must have something.
Well, it's suddenly Friday night, and it's about time for me to stop my musings on this wonderful trip of a lifetime. I don't know if I'm telling you anything of interest, or if you want to know more specifics, but I'm doing what I can and I'm doing it my way, which is the only way I know, really.
The next day it did rain.. and rain it did.. it rained and rained and rained - we thought that we never saw rain before like this! And it rained all day.. it never let up. Where did this rain come from, it was coming down in torrents! Anyone venturing out the door for even a second would be sopping wet no matter how they were dressed, it was something ELSE!
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 03:01 PM
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Thanks for emailing me the kitty pictures, teadrinker!! That's got to be her. I have posted them on my trip report page for her, here:

(Scroll to the bottom to see the new pics):

http://www.europeinpictures.com/croa...cats-dubrovnik
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 03:09 PM
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Bummer about the rain! I know I had to endure downpours in Korcula and Split at the end of my 2009 trip - not fun!

I'm not exactly a restaurateur as some of you may recall, but I don't remember thinking Dubrovnik was a place I was excited to eat. I'm not a big fish eater, either, and that is a specialty there. On my two visits, I mostly had pizza slices. (Once, I got a full pizza to go from one of the pizza restaurants then ate it while sitting out by the boat marina outside one of the gates.) I did have my only real meal of that entire 2009 solo trip in Dubrovnik when I met up with with Julia_t and Barb - honestly don't remember what I had, probably fish of some sort, which I enjoy once in a while.

Other towns seemed more friendly to me as a solo traveler (which you weren't, but also more options for casual dining). A lot of the restaurant scene in Dubrovnik seemed formal, once reason I mostly ate pizza by myself.
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Old Oct 30th, 2015, 04:55 PM
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we stayed in The Bellevue in October 2013 and loved it.
I had beautiful fish in Dubrovnik incl sardines which are my fav. Even had a good meal in the hotel.
enjoying your report.
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Old Oct 31st, 2015, 12:56 AM
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My wife is Croatian, we spend time each year with her family in Split, Drnis, Cavtat,Makarska Hvar and Zagreb.Some are Fishermen others farmers with vineyards. One claims to be the only true producer of Drnis Prsut!
Croatian cuisine is very limited, generally in the past they took some pride in its preparation.This year the quality was lousy and the subterfuge for profit immense A good friend and foodie in Petrcane blames the lack of knowledge of the tourist clientèle and the EU.Massive food wholesalers like Metro/Makro have moved in to virgin territory. Most of the salad ingredients come from Dutch poly tunnels, the beautiful Bass or Bream etc are from Greek Fish farms(coastal water fishing is poor at best in the summer as the fish seek cool water).The beef you are eating is from South America.
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Old Oct 31st, 2015, 01:01 AM
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http://catalogues.metro-group.com/me...-2015/page/4-5
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Old Oct 31st, 2015, 01:15 PM
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The wine bar you went to in Dubrovnik could have been Razonoda.

There are many good restaurants in Dubrovnik, but a little research is helpful to find them. At least you found a good one the first night.

Konoba is a regional word for a tavern-style, rustic eatery. I hope you didn't let them name stop you from eating at some other Konoba on your journey, there are some excellent ones!
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Old Nov 1st, 2015, 02:26 AM
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Golly, it is too bad you didn't find pizza! I think Croatian pizza may be the best in the world and is cheap, cheap, cheap. Perfect for vegetarians! We ate it in Zagreb and a couple of times in Dubrovnik, great both times, and we walked in off the street, though the place in DBV was a well-known bar.

I'm not sure I remember even eating meat other than sausages, though I am sure I did in two weeks, but I remember wonderful fish in Dubrovnik (whitebait), Cavtat (multiple kinds at a long table under some trees), Hvar (grilled fish and vegetable up the hill above the harbor), and a fancy waterside restaurant in Opatija where our fellow diners were Russian Mafiosi and their teenage girlfriends. But the shellfish were great.

I wanted to stop at one of those konoba out in the country with whole pigs and cows roasting on spits, but it was never the right time of day.

Finally, hotel breakfasts in Croatia were the best we have ever had -- prsut, smoked salmon, caviar, champagne if you wanted it, sausages, eggs, cheeses, and every pastry known to man. It's what God and I will be having for breakfast up in heaven.

Can't wait for more of your report!
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Old Nov 1st, 2015, 05:01 AM
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No, we never had pizza, at least not me... The wine bar was not the one you mentioned, it,s name was a more traditional, common-sounding name, like "Martin" something like that... And, no, we caught onto the Konoba word pretty quickly, so it didn't deter us moving forward!
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Old Nov 1st, 2015, 11:55 AM
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Hello, I thought I'd try to write a little more while I have a few moments... Yesterday, when we went to the old town, as soon as we got into the town, through the "gates" and out into the town, there's a fountain... to the left of the fountain is the entrance to walk the walls.. to the right, somewhere not far away, is some sort of tourist bureau. My fiance went in to inquire as to how we might get to Hvar, since that was our next destination (we were going to be in DBV a total of 5 nights)... We knew we could take a bus to Split, then a ferry to Hvar, or maybe rent a car or maybe rent a boat. He got some brochures for boat companies that might be able to help us. They had a lot of good information in there, including a nice dark card advertising Game of Thrones tours...
Also, I wanted to mention that due to the time change, we were all waking up quite late in Croatia.. around 1 pm, the latest we slept was 2 pm, crazy! Oh, and this is really weird. Me, my daughter, and my son were all having the most vivid, bizarre, macabre dreams - dreams we've never experienced before. We had them just about every night, even in Hvar... My daughter dreamed about giant black spiders with red eyes dripping goo that were trying to get her. I dreamed about people cutting limbs off of people, my son had very weird dreams too. It was always so interesting to tell each other about our dreams. We wondered why this was happening to us. Could it just be the everpresent backdrop of war in this country? When you enter pile gate, and round the corner in order to exit the gate, there's large sign on the wall showing where each bomb fell, or which buildings were hit, or were completely obliterated by bombs. Maybe this is what made our dreams so strange and macabre.... I don't know, but I do know that it was happening to all of us, every night, for quite some time, and it started right off when we got there.
Back to Sept 24th. We woke up to rain. We had breakfast at the hotel this morning. My daughter and my son were already there, so we found them and sat with them... One aside about coffee... It's true that you can not really get "American" coffee in Croatia. I'm not a coffee drinker anyway, but sometime's I'll order something very light. I found out that if you ask for "White coffee" you might get lucky and get something like a cappuccino, which I like. It was funny with my fiance asked for "Coffee with cream" one day in Rovinj. He received a little cup with a huge dense dollop of whipped cream! Someone had posted somewhere along the line that if you really like your american coffee, bring some with you, along with some filters, and that way you'll be able to have what you like somehow...
We found my daughter and my son seated in the restaurant, facing the rainy, wet windows looking out on a very wet gray day. One of the outdoor tables had overturned, and there was shattered glass everywhere. It had been windy, big gusts of wind. My daughter told me that earlier, she and her boyfriend had been standing on their balcony looking out to the area where the bay opened up to the sea, and all of a sudden they saw a "wall" of white moving through the narrow channel, and it was coming for them. They watched the water under the white "wall" churn as it moved, very quickly, straight for the hotel. Then in seconds, they were engulfed by a wall of water and wind, they said. It just moved in that fast. They'd never seen anything like it before. I guess that's how the storm hit. Not gradually at all. Just a big sudden thing of rain and wind. That initial gust must have been what flipped the outdoor table over outside the restaurant. It was also lightning out too...
We didn't go anywhere that day because the rain was just too much. It was extremely heavy, very windy, very wet. My daughter and her boyfriend braved the weather and tried to go to Old Town. I don't know how long they were out, but they said it was rather a fruitless outing, and they returned soaking wet.
I used the day to try organize and settle in, later we went down to talk to the concierge about getting to Hvar, and how to get to some of the places we had on our list for side trips from Dubrovnik. Ston, Mali Ston, Bay of Kotor, Kupari Beach, Trsteno aboretum, the Peljasic Peninsula - it was clear we wouldn't be able to see and do everything, especially with the rain. We hoped the tomorrow would be better. Reports were kind of iffy..
We decided on the most time efficient option of getting to Hvar, taking a boat. Someone would pick us up from the hotel at 9am and bring us to the boat dock. We discussed making a sightseeing tour of sorts on the way.. stopping at Miljet, perhaps... She also arranged for a private driver to pick us up the following day for a full day of seeing what we were interested in seeing. I forgot what time it was arranged for.
She suggested that we dine at Magellan's down the road that night, it was very close to the hotel.
We walked to dinner at Magellan's, and it was really a great restaurant. They had the best parmesean cheese ever. I didn't write down what I ordered, I believe it was a home made pasta dish.
I wanted to mention that the music that is playing in the restaurants and shops in Croatia is really cool. It is mostly music from the 70's and 80's. Many songs I had forgotten about. This night in Magellan's, I heard "The One You Say Goodnight To" by Kina Grannis, "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles, "Big Big World" by Emilia, and Dangerous, by someone.. not sure who... but I really liked that about Croatia, hearing old music from my past. It's sweet stuff. Simple and sweet.
I guess that's "it" for today!
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