Korcula - After our side trip to Mostar it's off To the Islands Man! Korcula! This is where Rick Steves has made a wonderful decision in my opinion. We went to Korcula and had a day and half off! Wow, no 8AM call for the bus. First in order to skirt the Bosnia-Herzegovina border we drove over a brand new bridge that was finished in 2022? Don't quote me. To get to the Peljesac Peninsula and then ferry to Korcula, you used to have to drive through a slice of Bosnia-Herzegovina. So, stop at the Croatia Border then another stop at the Bosnia Herzegovina border. Actually quite a pain in the Peljesac if you know what I mean. So during Covid, Croatia said we're going to build a bridge, a big beautiful bridge and unlike someone in the States, they actually Built It! It's really cool, so we crossed the bridge, on to the Peljesac Peninsula and on the ferry at Orebic. Arrived in the afternoon, chilled, then Tina showed us how to get into town, a short walk and turned us loose and said I don't want to see you until the day after tomorrow! Unless you count seeing her at breakfast and then in the town, it's pretty small, and finally she hosted a great Happy Hour on a boat driving around the bay the next day. Other than that we were on our own. Loved Korcula, the old town is great, remember we haven't made it to Dubrovnik so this is our first fortified city. Plus we had sunshine for two days in a row.


A big beautiful Bridge, and the Mexicans paid for it. OK not really

Korcula from the ferry

Down on the Marina

View of Old Town from our hotel

Up the grand stairs to get into Old Town. There used to be a drawbridge here, but when Franz Joseph came in the late 19th century they build these steps

View from the other side of the grand staircase

Shot along the Bayfront. Lots of restaurants.

Love your photos of Korcula! We didn't go there so it's nice to see your photos and get an idea of what it is like. Did you have to start sightseeing at 8AM every day on the tour? (Except for Korcula, of course).

Tdiddy12 and Geetika, I am so looking forward to Australia and NZ, and I do plan on writing a trip report. Look for it in December or January. We have never been away for 6 weeks so I am a bit concerned about how we handle this. Once we did travel for a month: 2 weeks in France visiting our daughter and then 2 weeks in Spain. But in France we weren't sightseeing every day. Tdiddy12, how are you handling your 30 day trip? Do you find it grueling? Are you home yet or still traveling? Is this something you would do again? Just curious.

Hi Karen - I exaggerated a little, we were UP by at least 7AM everyday to get breakfast. The bus generally left at 8:00, 8:30 or 9:00, so pretty early. That's why Korcula was so great. One day we left at 10AM and everyone was so happy you would have that we just made parole! You are going to need 6 weeks to see Australia and NZ, are you doing it yourself? I have to say that since I retired at the beginning of 2017, we have done a lot of at least one month trips. Our longest was 4 months, 1 and 1/2 months in Costa Rica and 2 and 1/2 months in Mexico. I personally love it. My wife a little less, but after we did the 4 month trip we were planning an around the world trip, pick a direction and keep going. Got home March 8th, 2020, LA shut down the following Friday, the 13th. Now I have to say that when we did the 4 month trip, 1 month was in the same place in Costa Rica, Playa del Cocos, and almost one whole month was in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. We go home tomorrow. In Trogir right now for the last two nights. Yesterday beautiful, today rain all day. But we are re-packing and just relaxing before a very long day home to Los Angeles.

Kuna - After we left Korcula we stopped at this lookout so everyone could take pictures. It was a beautiful day. Then before we got off the Peninsula, we stopped at a little town called Kuna. We went to a donkey farm where they milk the donkeys. Hey, I'm serious, look it up, it's a thing! Apparently donkey milk is extremely healthy for various health problems and is quite expensive. They milk the donkeys by hand, which is tough because donkey's are very ticklish. ( Again, I made that up). The family has an Agriturismo, and a tavern / Konoba in town where we had lunch.


View of the islands from the lookout

Tour givers, Tina our guide, awesome, and Edis our driver. He also was great, we never felt him put on the breaks, smooth, smooth driving

Tour takers, Elizabeth and Terry. Almost at the end of our first European tour. Last stop is Dubrovnik

A donkey, when the woman came out to tell us about the donkeys, she brought a whole box of baguette size loafs of bread and all the donkeys started braying and heading down toward us.

Another fabulous spread. The prsut, or prosciutto is amazing. The family makes all of this stuff.

Photo of their restaurant.

Inside the restaurant, scarfing down! Milking donkeys is tough work..I guess, we didn't do any milking!

The little church in Kuna

Kuna countryside.

Dubrovnik - Oh Boy! So much to unpack here. It will probably take two posts. Here's an idea, let's take a million tourists, hop them up on expresso and gelato and turn them loose! Oh..wait...let's put a wall around them. So we roll into town about 4PM, get to our hotel which is in the Lapad District, Northwest of Dubrovnik. We can walk into the Old Town but Tina has bought everyone bus passes. The bus #4, stops just down the street from our hotel. The pass is good for 24 hours and I thought it was a stand up thing that the tour bought everyone a pass. Just makes it that much easier for all of us. So we meet at around 5PM in front of the hotel and troop to the bus stop and Get on the Bus Gus. The #4 stops right in front of Old Town. Tina takes us in, we are using our "whispers" but Tina makes it clear She is not giving us a tour. I think you have to be licensed for that by the city of Dubrovnik, we walk down the Stradum, the Main Street and she talks a little bit. Once at the tower at the end of the street she sets us free and we have the night to ourselves. So most of these pictures are from our first night.

This is what you see once you enter the City at the PIle Gate. No it's not the Romans, the Ottomans, the Slavs or the Huns. It's US! You will see this same shot the next morning.

Onofrio's Big Fountain. Dubrovnik had an aqueduct that brought water from 7 miles away.

Outside of the Rector's Palace. Dubrovnik was ruled by a Rector. Probably more than a mayor and appointed by Venice.

We are outside of the Walled City on the East side of the City

My wife and I are having dinner next to the Cathedral and all of a sudden a wedding party comes out. Well about 100 people are to the right of this couple and they are singing for about 15 minutes. It was what makes traveling ring.

Love this photo, out of the darkness of the Pile Gate entry way into the light of Oz and the city is revealed. What was once the drawbridge is now the entry with Disneyland like stanchions to keep the entry and exit separate.

This was a style of door to keep an eye on shoplifters. The proprietor could open the door on the right and put a counter board across so he could do business without people coming into his store.

Dubrovnik Part 2 - Up early, on the bus and into the Old City for our tour. Our tour guide is Roberto de Lorenzo. Roberto was an excellent guide and his basic premise is History is a Lie. That's not his total thesis but some of what he said really hit home. We started early as I said and I've posted a picture from the same spot that I posted earlier and it's not that crowded. Roberto told us, however, that Dubrovnik was ALWAYS this crowded! The streets would have been filled with merchants from all over the world. There would have been 40 - 50 ships waiting to drop of goods and also waiting to drop off sailors, you can paint your own picture here! Today there are 3 or 4 cruise ships here so contrary to what you and I have heard, Dubrovnik loves the tourist business. Roberto is a 3rd of 4th generation Dubrovnikian, he said it's true that the city has been carved out of people living here, there are no grocery stores here for instance...and don't get him started on plumbers but he says there has been some FAKE news about the big "D". For instance, you read, I've read and everyone in our tour had read that Dubrovnik banished roller bags. According to Roberto, they had a meeting of the stakeholders, about 1,000, people who live in Dubrovnik about general matters. One old guy, who is a known grouch, was complaining about the roller bags. A local reporter at the meeting wrote that Dubrovnik was going to ban roller bags. It got picked up by the National Press, then the International Press and then everyone thinks its true! It was quite interesting. Now, Roberto makes his living off of tourism, so I imagine he's pro tourist, but so does everyone else in this town in one way or another.


About 9:00AM, not that crowded

This is interesting, this stairway leads up to the Dominican Monastery Museum , which used to be a church. If you look between the columns you can see there was a filler portion so men couldn't look at women's ankles as they walked to church.

ABC, another bloody church, but this one was right outside of a garden.


As it turns out the garden belongs to...Roberto! Here he is talking in his garden. He also has some apartments to rent around the garden. You can find him in the Rick Steves book.

There are two "Whole in the Wall" bars Buza 1 and Buza 2. You can go down on the rocks for a drink

You can also go for a swim at this Buza. I don't which is which. 1 of 2

Small boat harbor at the end of town.


We Don't Need No Education...oops wrong wall. This is the City Walls walk. $35 and Rick Steves bought us each a ticket.

Look at all of this red roofs from the wall.

People also live up here off the wall and here is a little basketball court for some recreation


One last tip, when you are walking down the ramp into the Old City, look to your left and you will see a small entrance, pretty nondescript, it leads to this nice little, generally quiet park with benches so you can eat your gelato in peace.

Tdiddy12, yes, we are traveling independently to Australia and New Zealand. I've been planning this trip for about a year now. It was a lot of work but fun. Airline reservations to Melbourne and then home from Christchurch, airline reservations from Melbourne to Sydney, and then airline reservations from Sydney to Christchurch, hotel reservations for 6 weeks, 3 rental car reservations, one ferry reservation, and several tour reservations so far. Might book 1 or 2 more tours.

Your beautiful photos of Dubrovnik bring back wonderful memories of our trip! I planned it around cruise ship schedules so we didn't think the crowds were too bad. Certainly didn't ruin our trip for us. Love the photo of you and your wife! It's nice to put a face to the name.

I adore the idea of visiting an agritourismo. Sure, Europe is filled with great monuments, but this gets to the heart of what I love about European travel. That looks exceptional, and I loved your description.

It's also really great to read about and see Dubrovnik. For such a visited place, I feel like we don't get many reports. The Buza bars descending down to the water look fantastic and unique. Wish I was there right now!

Karen, I mentioned Tiddys TR for New Zealand upthread, we are going in March, have 26 nights booked on the South Island.
I look forward to a short flight with no jet lag.

sorry to hijack, Tiddy, still reading, obviously!

Thanks for mentioning his NZ trip report! I searched for it and read it and found it very helpful.

Nice report and some lovely photos.

I've just had two weeks in Rovinj, and after seeing your photos of Bale I wish I hadn't changed my mind about a daytrip there.

Yes, I really like Bale. It was one of those places that you could take a breath and walk around the old town. Two weeks in Rovinj, wow! How did you find it, was it relaxing? Were you in an Airbnb or a hotel? Thanks for your response.

Hotel, and it was lovely having extra time in Rovinj plus I did a number of day trips. I will do a report when I have time

Looking forward to it!

END OF THE TOUR - So our tour ends after a full day in Dubrovnik, partly with a guided tour as described then the rest of the day on our own. We have a final tour dinner at a restaurant called Marangun near Hotel Lero where we are staying. Presents are given, speeches made, praises are sung and it's a great end of the tour. We will actually see everyone at breakfast the next morning, which is labeled Day 14, but it's really just checking out. Some people are going on to Greece, Turkey, Germany, we are staying in Dubrovnik one more night before we pick up are car and doing laundry.

We are staying at Villa Gloria on Ulica Ica Racica. I know the word Ulica, that means street, right? WRONG. It's actually about 100 steps between the upper road, Kralja Petra Kresimira and the lower road, Ulica Fran Supila. So we lug our luggage down about 50 or so steps to the hotel. It's actually very nice, but be forewarned, streets can be labbled as such but be prepared for steps! Villa Gloria is located close to
Banje Beach and we head down 50 steps to the road which takes us down another 50 steps to the beach. It's pretty packed and looks very fun with a cruise ship off in the distance

Cruise Ship from the window of Hotel Lero, coming into Dubrovnik

The Rixos Premium hotel just down the road from Hotel Lero and way down the road from our socio-economic station!

Swimming area for the Rixos, although it maybe for everyone, not sure.

More locks, will these kids never learn

Banje Beach Restaurant Lounge and Club

You can rent these chairs or sit on the beach. You can see two ships in the back, one is a cruise and we found out from a guest at Villa Gloria, that it was their boat for a National Geographic cruise.

No worries mate, good on ya! ( You might hear that a lot, we thought it was one of the most endearing sayings in New Zealand)

We are by ourselves! After 14 days with 28 other people it is kind of strange, but exciting. Tomorrow we pick up the car and I'm a tad nervous, but I'll do OK. Villa Gloria is a really nice place despite of all of the stairs.

We are on the east side of Old Town, real close to the Ploce Gate

Gates up to Villa Gloria from the street

Here we are!

Real nice gardens in the property

Ready for our next adventure!

Day of External Circumstances -
We wake up this morning to pouring rain, I mean buckets. Weather report says it will clear by 10AM, and it does! Go for a little breakfast and down the steps to the rental car company. I chose Villa Gloria because on the map it's right down the street from the rental car company, and it was, but it was steps not a street. We have three days in Montenegro.
DISCLAIMER - If you are Montenegran, live in Montenegro or can even find Montenegro on a map, please excuse more ignorant comments. Montenegro is not the Land of Perpetual Smiles. We were stuck at the border for over an hour. Finally two cop cars come screaming past us on the left side of the road. About 10 minutes later, someone, official, is motioning all of us to move to the left side of the road and proceed. We pass out of Croatia and into Montenegro. You will drive through some pleasant countryside and then hit Herceg Novi. IMHO, Herceg Novi, as my Texas friends would say, has been rode hard and put up wet. It's a real long stretch of a pretty rough looking, giant strip mall, it doesn't seem to end. Lot's of people walking around and they don't look happy.

So far the weather has been holding up and then it starts to pour again, and hail. Traffic is steady and tight. We make it to Perast, which is supposed to be a lovely town but man is it raining. We call our proprietor and she comes to open up the room, which is 40 steps down from the parking lot, I look like a drowned beaver, and she says, give me 110E cash! I don't have any cash, or very little. It's my bad though because it says in fairly fine print on the Booking.com print out. CASH ONLY. So she points me to an ATM.
It is still just pouring, we wanted to go out to dinner but settled, as I posted, for potato chips and cookies.
Next day it is sunny and beautiful so we take a boat ride out to the two little islands, St. George and Our Lady of the Rocks. Have a very nice lunch, and all of a sudden, we see Mark one our fellow tour people. So cool, being the jerk I am, I bump into him like a pickpocket and he says, Hey...then he sees it's me and he says HEY!! Love traveling.
He is taking a day tour from Dubrovnik to Perast and Kotor. It was great seeing him, brightens up the day. Next stop Kotor!

Stairs to Car Rental

Good bye Dubrovnik

The Border

Overcast view of Perast

Clouds over the bay

View from our window in the morning. Things are looking up

Island of St. George

Island of Our Lady of the Rocks

Free parking but I had a stick and was real nervous trying to get close to the wall. That is the main street right in back of the car. People zip by pretty quick.

I am still enjoying your report and photos very much! I feel bad for you that you've had so much rain on this trip. But it hasn't dampened your spirits!

We are leaving tomorrow for our trip so I don't know how much time I will have to read and comment. Thank you so much for writing this report!

Have a Fantastic Trip, you are going to love it. Especially New Zealand. I haven't had enough experience with Australia but I know it's great too. Happy Travels