Dubrovnik

Y'all know it. It's beautiful, stunning, old, preserved, rebuilt, whatnot. It's also a magnet for disembarking cruise ship folk who wander in in groups of 10-15 with a leader holding aloft a sign so they don't, god forbid, join the wrong group. As such, Group 22 from the Princess of the Seas (or whatever) remains distinct from Group 17 from Princess of the Seas. The key is to get to the old town early, say, 8:00 am and enjoy a few hours, then return later in the day. See, the cruise ship folk have the all you can eat thing going on board, so they aren't likely to stick around for meals and such. And we're not even in the high season yet. I shudder to think what a Saturday afternoon in August looks like.


That said, it is a beautiful place, and well worth a visit. We stayed 10KM north of the old city, in a place called Zaton Mali, which turned out to be perfect. Found a nice parking lot that always seemed to have 1 spot available so it became our entrance.

Kim and Matt, in full training for their own kid in about 4 months.

The walls of the city are quite grand. As Dubrovnik is the most well-known city around these parts, guidebooks tend to compare other cities' walls to Dubrovniks. For example, Ston's walls are X times as long as Dubrovnik's and only the great wall of China is longer. Kotor's walls are X KM long, making them X times as long as Dubrovnik's. I guess it's saying something when your walls are the baseline.

We hiked the walls our first morning. A nice walk. Jack slept much of it.

The Stradun, the main drag of the old town, as seen from the walls. When we started our trek around the city walls, the Stradun was relatively empty. Now it's filling up with the aforementioned Groups 22 and 17 (among others) from the ships.

Where's Matt?

Our son is so gifted...