Croatia - The First Three Days

Please excuse any testiness in this entry - I had it 90% complete, then hit some button that Blogger interpreted as "Oh. Toss everything without a warning? No problem."

Well, we've been in Dubrovnik for 2-1/2 days so far and are enjoying it immensely. So much, in fact, that this blog entry was delayed until now (1430 on Sunday). Following is a recapitulation of our adventures so far.

Thursday - We Make Our Flight After All

Marlene Etlinger was kind enough to schlepp us and all our baggage to the Rochester airport. We checked in without any problems, our baggage was tagged for Dubrovnik, and we passed security without a hitch (big shout-out to TSA pre-check here). Went to our gate to wait for our 4:30 flight.

And waited. And waited. Turns out there were big storms in Chicago and all flights into O'Hare were held up. We finally boarded the plane at 6:00, waited on the runway until 7:00, and finally took off, arriving at 7:30 central time. The 4-1/2 hour layover we'd been expecting became a 2 hour layover; any annoyance we'd originally had about the layover was gone because we knew we'd make our flight to Munich.

To prove our arrival in Chicago, here's a totally irrelevant selfie at the airport Chili's:

Eventually we got on our Luftwaffe (oops - hansa) flight and started winging our way to Munich (the first 1-1/2 hours basically retracing our flight from Rochester). The flight was excellent, the food was good, and the free wine a bonus. Mari says that white wine and tiramisu makes a great pairing:

Friday

Landed in Munich at 1630 (their time - 10:30AM ours), had a quick snack, and boarded the flight for Dubrovnik on Dolomite Air(?). Mari says white wine and tiramisu is a good pairing:

Here is a shot we took of the Croatian coast just prior to landing:

Clearing customs was a breeze (note that, U.S. Border and Customs!). Desa (DEH-sha) from RIT met us with a taxi and we were on our way into the city. Turns out Desa is an IT student enrolled in the database course I'm teaching, so she was super-polite! The taxi ride itself was "interesting" - on the one hand we got a wonderful view of the Adriatic; on the other, we sometimes felt we would become part of that view. Rochester drivers have nothing on Croatians in terms of aggression.

Dropped off at our apartment, we met Marianna, the landlord's daughter, who let us in and showed us around.  After unpacking and stowing our gear, we were pretty pooped; we took a short walk to the Old City, bought pizza and some local Cab wine, ate, and zonked out. We did get a couple of quick pictures of the city walls:

  

Saturday

I got up around 800, but Mari couldn't sleep and arose around 200, so after puttering around the apartment a bit she went exploring. Because of this she became my guide for the day (except for a walk with Marianna to find the beaches and the RIT campus).

Our apartment is very nice: two bedrooms, a combined kitchen, dining area, and sitting area, with a bathroom in the "American" style - both a bath and a shower. We're grateful for all the appliances, including the clothes dryer; clothes hanging across the streets is a common sight. The more domestic readers may be interested in the following photos, and everyone else is invited to skip ahead.

The Master BR	Master BR with view outside	Hiding the other unmade bed
Front Hall	Kitchen / Dining / Living Area

Most of Saturday was shopping and oggling the sights. We went on the bus to the big super-market, Konzum, about 2 miles from where we are. Filled our Wegman's bag and a backpack with essentials then rode home again - a bit of a trip, so we'll see how often we do it. Turns out there is a deli-like Konzum right outside our apartment and a mid-sized one in the old city, so short trips will be the order of the day.

Took a bit longer tour of the old city in the late afternoon. Again, a lot of pictures, with captions on the ones I actually remember!

Entering the Old City via the Pile gate

This beautiful woman kept following me around!

Take a look at those stairs!
Think I may lose a few pounds.

Same woman on the Stradun near the bell tower

We think this is the Jesuit church, where there is an
English Mass at 1100 on Sundays (which we missed). 

The Old Harbor looking out to newer Dubrovnik

We had a very nice dinner - Croatian ale is excellent - at one of the innumerable out door restaurants on an Old City plaza. It'll be interesting to see how many of these remain open outside once the big tourist crush eases after this weekend.

View from our restaurant

On the way out we were looking at menus for other restaurants and one maitre de chatted with us - turns out he's also in my database class. Dubrovnik is a small city!

Left the city to see there were now ceremonial guards at the Pile gate:

No, I don't know who she is!

We ended the day by buying some SUPERB ice cream and wandering down to one of the many coves off the Adriatic. So far we LOVE it here!

Sunday (so far)

Slept in today - so late, in fact, that we missed the 1100 English Mass at the Jesuit church (and, yes, it seems every Catholic order has its own church in the city!). We'll take off in a bit to explore some more.

Addendum

Some pictures from our wanderings today in and near the Old City.

A View of Lokrum Island (we'll get there)

Two Small Cruise Ships in the Port

Yes, we're going down. And yes, we climbed up!

The Old Harbor near the Old City

Note for Our Children

Be prepared! There WILL be a test!