2geonomads

Friday 16th May 2014

We had planned to get up very early and undertake the walking tour of the city walls before the onslaught of the tourist hordes but we were all a bit slow on the move . After a fairly basic, ie normal breakfast in the apartment, we head off to the western end of the Main Street, Stradun, and climb some fairly steep steps to begin the walk in an anti-wise direction. The wall tour is an ideal way of getting one’s bearings of Dubrovnik’s Old Town and viewing the rooftops from above. Comparing the modern red roof tiles, which are in a clear majority, and the original dark brown tiles provides a clear indication of the wanton destruction resulting from the Serb siege of the city in the 1990’s.  During walk we had noticed ruins in a few areas but a girl at a cafe informed Maureen that these came from the massive earthquake of 1667.

Some sections of the wall are a real test for vertigo-sufferers but Maureen got through the challenge with flying colours. The walk takes about 2 hours and we all came away feeling that the 20 euros ticket price per person was money well spent.

Rather than cope with the ever-increasing crowds we decide to buy some rolls from a sandwich bar and return to the flat for lunch.

Gail and I visit the War Photo Museum, just off Stradun, which offers an all-too-graphic picture of strife,death and destruction in war zones such as Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Albania.

After a very confronting hour we decide that we need a quiet drink so it’s off to the waterfront for beer and wine.

At one point during the afternoon I had left the other three to check out the streets to the north of Stradun and came across a gem in Prijeko Street, lined with many fine restaurants. On rejoining the group we all visited Prijeko and our plans to make do with  home-cooked meal of gnocchi at the flat went out of the window. We stopped to look at one restaurant called Moby Dicks and the owner turned out to be a guy who spends half the year in Perth and half back in Dubrovnik. However, the fag hanging out of his mouth while he sat at a table was hardly encouraging so we looked at other options.

I returned from another quick stroll on my own to find the girls quite excited about  restaurant, Koboka Captain, which they had found on their second walk down Prijeko. Four people from Umea in Sweden and a couple from Germany were glowing in their praise of the food which was enough for the girls to opt for this eatery.

I had a chance to chat in Swedish at the start of what was a very enjoyable evening. The food was superb and the service excellent although our waiter blotted his copy book somewhat with his fairly lukewarm response to our generous tip. As we had paid he seemed to have moved on, psychologically, to the next occupants of our table, a common occurrence in such tourist cities.

John made the evening memorable by regaling a Canadian couple at the next table of stories of camels, feral goats, dogs and all manner of fearsome feral animals without once pointing out that the sightings  of these animals in Perth or any other capital city in Aus are very rare, in fact non-existant!  We quickly corrected the impression that they, or any other dinner guests within earshot might have gained and avoided a further reduction in visitors to our shores.

Off to the island of Korcula tomorrow.

Cheers

The Obese Ferret.