Croatian Heat - Dubrovnik-style

 It's nice to be remembering beaches and hot sunshine as I see rain pouring down outside my window. We took a gorgeous ferry ride from Hvar Island to Dubrovnik Croatia, which also happened to be the hottest ferry ride of my life. There wasn't a lot of seating inside, and we wanted to be on the deck anyways, so we carried our packs out to the deck to find somewhere to sit. I insisted on something in the shade since it was already boiling outside and still early in the morning, so we sat along the side of the ferry on the ground with our packs and layered on the sunscreen. It was so intensely hot it wasn't even funny. Cath was loving it but I was dying and wanted it to be over. By the evening we had arrived in Dubrovnik and got a ride from our hostel owners from the ferry terminal to our hostel which ended up actually being about 20 minutes outside the city. It's what you have to do to save some money :).

Boats in a Dubrovnik Harbour

 We didn't have much time to spend in Dubrovnik, so we made the most of the time we had. We went out early the next morning to explore the old city, relax on the beach and swim in the beautiful blue water. It was a scorcher of a day. By 10am I was already feeling fatigued from the heat. We walked around the old city for about an hour and I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to cool down, so we went to the beach. After changing into swimsuits, I ran straight into the water for the ultimate refreshment. It felt so good. We spent about an hour in the water, then ate some lunch while we dried off on the beach, then were ready to explore again.

There's a small island off the coast of Dubrovnik that we took the ferry to. Most people go there to spend time on a different beach, but being who we are, my sister and I had to explore the whole island. We walked around for a while then discovered there's an old fortress at the top, so naturally we hiked up the island to see the fortress and the view from above. You could see all of the old city walls of Dubrovnik, so definitely worth the photo opportunities. We decided to take a different way down so we could get a different view on the way back. As we were walking, a French couple came out of a clearing in the bush, and the wife told her husband she was proud of him in French (Cath translated for me). We found that a little odd but figured they had spotted a shortcut, so we decided to sneak through the bushes as well. Cath made me go in front because she said she was scared. It was a wild bush adventure as we got a little lost and had no idea how to get out, so we just kept walking. As we walked we figured out why the French lady said what she did - it was definitely a rough trek. Catherine told me after we made it back to a path that she spent the whole time thinking of the story of Paul in the Bible on the island of Patmos, which would have been in this general area of the world, and the snake that jumped out a bit him. She had been worried a snake would jump out and bite us. Which is funny because I spent the whole time worrying a peacock would come out and scare me. (We had seen a lot of peacocks on the other side of the island and I have an irrational fear of birds.) I do have to admit though that a snake would have been much more troublesome than a peacock.

The View from the top of the Island

 After our bushwhacking, we found ourselves a little rocky private beach area and went for a dip to cool off. We walked around and swam at various points around the island, then headed back to Dubronik for more exploring.

It was a little expensive, but we felt we had to check out the old city walls, another UNESCO world heritage site. The views from the walls were stunning! We cheated a bit and located an English-speaking tour guide with a group and followed closely behind them to learn a bit about the city and the walls without having to pay.

Travel tidbit of the day: Find tour groups that speak your language and follow at an inconspicuous distance so as not to be found out. This way, you glean a lot of useful information without the added pricetag.

Dubrovnik City Walls

Hibiscus in the Old City

Dubrovnik

Taking a Refreshing break

  

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. The weather was fabulous although the heat was intense, but well worth the trip. So glad we included Croatia on the itinerary. You should go.

We took another ferry the next day to Bari Italy as we continued our journey to Rome.

Saying goodbye to Croatia on the ferry to Italy