Croatia is the bit of the former Yugoslavia that contains the resorts and towns that were the most popular tourist destinations before the war and subsequent split. We headed for Dubrovnik, it's beautiful, historical and the Lonely Planet says not to miss it! Having now been we would agree it was nice, but for us August was probably not the time of year to do it. If you cope well with temperatures above 35c temperatures and thousands of tourists (many arriving in large groups off coaches or cruise ships) you may be fine, it coincides with the Summer Festival so the plus is that there are loads of art and music events. We lasted about 5 hours before having to go and lay down in a darkened room!
It's strange, when compared to Delhi, Bangkok, Kathmandu or Phnom Penh it was nowhere as intense in Dubrovnik but perhaps it is because in these other cities people are using the city to go about their daily lives, living and working on the streets whereas here it is pedestrianised and full of tourists wandering about without purpose which just seemed to make it more oppressive.
We stayed about 10km out of the city in a nice little cove called Zaton and travelled into the city by boat and bus.
Close to the bus stop was this armoured vehicle and a small plaque explaining that it was used by the Dubrovnik Defenders which was the name given to the local people who took up arms to defend the city when it was attacked by Serbia and Montenegro in 1991. For 7 months Dubrovnik was cut off from the rest of Croatia and without electricity, 200 of the Defenders and 100 civilians were killed and something like 50% of the buildings in the old city sustained some damaged. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and there is little sign of the damage now, there was an exhibition showing photos of the city under siege, some buildings really were badly effected.
Sunset back in our nice quiet little cove.
We headed up the coast to a place called Trogir which turned out to be a very similar to Dubrovnik only much smaller and quieter.
The harbour wasn't big enough for cruise ships (luckily) but there were some pretty flashy super yachts.
Don't upset the kids but it looks like Santa's retired to the sun.
We headed over to Rab one of the many islands along the coast, unfortunately so had half the population of Italy (lots of them come here in August) and we could only find accommodation for one night.
They loaded so many cars onto the ferry that they couldn't close the tail gate properly (perhaps they never heard about the Herald of Free Enterprise!)
On to Slovenia.........
As always great pictures and looks like the two of you had a great time. My only complaint... more bike pictures ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou guys need to sit down when you get home and put a travel book together and sell it. Lots of folks do the RTW thing by bike now and your looks like a good example. Not quite as adventurous as the a Road of Bones ride but clearly plenty cool for a life time.