We were actually up before our alarm this morning. We were early for breakfast (the restaurant only opened at 9am) so walked around to the front of the ramparts. Dubrovnik was very peaceful at this early hour, although I suppose most of the world is quiet on Jan 1 :)
Breakfast was excellent again. To our surprise, when we asked for the bill, the waiter said that it was free for us! We asked him if he was joking, cause it made no sense. But it was true! We have no idea why; other people were getting their bills. Maybe they saw my number of followers on Instagram :). Or maybe they’re big Bollywood fans?(I had a fake brush with stardom in Indonesia years ago, cause a lot of locals mistook me for a Bollywood star). In any case, it was a pleasant start to 2020.
So onto the walls! There’s three access points, we started at the entry in the southeast corner. Paid our 200 kuna each (I had read that it was kuna only; but they did take credit card, although no Euro) and we were in!
We had the walls pretty much to ourselves. There were a handful of other people, but we quickly passed each other. The views from the top were spectacular, you really get a full perspective of the walled city. In particular, the view from Tvrđava Minčeta, the high point of the wall near Pile Gate, is amazing. It makes my list of one of the top things to see in the world. (Kotor was also amazing overall, but there’s not really a single viewpoint, which is the criteria for my list).
The sun was mostly pointing at us, so not so good for pics. The western side of the walk, where the sun would have been properly positioned, has views primarily of the Adriatic and not of the city.
It took us about an hour to walk around. We had seen Buža Bar from the walls, which is snuggled on an outcrop of rocks facing the Adriatic, accessed through a small passage in the wall. So we went there for a drink. It looked like a better experience than it was; the glare of the sun is pretty strong, and there’s gusts of wind that can spill your drink. We left after a few minutes.
In the main square, the city was serving champagne and oysters for free; and the orchestra was playing on the main stage. We had lunch reservations so didn’t stay too long.
So next was our lunch at Lucin Kantun. We were seated outside on the alley stairs, it was the archetypical view of a European restaurant. It was perfect.
Lunch was equally as good as the atmosphere. We split a bunch of tapas, all of which were excellent. Our favourite was the lamb skewers served with a honey lavender side. Overall it was the best meal we had this trip, with the exception of the tasting menu we had in Kotor.
We had plenty of time to change into warmer clothes and walk south along Ul. Kralja Petra Krešimira IV, to watch the sunset over the walled city. We had sort of seen it yesterday whilst rushing to our Bosnian friends’ car; today we walked to a vantage point with a clear view and watched the sun go down. It’s been a while since we’ve seen the sun set over such a clear horizon.
Got back to our Airbnb, and relaxed. Later went out for a drink to celebrate the starting of the end of our trip. We start heading back to Toronto tomorrow, first to Tirana for a couple days, and then a layover in Vienna.
Unrelated to anything, Dubrovnik has some of the best tasting tap water in the world imo.
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