Last week I had a little bit of time off, to travel to
Croatia with three old school and university friends. I think it was well
deserved as I hadn’t had a holiday (field trips don’t count!) abroad in over
four years!
I have to confess that even taking my geography subject knowledge (i.e. I’m sure Croatia is just east of Italy?) into account, I didn’t have many preconceptions about Croatia. Rather lazily I just went along with the general consensus of where everyone else wanted to go, but was very pleasantly surprised when we arrived!
The whole place is a little sub tropical paradise. From the airport taxi on the way to our B&B we could see lush palm trees, bougainvillea, orange & lemon trees and tall cypress tree spires everywhere. There was also sunshine sparkling on bright blue seas and little islands all along the coast... Sounds like it was just out of a travel brochure doesn’t it? Truthfully though, that’s just how it was!
In the photo below, you can see how green everything is by looking at the back drop.
I have to confess that even taking my geography subject knowledge (i.e. I’m sure Croatia is just east of Italy?) into account, I didn’t have many preconceptions about Croatia. Rather lazily I just went along with the general consensus of where everyone else wanted to go, but was very pleasantly surprised when we arrived!
The whole place is a little sub tropical paradise. From the airport taxi on the way to our B&B we could see lush palm trees, bougainvillea, orange & lemon trees and tall cypress tree spires everywhere. There was also sunshine sparkling on bright blue seas and little islands all along the coast... Sounds like it was just out of a travel brochure doesn’t it? Truthfully though, that’s just how it was!
In the photo below, you can see how green everything is by looking at the back drop.
On the first day we arrived mid morning, and were able to do
a little bit of exploring to orientate ourselves around Dubrovnik, but not
without a few wrong turns first...
On the second day we very bravely decided to circumnavigate
the Dubrovnik old city walls, all 1,940 metres of them! There were lots of
steps and we each got through at least a litre of water, plus I acquired an
enormous blister (due to lack of sensible footwear!)
Here we are looking fabulous at the beginning of the walk...
Here we are looking fabulous at the beginning of the walk...
We look slightly more dishevelled 1 kilometre in...
Collapsed, having refreshing drinks at the harbour cafe
afterwards!
On the third day, the weather was even more beautiful than
the previous day, so we decided to catch a boat across to the mysterious Lokrum
Island...
The island had botanical gardens, a salt water lagoon,
ruined monastery, hill top fort and dozens of beautiful peacocks!
Lokrum has a very interesting history, concerning ownership. In a nutshell, the legend goes that when the original Bendictine monks were asked to leave the island in 1808, they were so unhappy that on their final night on the island, they put a curse on Lokrum by walking around it three times chanting the words "Whosoever claims Lokrum for his own personal pleasure shall be damned!"
Sadly, their words turned out to be true starting with the three local aristocrats who initially took on the ownership island. All three died in mysterious circumstances. The island was owned by further unfortunates, notably Austrian Archduke Maximillian, who introduced the peacocks from the Canary Islands, but had an unpleasant end when he was shot in Mexico. The very last owner of the island was Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo... and we all know how that turned out! Since that time no one has wanted to commit to owning the island, and in fact, the locals are unwilling to even spend the night there. Perhaps a benefit of there being no owner of Lokrum is that everyone can enjoy it? We certainly had a lovely day...
Lokrum has a very interesting history, concerning ownership. In a nutshell, the legend goes that when the original Bendictine monks were asked to leave the island in 1808, they were so unhappy that on their final night on the island, they put a curse on Lokrum by walking around it three times chanting the words "Whosoever claims Lokrum for his own personal pleasure shall be damned!"
Sadly, their words turned out to be true starting with the three local aristocrats who initially took on the ownership island. All three died in mysterious circumstances. The island was owned by further unfortunates, notably Austrian Archduke Maximillian, who introduced the peacocks from the Canary Islands, but had an unpleasant end when he was shot in Mexico. The very last owner of the island was Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo... and we all know how that turned out! Since that time no one has wanted to commit to owning the island, and in fact, the locals are unwilling to even spend the night there. Perhaps a benefit of there being no owner of Lokrum is that everyone can enjoy it? We certainly had a lovely day...
Here are some of the only official, full time inhabitants of
Lokrum. They are probably descendants of the original peacocks which arrived in
the 19th Century with Archduke Maximillian.
On our final day, we decided to brave the cable car... Both
friend ‘N’ and friend ‘A’ are not so keen on heights, but when we got to the
top; we were rewarded with wonderful coffee and the most amazing view of the
old city.
J’s record of the week:
Unfortunately we all forgot to bring our iPods on the
journey, so there is no official ‘record of the week,’ this week. However,
Dubrovnik old town seemed to have amazing musicians around every corner, from
the street busker at the Pila Gate every day to the dynamic jazz trio playing
on the Placa Stradun every night, the choral music streaming from the cathedral
door and the candle lit classical concerts given in the city every Friday! With
all that music surrounding us we didn’t really need to bring anything extra J. Jerushah X
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