Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik has often been called the pearl of Adriatic. The old town does fit the bill with its limestone medieval wall, limestone street pavers, limestone buildings, and clay tile roofs. The narrow streets lead you to churches, museums, art galleries, restaurants, bars, and shops. Residential homes can be identified with laundry being strung out their windows.

Understandably, this place is flooded with tourists and the locals have gone out of their way to make it easy as possible for you to spend your money. Practically every sign for example is in English. Also, in the evening are a number of events including music, performances, and fashion shows. Oddly, the tourist map of the town does not identify places of interests but where “damages caused by the aggression on Dubrovnik by the Yugoslav army, Serbs, and Montenegrians 1991-1992”.

Without an intense search, you would think that all there was to eat in Dubrovnik was pizza and ice cream. Fortunately, I met a New Zealand guy who showed us an amazing sea food restaurant by the harbour. The four of us together shared these huge boles of calamari, squid, and shrimp, downed them with beer, and mopped up the sauce with bread. The only complaint was we had to ask that our beer mugs be topped up after receiving them half empty (or half full?).

Side Note: Filling ones beer mug half full seems to be typical of such countries as Croatia and the Czech Republic. Instead of pouring the beer in slowly, with the glass tilted, they just pour until the foam reaches the top. If your glass ends up half empty, well sucks to be you.

Outside the town walls however is a different story. In fact the rest of Dubrovnik is terribly boring with not much else to see. It seems the people of Dubrovnik were not inspired enough by their old town to make the rest of the city attractive or interesting.

There was quite a disagreement occurring between the hostel I was staying at and the guesthouses located nearby. As you walked up the stairs to the hostel, little old ladies would say “I got a nice room, come see”. While I ignored them, the odd traveller would stop and take a look. However, these guesthouses did not have licences and the hostel would threaten the women with calling the cops if they let a disgruntled hosteller (I thought the place was decent) stay with them.

Another side note: You were often confronted at train stations, bus stations, and ferry terminals by little old ladies who were pushing you to stay at their guesthouse. “I got a nice room, come see” and “it’s close, come, come”.