Croatia

After a 12 hour overnight bus journey, we arrived in Dubrovnik pretty tired. We caught a bus up the hill overlooking the city to our Air BnB, and had a couple of hours of sleep. We then walked down into Dubrovnik, and were impressed by its city walls, beautiful old buildings and cobbled streets. We went for lunch at a vegan cafe and had some great curries. We also went to the Rectors Palace, home to the historic city rulers, and learnt they used to change rectors on a monthly basis, and during their rule the rectors weren’t allowed to leave the palace except on official business! Another highlight was a Franciscan Monastery pharmacy (built 1317) which is still doing business today. We then climbed up onto the city walls, and walked around the original city along a 2km walkway with amazing views over the city and harbour (thank you to Phaedra and Adriano for the honeymoon gift). Just as we were finishing it started to rain, and as we made our way home we got caught in a very intense thunderstorm and got thoroughly drenched! The roads and stairways turned into gushing rivers. 

Next we caught a ferry to an island off the coast of Croatia called Mljet, where we stayed for 4 nights. We enjoyed the hour-long ferry ride, which was a good way to see lots of the beautiful Croatian coastline. Upon arriving on Mljet, it started pouring with rain again, and we realised the ferry had dropped us off in a different part of the island than we had expected! To save ourselves another drenching, we took a taxi to the AirBnB. It soon stopped raining, and we enjoyed the view from our balcony of turquoise blue waters and the largely uninhabited island. The cove we were staying in (Sobra) was very quiet and peaceful. We spent that afternoon and the following day relaxing and recovering from the busyness of the last few weeks. We also went on a short walk to a nearby lake, which was set in the valley of the island. It was pretty small, but apparently provides a lot of the locals drinking water. We learnt that the island used to be overrun with poisonous snakes, until they imported mongoose who managed to eradicate the snake population! We did not see one mongoose, nor a snake. 

The following day we decided to take a ferry to the western point of the island, which is a national park. It had some really beautiful hiking areas, and two saltwater lakes in the middle. We took a solar powered boat over to an island in the middle of the larger lake, which was home to a monastery built in the 12th Century. We then walked around the edge of the bigger lake until we reached the smaller one, and found a nearby town to have some lunch by the sea. Afterwards we headed for a swim in the small lake, which was bright turquoise and surprisingly warm. There was a small bridge between the two lakes that we swam under, which had a very strong current and we really struggled to swim against it! After walking back around the lakes, we took the ferry back to our bay of the island. The next day we decided to have another relaxed catch up day. After a chilled morning we went down to the harbour to get a coffee and sat in the restaurant with a cute cat curled up on the seat beside us. We then went for a swim in the sea, which was very refreshing and peaceful. We also tried to focus on some sailing course learning (we’re doing a yacht Day Skipper course in Greece in October) and trip planning. 

We had a particularly early start to take the 6:15am ferry back to the mainland. We were collected by Dubo, our sail boat skipper, for a day of sailing practice on a former racing yacht (30ft, built 1990). It was originally manufactured for an international sailing regatta in the early 90s, but never took part due to the outbreak of war. We had the boat and Dubo to ourselves, and were immediately given complete control. We sailed around the Elafiti islands (Lopud, Koločep, and Šipan) off the Dalmatian coast for the full day, stopping for a few swims in the sea (thank you to Zara and Carlo for contributing as a honeymoon gift). Dubo was born and brought up in Dubrovnik, and is the first officer on international cargo transport ships, usually working 4 to 8 months of the year and spending the remainder of the year in Dubrovnik on his sailing boat. We talked with him about local history, the impacts of Russian sanctions on his cargo transport routes, and helped him by checking the English grammar on his newly created advertisement flyer for the sailing experience. Sailing a yacht turns out to be far easier to control than the dinghies we have had experience of before. It was extremely fun and relaxing! We certainly have enthusiasm for more sailing in our Day Skipper course in Greece. We headed back to Dubrovnik, and prepared for another early start travelling to Bosnia and Herzegovina the next morning.