On Sunday, we flew from Dubrovnik to Zagreb so we could rent another manual car and drive to Rovinj, Croatia.  The flight was less than an hour but would taken all day to drive so it was worth it to fly most of the way and get another car.  This time I got a sporty red VW Polo.

We are staying in a cute apartment about 10 minute walk from the city center.  The hosts invited us to have a beer when we got here, but we really needed food as all we ate before we left Dubrovnik was a pastry from the bakery and now it was well past dinner time.

Rovinj is very charming and lovely to walk around.  Rovinj has the feeling of a fishing port but also with nice yachts.  The old town is colorful with a church that sits up high on a hill.  There are restaurants with terraces overlooking the Adriatic.  There also many shops with jewelry and art.  You can walk a little outside of town on the Adriatic and find many beaches (rocky beaches of course) and people swimming.

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I love to take photos of flowers but learned not to get too close to the Oleander trees since they are poisonous.  They are everywhere in Montenegro and Croatia.

When I think of Montenegro, I think of nice sandy beaches and sunny weather.  I’m guessing Hollywood put these ideas in my head because I can’t say I saw nice beaches or sunny weather.  I had wanted to do a day trip to Montenegro once I realized how close it was to Dubrovnik.  Our host, Tony, offered to take people on day trips.  I also knew that the roads in Montenegro were not the best, and the drivers drove a little more aggressive.  Before we knew how much Tony could talk, we asked him if we could hire him to take us on a day trip to Montenegro.  We arranged to go on Saturday and he told us the weather would be great.

We meet him at 8 in the morning.  Thank goodness I packed an umbrella and jacket with me because it pretty much rained the entire time.  We first drove to the Bay of Kotor.  On the way, I saw one car that was in the bay and one boat that was underwater.  I heard many motorists honk their horns as their hood was basically touching our bumper.  The steep roads and many curves made me glad that I wasn’t driving.  Although it did cross my mind that I put my life in the hands of a stranger.

Kotor was a small town that basically thrives on tourists.  The Republic of Venice at one point ruled the area.  We walked briskly around the town as Tony would give us a little history tour.  I think we waited longer to park than we actually stayed in the town.  Next we drove to Budva.  Budva is 3,500 years old which makes it one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic.  Budva is one of the most popular summer destinations in Montenegro.  I think because of the bad weather we didn’t get a real Montenegro experience.  There wasn’t anything that I saw there that would make me hurry back.

On the way back to Dubrovnik, Tony said he knew a good place to stop for lunch.  He explained some of the menu and told me that the meat with cheese was really good.  The cheese was made locally from the mountains above.  I decided to try it but was horrified when I got 10 cevapcici sausages again over a very hot soft pile of cheese.  He told me that I must eat fast because the fresh cheese would turn to liquid from the hot sausage.  I really do like these little sausages but I don’t know why they need to give you 10 of them every time.

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I hope this short video gives you a glimpse of how beautiful Dubrovnik is.

Here is a video from Lokrum island.  The island is around a 15 minute boat ride from Dubrovnik.

Here is a video of our guided trip to the top of Mt Srd.  You can hear our host, Tony, in the background.  He talked non-stop so it was hard to get a video with out him telling us stories.

Just a ten minute ferry ride from Dubrovnik is the Island of Lokrum.  Lokrum is a nice natural island where cars aren’t allowed.  You can walk the trails of the island up to a fortress where you get a nice view of Dubrovnik.  They have a small botanical garden on the island, however most of the plants are not native.  Someone donated a lot of peacocks to the island so they roam around looking for food from people.  I was one of the crazy tourists that started taking pictures of the peacock as soon as we got off the boat.

We were told there is a nice beach there but every beach we ever saw was just a ladder down into the rocky sea.  We sat on the rocks for awhile and just watched the waves crash on the rocks.  Lokrum was worth the visit (and a nice place to get away from the cigarette smoke).

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The wall around Dubrovnik is in good enough condition that you can walk around it.  For a small fee, you can walk the walls that circle the entire old city.  They say it usually takes around 2 hours to walk around the wall.  We tried to get there as soon as it opened so we could beat the crowds.  It took us about an hour and half to walk around the wall.  It was a nice walk for us since there weren’t a lot of people up there that early.  I can only imagine how crowded it is in the summer when it is hot and there are a lot more tourists.  Tony, the man who we rented an apartment from, did say that a couple of years ago a young boy died when he fell off the wall.  They don’t have a lot of railings on the wall to help protect young children from climbing over the wall.

Here is a slideshow of some of the scenes you can see from the wall.

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Strange that these were the only benches available by the Adriatic Sea.

Dubrovnik is a beautiful walled city on the southern Adriatic Sea.  Although the old town was heavily damaged in the war, they have repaired a lot of the damage.  Dubrovnik is one city in Croatia that was not ruled by the Republic of Venice.  It has been easy to tell which cities were ruled by Republic of Venice because there is usually a lion stone at the beginning of a town or city.

Dubrovnik was by far one of the more expensive cities we visited.  I’m pretty sure that a lot of it is because it is a popular cruise destination.

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