A taste of summer in Croatia

Steve's favorite spot in Dubrovnik

We were very lucky to squeeze an extended weekend trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia in the middle of April. Croatia was one of those places that we were both interested in visiting but we didn't know if it would make the already jam packed spring and summer 2013 schedule. Fortunately we found a little time and decided to make Dubrovnik the focus of our visit to Croatia.

While Croatia is just starting to become popular as a travel destination for Americans, Europeans have known about it for awhile and it didn't take us long to understand why. We have a few friends that have visited various areas of the Dalmation coastline and everyone says amazing things. Since we didn't have time to take in all of it, and with our decision to visit in April opposed to the more warmer (and more crowded) summer months, we decided Dubrovnik with the charm and history of its old walled city would be the perfect spot.

We saw many similarities between Dubrovnik and Venice (which makes sense as geographically they are actually quite close together and historically were the two major ports of the region). We found Dubrovnik to be especially enchanting, almost haunting at night after the cruise ships had left and the city became eerily quiet.

Practicing her modeling on Dubvrovnik's old town harbor

Beautiful Croatian sunset with views of a cemetary on the Adriatic Sea

The lights of the city were enchanting

The Placa (main street) in Old Town... during the day it was packed with cruise ship passengers, at night almost no one.

As we arrived early Friday evening we thoroughly enjoyed our introduction to the city in the night time atmosphere. We had found an apartment to rent in the heart of the old city and we nearly felt like we had the place to ourselves. We did actually come to find out later on that this was partially true as very few locals still live within the city walls and many of the apartments are owned by foreigners and sit vacant for much of the year.

We had read that the Croatian food has strong Italian, Mediterranean, and seafood influences and so of course we opted to try pizza the first night. We were excited to find it better than some of the Italian pizzas we have had. Unfortunately the rest of the weekend was not as good as we found both risotto and seafood among several other foods to be disappointing.

After getting settled and a quick look around on Friday night we geared up to explore all of the old city on Saturday. We started off early finding our way to the fortress just outside of the city, which had great views back over the walls. When we headed back inside the walls we meandered through two different monasteries and enjoyed seeing the palace, churches, and the harbor of the old city. As the day started a bit overcast we were excited when it cleared up and we rode a cable car up for views back over the city. However, the highlight of the day was walking the old city walls shortly before sunset. All of the cruise ship passengers had left and we enjoyed having the place to ourselves as we explored every last inch around the city. It was very impressive to think of the building of the walls and the city within, especially as the city sits directly on the water.

View from the Fortress back over the Old Town

Narrow alleys

Someone's loving Dubrovnik!

Beautiful gardens in the monasteries

Great views of the old town, nearby island of Lokrum, and of course a cruise ship

Look at that little smile!

So impressive!

Walking the city walls at sunset was stunning

Emma seriously is an amazing European traveler!

After enjoying the sunset and our several mile walk around the walls we were ready to call it a night. We had an early start scheduled on Sunday as we took an excursion to the country of Montenegro for the day. Dubrovnik is at the far southern end of Croatia and it was only a 30 or 40 minute drive south to the border of Montenegro. The coastline and scenery were gorgeous as we entered the country. Without a doubt the most beautiful part of the drive was around Kotor Bay which is famous for its fjord like qualities (making us only more excited to see the actual Norwegian fjords later this summer). We also stopped and visited Old Town Kotor, which is a smaller walled city. My favorite spot in the city was probably the "Pillar of Shame" where local criminals would get tied to for all the city to see and perhaps even throw fruit and vegetables at them!

On Kotor Bay

Looks like the Norwegian fjords

Kotor's old town had several beautiful churches within the walls and up on the hillsides

While we enjoyed the first half of our day in Montenegro, it unfortunately went downhill at our last stop of the day in Budva when I got food poisoning. So we only got a little glimpse at this beautiful coastal town before we had to head back with our small tour group. Needless to say it was a long 2.5 hour drive back to Dubrovnik along winding coastal roads, especially with a 9 month old that only wants to sit on your lap and no one else. If I hadn't already figured it out by then, I quickly learned that day that being sick as a mom is especially tough.

Anyways, lucky for us I felt significantly better come Monday morning and was happy that we had only missed out on a very short portion of our trip. While our flight back to Zurich wasn't until later in the afternoon we set out to make the most of our morning.

Since we were staying within the city walls and didn't have a car we had limited opportunity to take in other views of the city so we found a great taxi driver that took us to some of the best views of the city, coastline, and the sea, which allowed us to really get a sense of the region. We were also able to enjoy a boat tour of the harbor for another unique view of the city.

Truly spectacular coastline with many islands in the background

Our little sailor

Enjoying our boat ride before heading home

Impressive rock formations and caves along the coastline

Before we knew it though it was time to head back to Dubrovnik's one runway airport (and for Emma to fly on her first prop jet). As we often ask each other at the end of a trip whether or not we would go back to a place, both of us agreed that Croatia would be a spot worth visiting again. From the beauty of the country we saw and the wonderful people we met that can paint a very different picture of what this country looked like 25 years ago, we are intrigued by the places we did not visit. The islands and beaches are supposed to be wonderful and the northern part of the country that is more inland is supposed to be beautiful as well. We can only keep our fingers crossed that one day we'll be lucky enough to come back.