10%

Pearl of the Adriatic

Old city of Dubrovnik, Croatia

By Ellen

October 19^th, 2018

In our search for a cheap destination we came across the UNESCO World Heritage Dubrovnik, Croatia. What’s not to love when you look at all the pretty pictures. Easyjet flew us to our destination and we had a lovely stay at Ilma and Mimi’s just outside the city walls.

View Fort St John (Ivana) from Banje Beach

Old Town

We walked around the old town inside the city walls for hours without ever getting bored. Each alley was even prettier than the next.

the wall

Although a bit on the expensive side, a walk along the 16th century city walls is a definite must.

Imperfect veggies & Fresh Pomegranate juice

The open-air market has numerous stalls full of seasonal fruit and vegetables as well as other local products like dried lavender, honey and candied peel. If you do souveniring, this is one of the best places to stock up. Don't forget to try the freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, it's deliciously tart.

Mandarin galore

There were mandarin trees all over the place, or clementine trees, or tangerine trees, I can't remember ... Anyways, they were damn tasty! Love picking my own fruit.

Best ICE CREAM ever!

No holiday is complete without sampling the best ice cream in town. Even though Peppino’s premium raffaello ice cream (on the left) is more Instagrammable. The Dolce Vita pistachio ice cream is the most creamy and delicious ice cream I’ve ever tasted. We came back for more, twice!

Cogito Coffee

Love is ... finding the best coffee in town for your husband. I don’t really drink coffee myself, unless it contains lots of milk and sugar. We found it at Cogito Coffee Shop.

Superhero landing

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. — Albert Einstein

My husband explained to me what this kid was doing while sipping our Cogito coffee’s on the steps of the Cathedral of the Assumption. He’s doing a superhero landing, awesome kid!

TOURIST overload

We we’re warned about hordes of tourists overrunning old town between 11:00 and 14:00. Ofloaded from cruise ships following the tour guide’s flag up and down Stradun (main street). The perfect time for lunch! Around that time of day it was too hot for any other activities anyways.

Tourists on the steps of the church of Saint Blaise

Tourists at the Large Onofrio's Fountain

The good life

Maybe we should be calling ourselves food chasers. We're always on the hunt for the best cheap eats, preferably local food. Since my husband is vegetarian, we ate most of our meals at restaurant Nishta.

Traditional Yugoslavian rolled Burek (Börek)

Traditional black risotto and stuffed squid at Lucin Kantun, and a dark beer named after my husband ;)

Expensive tempura prawns at Pink Shrimp Street Food

Lush LOKRUM

To get even further away from the crowds we visited the nearby island of Lokrum. it’s a popular swimming spot, although the beaches are rocky. Peacocks, once brought over from the Canary Islands, roam freely on the island.

Capital of the seven kingdoms

Dubrovnik was the main filming location for Game of Thrones’ King’s Landing. A lot of CGI was added though. We saw the Red Keep, Black Water Bay and the steps where Cersei did her walk of shame (not pictured).

The Red Keep / Fort Lawrence (Lovrijenac)

The pier on Dubrovnik West Harbour is Blackwater Bay

Pretty Kitty

Even though I’m turning more and more into a dog person since our French Bulldog named Guinness came along, I still consider myself a crazy cat lady. Many of the cats in Dubrovnik belong to families and are let out, while others are strays that are cared for by locals.

One of Ilma and Mimi's "ton-sur-ton" cats

St Nicholas Bombings

I doubted whether I should mention the war, because it would be such a sad ending to my story, but we need to remember, don't we? I didn't realise Dubrovnik was so heavily bombed during the Yugoslav War.

The heaviest attack was on December 6th 1991 when Serbs and Montenegrins decided to take the town. Apparently they didn't care about it being a UNESCO World Heritage. Starting at dawn, the city was bombarded nearly 12 hours on end. It was in flames, churches and palaces were burning. On that day alone more than 2000 grenades fell on the old town. One third of the cultural monuments were badly damaged.