I Miss the Mountains

Hi guys! This week here in Germany has been crazy, but you'll hear about it later. I'm actually planning on getting out multiple blogs in the next 24 hours to try to catch up, but we'll see how that works.

ANYWAY so back to Dubrovnik. So on May 24 I asked the people at my hostel what I needed to do in Dubrovnik while it was sunny, and then I did all those things. This is because the weather forecast was said it was going to rain and when I woke up on the morning of May 25, it wasn't raining, but it had that look that told you the rain wasn't far off.

My plan for May 25th was to do a Wine and Bike tour through the countryside south of Dubrovnik. You drive outside the city, get on bikes, go swimming in a river, see an old monastery, and then do a wine-tasting at the end of it. So I got up early enough on the 25th to get ready for the tour and went to the main street to eat a good breakfast before a day of biking. While sitting at breakfast admiring the view and reading some articles on my phone, this happened:

Now I'm sure you can't see a ton of the actual things going on in this picture, but if you look closely, it's raining very hard and the entire street is covered in water, but more importantly this is the MAIN TOURIST VEIN OF DUBROVNIK. And there is NO ONE. That's how hard it was raining: everyone deserted the main street at 9 am. But it was fine and I went ahead and met up with the tour group after breakfast for the alternative rainy weather tour, which was basically the same tour, but without the bikes.

There were only 7 people on the tour, and all but two were Americans, and it wound up being a really pleasant few hours. The Croatian countryside is absolutely gorgeous and it was so different from Dubrovnik that it was really fascinating to see the changes in somewhere so close. 

Our first stop on the Bad Weather tour was a viewpoint overlooking the city of Dubrovnik, and this sort of shows you the difference between Dubrovnik and the area we were in. You can see the city pretty clearly here

but then in the foreground it really changes to a green, more rural and agricultural feel, which was what we were really seeing. 

So back in the day, Dubrovnik was actually an independent republic and as an independent republic, it needed somewhere to grow food, which is hard to come by as a city-state. So they bought this valley south of the city from some Lord or other

that was right along the river and the flooding created a rather large space that was INCREDIBLY fertile. For many centuries this was where the people of the republic got the majority of their food, and they actually planned the whole thing out with remarkable efficiency to ensure that every meter of the valley was used. Because while it felt large for a valley, it wasn't THAT big. Then, when tourism became popular in the region (as early as the 1960s) the people started to move away from their homes and towns in this valley and into the cities, where the growing industries were, so it is not nearly as largely cultivated as it used to be. The region also suffered under communist rule, as did most places under communist rule. 

Interestingly, the communists actually loved this area. We drove through an abandoned little beachside resort that used to be the vacation spot of the communist leaders. There were villas everywhere and one of the nearby mountains even housed a nuclear bunker for the President of Yugoslavia when he was visiting the area. 

But after the communist bunkers we got to what we really wanted to see

idyllic country scenes. This is a picture of a water mill, actually. The mechanism for grinding grain is inside, but there are these little shacks all over that were used for a long time by the local people. 

This is the inside of the mill and the 700 year old millstone. This house is no longer used. In fact, only one of the mills are still in use, but we were able to go inside this one and see how things used to work. 

The irrigation system is also pretty impressive, and it runs throughout the whole valley and makes sure that all the farmers can get water for their crops. 

                                    

Honestly, a lot of this day was just walking around pretty countryside and learning about history and Croatian culture. Which I loved. But you may not. To each their own. 

So when I say fertile, here's what I mean

Anybody think the leaves on this tree look familiar? It might be hard to see, but that is a bay tree, and all those leaves are bay leaves. Like the kind you put in spaghetti. That's basically what the forest is made out of. At one point stood in a little glade while we were exploring the area (it actually didn't rain most of the morning, it was just cloudy and wet, so we were able to get out and walk around), and our guide stood in one spot and pointed to: a pomegranate tree, a walnut tree, mint growing in the water, mulberries, and an entire tree full of bay leaves. As he put it, "if you plant it here, it grows." It was incredible. 

So the entire valley is brought water by one spring, specifically, this one.

Somebody told me that if I cropped the people out of this picture it would look like a default computer background. I'm taking that as a compliment. Because it was just stunningly beautiful. So the water springs up from under the rocks here and it is potable and fresh and clean. Trust me

I checked. And it even tasted good. It was really cool. I also got water up my nose, because it is surprisingly difficult to drink water straight from a river. 

Who knew?

So then we went and picked up some absolutely delicious sandwiches from a little traditional restaurant in the middle of nowhere. There was actually a restaurant we passed but didn't go to that was used as a meeting place during the communist era because it was out of the way enough that the chance of being spied on was pretty low. But our restaurant gave us prosciutto sandwiches on homemade bread. 

Actually probably the best food I had in Croatia. Now, I have not been very kind to Croatian food, and I'm going to continue not to be. The only food on my travels that I have ordered and then after a few bites decided I actually COULD NOT EAT was in Croatia. Normally, I just suck it up and eat it because it was my mistake if it's not what I wanted and I'm usually so hungry due to an erratic eating schedule that I don't even care. And I've actually talked to someone else who spent time in Croatia and they agreed that the food was not great. 

Because here's what I think happens: Croatia is trying desperately to build its tourist industry. It's cheap, it's beautiful, it's on the Mediterranean (technically the Adriatic, but that's also true of half of Greece and Italy), and it still has that slightly undiscovered, out of the way feel. (please note. None of this is meant to dissuade you from going to Croatia. All of that is incredibly true. I loved Croatia and HIGHLY recommend it for all kinds of vacations. This is just a meditation about some things I experienced while I was there.) So as Croatia tries to build this industry they look at Italy and their world-renowned food and they try to give the tourists that, because when you think Mediterranean, you think pasta and sauces and seafood and so that is what most restaurants will serve and it's terrible, because that's not their actual heritage. They may live along the Adriatic, but the people are Slavic. Their traditional food involves a lot of potatoes and lamb. Actually, the traditional Croatian food I heard about on this tour involved shoving lots of spices and vegetables and meat under a metal covering and slow-cooking it in the coals. It sounded amazing. And the sandwich I had from the traditional shop was pretty dang good. Simple, but delicious. 

So we stopped for lunch at this monastery 

I swear everything looks more dramatic with mist and mountains. 

But the monastery is Franciscan (the Croatians REALLY like the Franciscans. There's some history there I'm not totally clear on.) and about 700 years old. It was damaged during the war and the roof had to be rebuilt, but it is a still-functioning monastery that we couldn't go inside because the monks would yell at us. Or we'd disturb the monks. Or something like that. So after a lovely lunch stop we got back in the van for the final part of the tour: the wine-tasting!

So the tasting took place in what will henceforth be referred to as the ugly communist winery. 

You think I'm joking?

 This is the winery.

But I have to hand it to the commies, this monstrosity is also functional. The latticed outside makes it so there is still natural light inside, but it isn't direct light which could harm the wine. 

Like so.

So wine in Croatia is actually a big thing. They made wine for thousands of years, and it was actually a pretty big name in world wines and then... communism. This winery (which has existed since 1877. Though obviously not that building.) became basically a wine-producing factory for the government. They shipped in grapes from all over and just made wine without much thought to the quality of that wine. Then, when communism was no more, the winery decided that it was high time they started making good stuff again. And now they only produce a very limited amount of wine and only using regional grapes. Which are not hard to come by. Every house we passed seemed to have vines in front of it. Our tour guide told us that most people who live there actually have enough grapes to produce at least a couple barrels of wine just from their property. 

He also gave us some great future wine advice, which I will pass on. 2013 was a really terrible wine year in the Mediterranean (not just Croatia, Italy and Spain too). It was a very wet summer and by the time they harvested the grapes many of them had rotted on the vine. Obviously, they did not make these into wine. But they had fewer grapes to choose from and therefore could not be as discerning about which grapes went into the wine. There is also less of it. So don't buy 2013 Mediterranean wine. 

So anyway, we tried three of the local wines, and they were all pretty good and it was nice to be able to drink them where they were produced and learn about them from someone involved in making them. One of the wines (my favorite) actually won an award. It was all very impressive, and I learned a lot. 

On the way back towards Dubrovnik our tour guide bought fresh local strawberries from a roadside stand and we ate those on our drive. Before we got to Dubrovnik, however, we got to explore the town of Cavtat. It's a smaller town, but it's still got a pretty good tourist industry and it's close enough to Dubrovnik that people staying there can easily get to Dubrovnik. It's also quieter and cheaper and not nearly as crowded with tourists. 

In terms of its own attractions there is a really lovely mausoleum on a hill in a cemetery 

and a lovely harbor. Rich people park their yachts on the other side of the harbor.  

There is also a beautiful little church, which I don't have a good picture of. 

So then we went back to Dubrovnik. I had a great time on my tour: bad weather or no, and I'm really glad I got the chance to get out of the city and see something new. 

I got back around 3 and so still had some time to do things. I decided to use that time going through random churches, most of which I was not allowed to take pictures in, so sorry. 

But I went through the Serbian Orthodox Church (Croatia is actually Catholic, since they were the easternmost point in the Western Roman Empire when that split happened), which was small, but beautiful. (Also, probably used for something in Game of Thrones). And the Cathedral, which was bigger, but still a fairly humble cathedral as they go. I really love going to churches, and the ones in Dubrovnik were no exception. Then I went to the old palace and judicial buildings of the city (where it was ALSO forbidden to take pictures) and looked at the art and learned something about the history of Dubrovnik. 

My ticket for that museum also got me entrance to several other museums, so I went to find the Maritime museum, which was surprisingly difficult. 

but I got to walk around the harbor and see interesting things while I was looking. 

Speaking of which, that statue is of St. Blaise, who is the patron saint of the city, because he appeared to someone in a dream during the time of the republic to warn them that Dubrovnik was going to be besieged and that allowed the people to prepare and in gratitude they carved statues of him and put them up everywhere in the city. 

I did eventually find the museum only to discover that it was closed on Mondays, so I finally gave up and ate an early dinner at this sushi restaurant overlooking the cathedral. Which was also pretty good, actually. And it was a nice, quiet dinner after a busy day. 

And then I was boring, so I went home, packed up, and went to bed, ready to head out to Split the next day. 

I woke up the next morning and decided that I should go do things in Dubrovnik before I had to leave for Split at 10 am. I planned to go visit more churches, but most of them were still closed when I started my day, so I decided to go to this fort 

that I took pictures of the other day. But then I got lost. So I wound up in a forest with some really beautiful views

Because it doesn't matter where you go in Dubrovnik, it's just beautiful. 

Also, this park forest thing was where part of the Purple Wedding of Game of Thrones was shot. Because everything in Dubrovnik has been used for Game of Thrones.

I wandered around the forest for a while, before I found my way to the fort I was trying to go to 

I walked up to the entrance to the fort, but since there was an admission fee and I didn't have time to properly explore the fort before I left for Split, I just took some cool pictures of the Old Town

Which kind of looks like a dragon this perspective, just a little bit. 

So I walked back down the fort, over a beach (location where Stannis lands during the Battle of Blackwater in Season 2) and back into town. I made a very brief stop at the maritime museum, which was nice, but rather small. Once I was done there, I got my luggage and headed out to Split. 

I spent two days in Split, which I think will be one blog post, and then to the Plitvice Lakes National Park, which will be another (with LOTS of pictures) and that'll get me through Croatia, which is where I was really doing lots of traveling, so that's the part it takes a while to write. 

Like I said, I'm going to try to go for another blog or two tomorrow. We'll see!

Summer is Coming

Hey guys! I'm sorry for the delay. I was traveling pretty frequently and trying to fit so much into every day that by the time I got back home I could barely keep my eyes open, much less give this blog the attention it needed. So... exactly the same problem as I had keeping this up traveling last year! But unlike last year, my days of non-stop travel are temporarily suspended, as I have arrived in Freiburg, Germany, and will stay here until the end of June, so I'll have time to catch up and keep you updated. Starting with the events of May 24.

So I woke up the in Dubrovnik. Which is one of those places that is just unfairly beautiful. I woke up thinking it was rainy and cloudy and miserable, because it was 8:30 and still not very bright outside. When I walked out the door I realized that the streets were so narrow light just wasn't reaching our window, because it was a beautiful, bright, sunny, day. I trekked up the insane flight of stairs to the main building of my hostel, got some advice on where to go and what to do while it was sunny (because the forecast was for rain the next day, but more on that later), and I got moving. First stop: the city walls

I mentioned them in my last post, but they're worth talking about again, because they are incredible. They are just huge. Dubrovnik has always been a walled city, and they've just kept adding to the walls and remaking them until they are huge. Like, they are so massive that they were helpful in the war in the 1990s. That's how impressive these walls are, and they go all the way around the Old Town, so you can go up on them and walk around the city and get some amazing views. Which I did.

I took a ton of pictures and here are the highlights! Because really, I took a TON of pictures.

This is from the walls and it looks down the main street of Dubrovnik. The original site of the city consisted of the land (to the left) and a small, rocky island (to the right) separated by a channel (that's what you're looking at) that the early settlers filled up with rocks and paved and made their main road. At the other end of the road is the harbor, and that tower is from one of the many churches in the Old Town. 

There's the Croatian flag flying over the entrance to the walled city, and in the background is this

Fort, which is just outside the city walls, and looks really impressive. In my opinion. 

Selfie with Dubrovnik!

I really love this view along the city walls, I think it helps to show just how impressive they are. 

 and this is the short, small side of the walls.

Which is of course short because there are CLIFFS

There's the fort and the little bay between the fort and the walls is where I went kayaking that afternoon. 

On the right is Lokram island, which will come up later

This is a typical street in Dubrovnik: very narrow.

 The low-lying building you can see in the background is the Quarantine. In ye olden days, a quarantine was a place where sailors and merchants and their goods had to wait for forty (Latin root: quarant-) days before they could come into the city to prevent diseases the sailors had picked up other places from spreading to the city at large, because Dubrovnik was a walled city: if one person got sick, everybody got sick and the city was in shambles. So Dubrovnik was actually the first city to implement Quarantine, and because of it they managed to escape the worst of the black plague.

This is the Dubrovnik harbor, still used today. 

A little beach right outside the walls.

 I honestly just love these picture because it really shows off the sometimes bizarre geometry of the city walls. 

 The harbor

The city

The giant tower fort thingy on the walls

Lokram, but the whole thing this time. 

 Yeah, I just found the walls to be sort of endlessly fascinating.

But that's also it, there you have my tour around the city walls of Dubrovnik. 

So I walked around the city walls and got a good chance to look at the city itself, the ocean, the surrounding land, and it was really amazing. I love being in high places and getting to look down on cities. I think it offers such an interesting perspective, so the view from the city walls was a special treat for me. I feel like it really helped me get to know the layout of the city and just get a feel for it. 

After that I went and had lunch at this lovely little outdoor café with an incredible view. I had grilled shrimp and veggies and it was delicious. Though there was actually one vegetable I've never seen before in my life. It was like a lima bean in shape and color, but it was also definitely not a lima bean. It was tasty, though. 

After lunch I went back to my room, put on my bathing suit and 

Went kayaking. 

It was actually pretty stormy and windy when we left for kayaking, 

 As seen in these increasingly dramatic pictures of where I went kayaking from.

 OK. These two actually look like shots out of Game of Thrones.

(Have I mentioned that they film Game of Thrones in Dubrovnik? Because they do. But luckily they weren't while I was there, because I feel like they would get in the way. The locals actually apparently call it Game of Parking because they take up all the parking in the city.)

But it cleared up beautifully when we were out on the water. There were only 10 of us on the tour, plus our guides, so we had a really great trip. Two of the other people on the tour were Spanish-speakers, one from Spain and one from Argentina, so we had fun chatting in Spanish. 

We took the kayaks around the old city and went to this awesome cave near the harbor. 

Seriously. Doesn't it make you angry how pretty it is? I mean look at it!

Places don't have the right to be that beautiful. Especially when they are as far away from my normal place of life as this one is. 

Anyway, we pulled our kayaks into the cave, ate sandwiches, I went swimming, some people jumped off cliffs (I did not jump off cliffs, because I am neither brave nor stupid and you have to be one of the two.) and it was really lovely. 

This is just a piece of the coastline we passed with a very lovely villa on it. 

Then we went out to the island of Lockram and learned a little bit about the history of Dubrovnik and specifically the curse that the monks apparently put on the island when they got kicked off of it. 

There was a monastery on the island (you can actually still see it), but then someone in power decided to come in and control the island themselves, because it was very strategically important and also pretty. But before they left, the monks went around the island burning candles and cursed it that no one who owned it would be able to enjoy it. And apparently it's worked, since all the owners of the island since that time have been killed, gone bankrupt, or somehow not been able to keep the island. It's now the property of the Croatian government (insert joke about the financial state of Croatia here) and functions as a sort of city park for Dubrovnik. 

By the time we were heading back the waves had gotten even higher and I was getting a little green around the gills, not to mention tired, but we made it safely back to the city and it was a great experience. A lot of time when I travel I spend a lot of time inside or just walking around a city, so it was really fun to get to go do something different for an afternoon. 

After kayaking, I went back to my hostel and took a shower and went to dinner, which was very nice, and then I took a cable car up to the top of a nearby mountain. In all honesty, I would have walked up the mountain, but for a couple of things: 1) I was going up near sunset and it is like an hour and a half walk, and I wanted to get there in time 2) I felt like I had already gotten my exercise in for the day 3) there were supposed to be great views from the cable car. 

And there were:

And that all worked out pretty well, actually. I took the cable car up 

and then walked around, 

explored, 

took pictures, 

just sort of sat and enjoyed the beautiful scenery 

and watched the sunset.

I also took this picture

because I thought it looked like an artsy boy band album cover. I swear these two guys were posing. 

 Then I did actually walk back down the mountain, which was really cool, because I got to see some new perspectives on where I was. Also, the way up the mountain was the stations of the cross, so going back down I got to see the places where the stations were, and it was really cool for my religion major heart! 

I also got to see the city at night again, which 

Still beautiful. 

So at this point I was obviously pretty tired and I went home and went to bed! 

As for what I did on May 25th, that'll have to come next post.