Game Of Large Seats

We've never seen Game of Thrones.  That show is not why we came to Croatia.  We came because we have heard so much positive about cities like Dubrovnik and Split, the Adriatic, the food, and the people.

Carol read the first three GOT books before losing interest, which is three more than I've read.  Together, we've watch zero episodes. The sum total of my GOT awareness is "Winter is coming" and "Walk of Shame."  With luck this will be the last reference to the Game of Thrones and now we can just get on with our vacation and our lives. 

By the way, as a person who works in politics, I learned a long time ago the best time to travel in the summer of election year is during the party conventions.  Everything else in politics freezes while the conventions are occurring, so it's a great time to be gone. 

Our arrival at the Dubrovnik airport was much less problematic than to Amsterdam.  Since Croatia is joined the EU in 2013, we didn't have to go through immigration again.  Our bags came up fast, we walked out of the airport, and grabbed a cab.

Along the half hour trip to our VRBO apartment just above Old Town Dubrovnik, our nice cabbie pulled over so we could climb stairs to an overlook of Dubrovnik, Lokrum Island, and the Adriatic Sea.  It provides a scenic overview/welcome to Dubrovnik.

Some of the city walls.

That's part of Lokrum Island over

my shoulder, and Dubrovnik over

Carol's shoulder.

Close-up of part of the city.

Our cabbie got a little lost finding the apartment, but he cut off the charge at the spot where we then had to go around the one-way street again.

Our landlady for the three nights is a nice elderly woman with hip issues.  The heat and humidity was at unbelievably uncomfortable levels.  She showed us around the hot as a sauna apartment, then turned on the a/c units.  In Croatia, there are small a/c units mounted in some rooms -- as in much of Europe, there are not whole house a/c systems.

Thankfully, the a/c units worked great.  Our bedroom was on the first floor next to the kitchen, where the unit was located.  We kept our door open and the room cooled down nicely.

We had a nice small balcony with a bit of a view.

Lokrum Island from our balcony.

Maddy wasn't due in from Porto until 6:50.  She graduated from University of Texas Law School in May, studied for the bar exam all summer, and then took it at the end of July.  Since landing in Dublin on August 2, she's been traveling around Europe with a rotating cast of friends, hitting locations such as Dublin, the South of France, Lisbon, Sintra, Porto, now Croatia, with several stop in Italy planned when we part ways on Friday.

We had barely slept (in Carol's case) or slept not at all (in my case) on the flight to Amsterdam.  We both dozed fitfully on the flight to Dubrovnik.  And it was 94 degrees with a high dew point, so the humidity was just sticky.  So we both napped.

After I woke up, I wandered off to explore some of the city.  Between the heat, stickiness, and the stairs, it was a tough go.  Oh, I suppose I should mention that I had knee replacement surgery three months ago.  I'm walking pretty well, but do lack in stamina, especially up the brutally hilly terrain.

First I headed down the lengthy flight of stairs to the main road, which is high above Banje Beach.  The beach, right on the edge of the Old Town, is quite popular, even though it is a stone beach.

Banje Beach.

I head through the East Gate into the walled part of Dubrovnik and wandered around for a while, trying not to dehydrate by sucking down copious amounts of water.

I went into one church of modest interest.  Most of Dubrovnik is worth viewing from the outside.  There is not the stunning kind of art in Croatia that exists in Spain, Italy, Portugal, or France.  I'm not sure if that's because there wasn't as much trading and raiding of colonies as those countries had.  It's not a knock on Croatia, it just is what it is.

Beautiful Renaissance-

style facade.

Church organ with

ornate decorations

all around.

The dome of the church.

A major Dubrovnik street.

The cross high atop Mt. Srd,

1,352 above sea level.

Typical Dubrovnik

street, with restaurant

tables hugging the walls.

Famed bell tower.

Yes, I climbed those stairs.

Me and my new knee.

Once was enough.

Since it was a religious festival day, nearly every commercial establishment was closed except for bars, restaurants, and gelato shops.  I found one of the Hole in the Wall bars.  It was closed, but the hole in the wall wasn't, so I joined a group of people watching brave young men jumping off rocks into the Adriatic below.

Old Town Dubrovnik (which, shockingly, is much older than Old Town Alexandria) is a bit like a bowl.  The middle is low, while the east and west parts of the city rise steeply.  To cover more than just the low, flat middle, massive sets of stairs are required.  As an old guy with a new knee, it's a bit life-sucking to watch younger people, or even some old people who don't yet have knee issues, billy goat up the multiple flights of stairs.

By the time I cut across the middle, it was time to go up to Buza Gate and return back to the apartment for Maddy's arrival.  Not to mention I needed a shower.