Sunday, July 5, 2015

Day 11 Stuck on Korcula and finally to Dubrovnik

Day 11 was the least planned day of our trip.  I just ran out of time to finish the planning and was sort of hoping it would all come together.  Unforunately it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.  We were supposed to go to Mljet and then on the Dubrovnik by ferry.  Turns out we had a somewhat lazy day in Korcula and then a pretty long bus ride to Dubrovnik.  I am counting it as a win though that we actually made it to Dubrovnik more or less on time even if we missed Mljet

The view out of our window of the Kavavelic rooms (this is the Kavavelic tower which is part of the town walls

Our morning started with a quick walk of the city while looking for a grocery store and bakery.  This is the little harbor that has a lot of the charter boats

More town wall

Around 7:30 we made it back to our room to have a quick breakfast before packing up the few things we had time to pack the few things we had time to upack the night before 

We meet our driver at the Korkyra travel agency.  At first all went well we paid then got into a van where they drove us to Lombarda and dropped us off at the boat we were supposed to take

This was supposed to be our boat to Mljet.  Unfortunately only 4 of use showed up that day so at about 9:15 the guy just said he isn't running the tour and took us back to the travel agency.  At this point we had missed all the other tours running to Mljet for the day and the ferry was full (well they would sell us one ticket)

This place sucks.  Or at least they were having a bad day when we were there.  It took forever for them to give us our money back.  They really didn't try at all to figure out any alternative plans and then the lady had the nerve to pick up my bag and basically shoved them out the door as I waited for Zach to see if we could at least get public bus tickets to Dubrovnik

Since visiting Mljet wasn't in the plans for the day we spent a somewhat lazy day (for us) walking around Korcula.  The first stop was climbing the bell tower of St. Mark's Cathedral before it got any hotter.  We actually spent about 20 min just sitting up here enjoying the view and making a new plan for the day

Since we now had lots of time we stopped at this cafe for dognuts and lattes while we watched the people go by

Somehow the pictures won't stay in order.  These are the really small steps down for the bell tower

After our coffee we walked along the water to get a good view of town the the beaches.  We also dipped our feet in for a few minutes

Back in old town we peaked our head into some of the many small churches

We opted for a nice long lunch with wine since we had time to kill.  This is Aterina restaurant which was near the wall

Zach had chili prawn pasta with homemade noddles and it was quite good

About an our later we were off to the Town Museum which gave some history of the town starting from ancient greek times.  These were part of a ship wreak near the island from something BC

We stopped in a few more sites and did some shopping before it was back to our hotel to pick up our luggage to drag it to the bus station

Waiting for the bus which like all things on the trip seems to have no concept of being on time

Not long after we left the bus station our bus pulled onto the car ferry.  We all got out and got to look around on the top deck of the ferry

View of Korcula from the Ferry

Views of the coast along the way

Not a great picture, but you can sort of make out the wall on the left.  This wall was huge and is second in size only to the great wall of China.  It is located in Stone which is near the end of the peninsula before heading to Dubrovnik

Around 7 pm we made it to the Dubrovnik bus stop which is near the ferry terminal about 3 km from our hotel so we took the bus to the old town stop

There we found a ton of stairs to reach our place.  We decided to just go for it (22 flights of stairs).  Later we learned that our host would have come to get us or we could have taken a city bus to avoid all but 5 flight.  At least I got my triathlon training in for the day

We stayed at rooms Vjera which was totally worth the hike.  Our host was wonderful, the views were great it was only about $50/night.  When we got there he offered us wine (we picked OJ because we were so hot) some cherries and apricots from his garden

The view from our room down on old town

Our original plan was to head up the cable car for dinner overlooking the city, but the here is everything about your room talk took so long so we decided to head into old town for dinner.  This is part of the city walls

Stradum street and the town clock

Our first choice place for dinner was full but we still found this gem.  It was far from the main street so it was quieter less crowded and cheaper.  It is caleld Konoba Ekvinocijo.  For 99 kuna (about 13 dollars) you got a four course meal.  I tried grilled squid which was not my favorite seafood, but worth the experience

After dinner we went to Buza II which is a bar on the cliffs outside the city wall.  We had 2 different types of champagne and enjoyed the view

Blury view of old town after our hike back up to our place

Our home for 2 nights.  The room was pretty big and we had our own private bathroom across the hall.  We did not manage to stay up very long after getting back which was good because we had another relatively early start in the morning to walk the city walls before our tour

Tomorrow we are doing a kayak and bike tour of the elephanti islands near Dubrovnik.

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