Day 13 was mostly about exploring Dubrovnik and then catching a bus to Bosnia. Highlights of the day include seeing Dubrovnik from high above using the cable car, visiting the oldest active pharmacy inside a monestary, a city walking tour, a lovely glass of wine on the hotel rooftop overlooking the Mostar bridge and a meat feast for all of 15 dollars for dinner.
Breakfast was again on the balcony of the hotel overlooking the city. This time we had some pastries from the grocery store and our good old starbucks instant coffee (so glad we brought this!)
City walls on the short walk to catch the cable car
Looks fake right? But it isn't this is the view from the top of the hill. To get up there we took a cable car (designed by the Swiss of course).
At the top there was also a memorial museum to the Dubrovnik fighters. Something like 400 of them died trying to defend the city when it became under seige in the the early 90s. The museum was very interesting (if very one sided, but frankly in Dubrovnik it was mostly the Serbs causing problems).
Cable car was much less crowded on the way down
After the cable car we walked into old town to see some select sights. This is the franciscan monestary courtyard.
There was lots of great paintings. There were different layers from the 18th and 19th century
The main reason I wanted to go here is that it is the oldest continually operating pharmacy in the world. They oppened their doors in 1317 and are still working today (this is just a display of the historical part)
After the Monestary we walked over Fort Lawarence to take in the views. We learned that what Rick Steves said was wrong and that our wall tickets could be used here the next day. In case anyone else goes to Dubrovnik save the 10 dollars and know you can use the same ticket on any day you want.
The fort had a place they were doing plays setup along with these cannons.
The next stop after the fort was a 1 hour city tour. We started at the fountain where we were facing this church. This is the only church older than the 17th century earthquake. It has survived lots of happening including the seige and is still standing
View of the mechanical bell ringers
The Rectors palace. The only other thing to survive the 1667 earthquake
St. Blaise was on everything. I think this particular one of him was on a church
After the walk we were pretty exhuasted thanks to the heat. We stopped at Barba which is a great street food type place up toward the hill in the old city. We both had the shrimp burger which was very good and not very expensive
Lunch refreshed us so we were ready to take in just a few more sites before our bus. This is supposedly Jesus's swaddling clothes. It is in the treasury of Cathedral. They also claimed to have a piece of the actual cross.
Final stop before leaving old town was ice cream on Stranda street. A much needed treat a we treaked up the hot steps to our hotel
Our host was amazing (Vjera rooms you should stay there if you can handle lots of stairs). He drove us to the bus station where we waited for our 30 min late bus surrounded by smokers and hot pavement
And by about 7:30 we arrived in Mostar. We dragged our bags through the stones of old town (a long sweaty walk from the bus station which we later learned could have been avoided by a one dollar taxi ride), so we could get a view of the bridge a sunset. For any of you older people you might remember the Croats blowing up the 400 year old bridge during the war. They rebuilt it and it is pretty good looking again
Sunset in Mostar
When we finally did arrive at our hotel (Villa Anri) we were greeted with free wine and watermelon on the rooftop terrace to watch the sunet on the bridge. This place is probably the nicest place we stayed in yet and it was all of $55/night including an amazing breakfast.
Our room was huge and included a seating area and balcony
Once we finished our wine we headed back to old town for dinner. We had the meat combo which included maybe more meat than we eat in a month a home. It was quite good and for $15 including beers the dinner was quite cheap
We heard rumors of real beer so of course we searched it out. Black Dog Pub actually had an IPA on tap. Not the best beer ever, but by far the best beer of the trip. Worst service ever though as the guy could barely be bothered to get up from the table with his friends to serve us.
The bridge at night
Makeshift wine cooling. We needed to drink at least some of the wine since we have a flight coming up and have been carrying 2 bottles.
That was the end of the night. We never get enough sleep with so much to do, but at least we are seeing lots of amazing things.
Tomorrow we go on a tour of the area and then catch a bus to Sarajevo
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