Day 13: Croatia in the heat

Apologies for no blogging yesterday, but we were at sea all day and there wasn't much to report.

It was probobaly the hottest day we've had today, energy sapping and much sweat inducing - but we must still soldier on, I hear that there has been torrential rain in Blighty.

We docked in the historic Croatian city of Dubrovnik this morning, the "sail in" was dramatic, passing picturesque little islands and with rocky hills on both sides of the water. After breakfast we took the port shuttle bus into the Old City and began exploring as earnestly as the heat would allow.

 

The Old City of Dubrovnik is an amazing medieval fortified town by the sea front, it's a warren of narrow streets and old tall buildings surrounded by a massive thick wall. We were both really impressed with how clean, organised and well preserved everything seemed - this is all the more remarkable considering a lot of the city had been badly damaged by heavy fighting in the Balkan conflict in the 90's. http://youtu.be/7H1SOqCpxi4

It was very busy, tourists everywhere, we saw 101 Dalmatians - not the film, just a crowd of locals... (I've been working on that joke since Genoa!)

Every port visit includes a refuelling stop in a little café; coffee, wifi and relaxing being essential to our routine, and today was no exception. Wifi in cafés is a big deal in these resorts and it's widely available, on every table there are tourists with iPads, mobile phones etc. surfing the "inter web", in fact many people walk out of some cafés if there isn't wifi, or the signal is poor.

We took a cable car ride up to the high ground above the town and took in the views before descending to another eatery and more coffee. Many of the alleys and passageways in the Old City are steep and twisty and at the particular pizzeria we chose the street side furniture was perched at such a precarious angle that our glasses of water kept sliding across the table!

Finally beaten by the oppressive heat we retreated to the air conditioned sanctuary of the ship, this has been our last stop before we finish in Venice tomorrow, and it could not have been more pleasant - Dubrovnik? Highly recommended!