Dubrovnic, Croatia

We then traveled to Dubrovnic, Croatia.

We were turned away from our first attempt to cross the border. 

Local traffic only, he said.

I didn't know anything about Dubrovniac when we arrived. It is an old mideaval town with a wall around out.

You can take a tour of the wall, which was highly recommended. We did it and absolutely no regrets. The tour of the wall was well worth it.



Us on the wall.

View through the wall.

We found a well on the wall and noticed it echoed really well so we thought of a song we all knew and sang. It took us a minute to get in sink, but I was surprised as we went along at how well it turned out.

Watch it here.

At another place with amazing acoustics we made some more noise: See here



In the city.



The view of the sea from the wall was breathtaking.





In the city!

Us being us:

Red Roofs:

It reminded me of Nice and Cannes with the red roofs on the houses.
Okay, I may love red roofs on houses.

We were sitting on the wall, deciding where to watch the sunset when Andrea read that there is a Serbian Orthodox church about to have mass. We decided to go!

The church was lovely. From what we read you stand through the entire service. It made me appreciate, for the first time, the stand-sit-kneel of a Roman Catholic mass. I never realized the alternative was that you stand the whole time! 

The men are on the left side, and the women on the right. Although we had read this before going in, we didn't really think of it when we seated ourselves and intermixed. Oops.

My boss is Greek Orthodox and has mentioned that they have chanters. Serbian Orthodox does too, so it was my first service with chanters. 

It was cool, but the hard thing was that I don't speak Serbian so I didn't understand any of it.

Mostly the entire service was singing.

One of the priests actually took out his i-phone during the service (while he was in front serving) and took a picture. We thought that was really...interesting. I'm not sure that is part of the Orthodox tradition.

We went to dinner at a place that sells traditional Dalmation cuisine. My meal (and I don't really love fish) was amazing. Totally not fishy tasting. I would advertise the place, but we were a little disappointed about the price.

We drove up to the top of Imperial Fort and got this view of Dubrovniac. The drive was incredibly uphill with sharp switchbacks. It is a two way street with only room for one car at a time. It creates for a somewhat challenging trip up there. Most people take the the tram, but it is expensive and we are all frugal :)

We then went to a concert by the Dubrovniac Symphony Orchestra.

The cool thing about this that in college I went on a study abroad to Paris. On that study abroad there was a guy named David Bassett. His family came to visit him in Paris while we were on the study abroad, and Andrea Bassett (my now travel companion and my sister's best friend) came with the family. On that trip her family went to an orchestra performance and it was then that she fell in love with orchestra performances. Serendipitously, here we are in the twist and turns of life, so many years later traveling together and going to an orchestra performance.

I love it.

Us with our Airbnb hostess!!

Dubrovnic is charming at night.