Dalmatian Week without Black Spots

Today I finally have time to write up my memories of our trip a month ago.


In October we had the conventional autumn holiday and we made our long term wish to visit the Dalmatian coast to come true. Our main destination was Dubrovnik and Split as the secondary target. We thought the time to go there would be perfect because we like neither heat nor crowds of tourists. The temperature was about 23 degrees in the days and about 16 degrees in the evenings – the nights we tend to sleep nowadays.

Dubrovnik is a very old town – actually it has been a state competing with the mighty power of Mediterranean Venice. It has been sort of democracy where the rector was elected to rule only a month! During the colonial time Dubrovnik lost its power to more powerful countries like Spain, England and Holland and it was a part of the Austro-Hungary Empire, Yugoslavia and finally Croatia. The last dramatic period for the town was the siege and bombardment by the Serbian troops in 1991. The center of Dubrovnik is a UNESCO world heritage site and was destroyed very badly. Nowadays it has been restored quite well.

Split also has very long history. Its center is built inside the Palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian who happened to be a Dalmatian.  

Our apartment was situated one and a half kilometres from the center of Dubrovnik. It was quite near the sea and we had a balcony view to the twinkling Adrian.

On our balcony just after arriving

 On the other hand the sea was not so easy to reach, the steep rocky embankments were not too easy for Sini. So we went swimming only once near the apartment.  Sini is a very skilful swimmer but because her just operated shoulder she chose the pool instead the waves of Adriatic Sea – which happened to stay very calm all the time.  

Stairs to our nearby beach...

...which also was rather rocky

The second day was for Split. The distance between the cities is about 170 kilometers straight but because of the serpentine shape of the coastline road it would take about four hours! So we had a plan to stay there about three hours. Because some delays during the trip it took five hours so we had less than two hours in Split. The view to Adriatic Sea and its Archipelago was terrific and we surely had enough time to enjoy it.

Before we got there we had something else to worry about. Dubrovnik is separated from the rest of Croatia by territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. We had only the ID cards which work nicely in EU and Schengen countries but in that border control we should have had passports. We asked advice in advance from our hostess and she called some official and said it should be o.k. also with our ID cards. She also gave us some phone number for the case we would have some troubles with the matter. Luckily we didn’t need the phone number, everything went o.k. on the passport checkpoints.

Passport (??!!!) control at the Bosnia Herzegovinian border

According to our diminished schedule we had only time for eating and visiting the palace area which is a mixture of ancient Roman and medieval constructions. Anyway we had enough time to sense its powerful feeling of its area of greatness.

As it was October the sun started to set soon after we stated our way back to Dubrovnik. So the view was different this time, and rather dark after the sunset. 

The sudden sunset seen from the bus window

We were a bit worried about the safety of  travelling in the bus. Later we found out there has been a bus fire a week before our trip where a Finnish couple had managed to get out just in time.

The nice little nuance was the grenade apple given by a toilet lady in a bus stop station half way to Dubrovnik. We had the apple as a part of our breakfast next morning.

A breakfast with a grenade apple given by a toilet lady

The third day was committed to Dubrovnik center. We had two guided tours, the first in the streets and the other on the walls surrounding the old center.  Our first guide has lived his childhood in these narrow streets and seen the old shabby period, then the war period and the huge growth of tourism in current century.

The Serbs bombarded Dubrovnik from the hills behind the city

The main street seen from the walls

The walls of Dubrovnik, some stairs to climb when walking round the old city

A grumpy priest has written complaints on boys’ noisy football playing in the hoods our guide also used to play – in the 17th century!!  

Our guide and the ancient  anti-football graffiti made by a priest

The tiny church where the siesta of the priest was interrupted

The second guide on the walls was also very informative but on the other hand full of Croatian patriotism with not so accurate facts on the people and history of Dubrovnik.

The fourth day was for the Adriatic archipelago. We visited three islands near Dubrovnik. The trip was very well organized, we had car transportation to the harbor and there was enough food and wine on board. The weather was optimal for such a trip, sun was shining and there was no wind and waves. One of the islands was perfect for our beach life, we had more than an hour to swim and have some sunbath. The beach was on the other side of the island from the place we landed but we took a golf cart cab to get there.

Not so safe feeling drive to the beach

So peaceful and pleasant!

After swim Spritz

The other island was more rural with a nice fisher village. The third was quite near Dubrovnik so it seemed to be a sort of suburb. Anyway I had time to walk behind the houses and find a remote olive grove.

The harbor of the fisher village

A view of the fisher village

The olive grove behind the village

One night Sini broke her toes and this made her walking very uneasy. So the fifth day I took a walk to neighborhood of our apartment.  I ended up to a hill and walked for some time in the rocky and bushy slopes of it. I tried to look carefully to my feet to avoid stepping on any poisonous snakes living there. I only saw a rather long tail of a lizard escaping me and a dead snake. I also spotted a hiding mantis and some interesting butterflies.  

On the hill there was a chapel dedicated to St Blasius, a guy you have severe difficulties to avoid in Dubrovnik 

A view from the hill 

A view from the hill to the direction of the Lokrum Island 

An upside down mantis 

A whip snake - very rare and unfortunately also very dead

Macrtoglossum Stellatarum, a butterfly hovering like a humming bird

Buteo Lagopus, a buzzard we use to see in Finland on their way to Lapland

In the morning of our departure day we hired the taxi to the airport. I asked the taxi driver if he knew something about the burned bus. He replied he knows the owner of the bus and that the old buses of him overheat rather often. At the airport I had the first contact to my everyday life: I met my colleague Pirkko-Leena who also had been near Dubrovnik the same week. She told her husband knew about the burned bus but didn’t tell her because they had a plan to visit Montenegro by bus.

The last view to the Adriatic on our way to airport

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