Exploring the Adriatic Sea Coastline

Our first post on this adventure comes from Dubrovnik, Croatia, situated on the coast of the Adriatic Sea with its warm climate this time of year (20C). We arrived here 4 days ago following a whirlwind stopover in Toronto and cottage country where we had 13 separate visits with family and friends over a 10 day period. We wish we had more time to spend with everyone but that is life now that we live on the other side of the country and don't find enough opportunities to return to our roots. As busy as it seems, it is always a treat to see everyone again and catch up on life and recent family additions.

After arriving in Dubrovnik we headed immediately to Kotor, Montenegro, further south along the coastline where we met up with our Swiss daughter and her boyfriend. We had 2 wonderful days there staying within the Old City walls in a 2 bedroom apartment and spent almost all of our time within the walled city that was mostly built between the 12th and 14th centuries. The narrow, winding, cobblestone streets made it an adventure every time we left our room. We even climbed the 1350 steps up to the fortress castle at the top of Old City. Not interested in duplicating our path back down we descended along a secondary path which we quickly found was not used very often, making it difficult in many spots to find the stone steps where the vegetation had overgrown the path. With a bit of scrambling we did make it back down and amazingly ended up less than 50 metres from our apartment patio.

Yesterday, on our way back to Croatia, we made a slight diversion to Trebinje in Bosnia-Herzegovina where we walked around the walled Old Town and enjoyed libations in the town square at an outdoor cafe on a nice, warm day. Our most interesting observation was of a nearby table where some locals were consuming multiple shots of a clear liquid (likely vodka since there is still lots of Russian influence here). When we cam back a few hours later after walking around the Old Town their table had grown in size, they were singing (actually sounding pretty good) and ordering more shots. We weren't sure we could keep up with them, drinking or singing, so we left. While in Trebinje we also made quick trips to an ancient bridge (1574, now pedestrian friendly) and a monastery situated on top of hill which provided scenic views of the town and surrounding area. The drive back to Dubrovnik involved another hassle-free border crossing and added a few more stamps to our passport.

The four of us spent today walking around the old walled city, including a wall top walk that was 2 km in length surrounding the city, and up to 25 metres high at some points. With the sea on one side and small forts at every corner, it would have been difficult to penetrate the high, thick walls when wars were fought without planes and missiles. Being over in Europe really helps you understand the importance and impact of history on our culture, something we don't all appreciate in our 'new world'. There are still many people living within the walls but in order to do so they need to sacrifice their privacy since thousands of people walk on top of the walls every day, and even more when the cruise ships pull in which they happened to do today. At the same time there have been many reminders on our trip so far (war memorials, waiting to be reconstructed buildings) about the 1991 - 1995 civil war that took so many lives in the former Yugoslavia. Tourism dollars are helping with the recovery and additional accommodations are rapidly being built.

The seafood has been abundant along the coast and we have had our share with more to come as we head further up the coast once we leave Dubrovnik in a few days.

Sretan Uskers (Happy Easter).

The Staples siblings re-union in Muskoka.

Old Town Kotor in one of the larger streets allowing for outdoor dining.

Looking back at some of the 1350 steps on our way to the fortress and castle at the top of the hill. The mid-way chapel, Our Lady of Health, was named after 14 people in the chapel safely survived a series of bombings during the civil war while many others perished.

After finding our way through several overgrowth patches on our way down we looked at the next segment and determined it was too late to turn back so we marched on.

During our visit to Trebinje in Bosnia-Herzegovina we wandered over to the pedestrian-only Arslanagic bridge that was built in 1574 for all vehicles at the time.....horse and buggy.

The local market in the town square in Trebinje........plants, food, clothes and herbs that looked suspiciously like something that is currently illegal in our home country.

View from the wall while walking around the Old City. Most of the non-church buildings were shops, museums or restaurants at ground level but homes above the street level.

View of the wall walk after the cruise ship tourists had boarded buses to take them back to their ship.

This was apparently the number 2 beach in Dubrovnik (the best beach wasn't much bigger).......small and still lots of small pebbles but at least devoid of the rocky coastline.