Dubrovnik

We had pretty high expectations for Dubrovnik. It is the city which is always mentioned in travel shows on Croatia and it was a long way out of the centre of Croatia. It was really well worth the trip down south though for several reasons. Seeing the old town (which we didn't really leave the whole time we were there) was great. It is your classic walled, narrow streeted European old town but perched above the sea and had to be the biggest city of its kind we have seen. The bluest sea, reddest roofs and cream stone was a lovely contrast making the town a joy to wander around (apart from all the hills). We took soooo many photos up the twisting streets with washing hanging from the windows that our memory cards were pushed for space.

The rebuilding of Dubrovnik was pretty awe inspiring as well, the place was all but levelled in 1667 and completely rebuilt and in more recent history the 1991 siege left a lot of damage, photos of which were scattered through out the town.

We organised accommodation in an old lady's apartment although on arrival she was in real state because she'd locked herself out, poor dear. We left our luggage in a neighbour's foyer and came back later when she had got back in.

That night we thought we'd try to get a hold of some non Croatian food and a restaurant nearby called Taj Mahal (or some similarly Indian sounding name) sounded good. Turned out to be a Bosnian restaurant!?! Great food though.

The next day we got up at a respectable hour and headed to a market, checking out some of the local produce and ending up at a bakery for brekkie. We then mounted the walls and walked the circuit which was quite long and exposed to the sun, we wouldn't really want to do it at midday in Summer. We were lucky that there weren't too many tourists about, Summer would be the pits though. The views from the walls were spectacular, another round of frantic camera clicking.

We then joined a cruise to the Elafiti islands which lasted most of the day. We visited three of the islands where we landed at small pretty towns and going for a dip at the final destination where we had to go on a fairly long hot walk to reach the stunning beach on the other side of the island. We had a brilliant fish lunch on board the boat and Nick continued his 'feeding the hungry fish of Croatia' mission, throwing hunks of bread overboard and watching the schools devour them.

Photos: Dubrovnik from the sea, Restored roof tops after the war, View over the city from the wall, Our fishy feast