Dubrovnik

Hotel Lapad on the harbour in Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik Old City walls

On our way from the airport to our hotel we noted the really rugged Croatian countryside. Huge mountains follow the thin coastal strip for the length of the Croatian coast. In Dubrovnik the mountains are very close to the sea and you get the feeling that they guard the coastline as a formidable barrier. It is not so long ago that Croatia was involved in war with neighbouring previously Yugoslavic states. Along the mountains there are stone walls that delineate the farms and surround the houses. As time went by we marvelled at the amount of these stone walls that stretched all the way along the coast for hundreds of miles.
The city of Dubrovnik bears the scars of the war and it is not difficult to find evidence of the conflict in the streets of the town. However there is a sense of ancientness, particularly in the old city, that withstands the passages of time and probably many wars. The old city is magnificent and Croatians are justly proud of it. We strolled the small alleyways and shops and sat and had a coffee amongst the buildings that are apparently from the 14th Century. I came across a vendor selling watercolour paintings of the city and we bought one as a souvenir. I have to say that Croatian ice cream is just gorgeous - or maybe it was just that we were having such a lovely time the ice cream reflected the way we were feeling!