Dubrovnic

Thank goodness we are visiting this beautiful coast and towns out of season! The thought that just one of the cruise ships that disgorged its passengers into the old walled city over the summer was longer than the whole length of its main street was too horrible to contemplate. As it was, there were enough people to create bustle but with lots of room to meander and move about. And the weather continued warm and sunny!


I had not really known what to expect of the town, despite avid reading of Lonely Planet, but it’s history as a defensive citadel to its long golden age of  trade and power, to its chequered recent events made me realise how little I knew of this part of the world's past. The city tour guide we had was born in Dubrovnik and during the war in the 1990’s had fought, married and had a child there. That the jewel of the Adriatic and UNESCO site should have been under attack – for no strategic reason - still was beyond belief to him.


And indeed it was utterly lovely, its pale gold stone walls and paved roads reflecting light up and down the narrow  shady streets , stairways and passageways, all watched over by numerous statues of St. Blaise holding a miniature city in his hand. Legend has it that this priest warned of a Viennese invasion and encouraged the building of the stone walls, which deterred them on that occasion.


What were the best bits? Finding the bathing rocks tucked around the corner from the harbour, backed by the wall, where locals were having an early swim. The numerous cats, all shapes and colours, lazing on ledges or scooting by on cat business. Views up or down each steep street, verdant with pot plants and  strung up with washing on lines. The Old Franciscan Pharmacy with its cache of mediaeval labelled pots and boxes. And buying fresh pomegranate seeds by the plastic bag from an elderly market woman to munch sweet and tart., a taste to bring back all the shadows of those that lived and died and adventured out from this stronghold over the centuries.


Other things that happened today
Ston – stone walls to guard salt pans – Dubrovnic wealth built  on them
Fish soup and oysters for lunch
Valley of plenty  - a silted estuary with canals and strips – unique tangerines – now being grubbed up as new trade rules of EU come in. Stop at road shack to taste tangerine liqueur and buy fruit.
Black Olives need rain to turn colour – none this year yet – maybe this pm
New bridge joining Crotia N and S by-passing the Bosnia seabord and Neum port – implications for Toll and trade.
Swimming after sunset with moon and Jupiter rising and fishing boat lights.