Chris and I have been talking about going to Dubrovnik for over a decade now and we finally got around to doing it.

Despite Croatia being a very small country, it took us more than a day to get from Cres to Dubrovnik. We traveled in style however.

By next morning we were in Split…

And a few hours later in Korcula.

Dubrovnik is Croatia`s tourism hot-spot and they are seriously working on competing with world class hotels. They are fairly successful at it, but there are some systematic problems that creep up, but considering that the whole area was devastated during the war in the `90s, they are doing quite well.

Of the whole walled city, my favorite part was the main gate antechamber, a large open air `room` with solid walls on all sides and two cute lacey looking lanterns in the middle.

The second day we were there, we decided to take an excursion boat to the nearby islands. We booked the boat at the hotel and showed up at the appointed time only to be picked up by the wrong boat (did I mention systematic hospitality problems?). It was no matter though because there were two other families who were also stowed away without their knowledge. The boat, Roditelj, was actually really cool and it turned out to be the oldest boat in Croatia.

After the stop on the first island, Kolocep, we straightened everything out and got onto our assigned boat (which had actual sides and shade – more appropriate for a baby). The islands around Dubrovnik are very similar to the islands I used to vacation as a kid and I got quite nostalgic. Bathing on the rocks, though the best thing in the World, requires some skill so we decided that it would be too difficult with Owen so we had a swim on the beach in the town of Lopud.

The next day we had a walk on the walls. Because Owen categorically refuses to have anything on or near his head, we had to do the walk early in the morning and only did one stretch of the wall.

Up until about five years ago, the walled town was the center of Dubrovnik and all people living in Dubrovnik (old and new part) went to the old town to shop and get their business done. Over the last few years, the rent has gone up and some older people have sold their houses for exorbitant prices to people who do not stay there. There are some incentives for people to live in the old town year round. You can get up to 10,000 kn (2,000 CAD) a year per child, entrances to movie theater and other entertainment is free and the city covers the cost of installing internal air-conditioning. I hope that these incentives work and people keep living inside the city walls. It would be very sad if Dubrovnik turned into another Venice. It is still not too late, look at the vegetable garden someone is keeping just inside the city walls:

We had a chance to see a few museums of which I particularly liked the modern art gallery. But, I do tent to be fond or those.