We're staying outside the Old City at an adorable airbnb with a sea view. This morning we walked the 15 minutes to the Old City to explore the wall, a very hot but totally worth it 350-degree panorama of the city and the sea.
The walls were originally built to protect this ancient trading city from invaders and storms. They still stand today, and actually protected Dubrovnik during Croatia's war with Serbia in the early 1990s. (Un-fun fact: all the red roofs are new, meaning those buildings were bombed in 1991/2.)
Waking around the top is like being in a King Arthur book (don't worry I've read them all), except for significantly sweatier.
After the wall we stopped by Taj Mahal, which despite its name serves authentic Bosnian food, for a light lunch. However, if your wallets happen to be heavier than ours, I highly recommend this place for a heavy lunch. Or dinner. The meat and tziki bureh was a delicious philo dough roll of the most flavorful meat ever. I think this is one of the best dishes I've had on this trip. Then I just had a gazpacho, which was quite prettily served.
After a leisurely lunch, we made our way to the southern-facing outside of the wall where there is a tiered bar built into the rock and below that rocks to sunbathe on and/or jump off of. I swam and climbed on rocks while two of my comrades jumped from quite the high heights!
At 5pm we reconvened just outside the city walls for a subset kayak tour. It was 35 euro for about 3 hours, and actually a surprisingly challenging amount of kayaking! We kayaked past the harbor, along the coast a bit, then around the Lokrum Island in the middle of the bay. Unfortunately, the sun is late in setting these days, so we landed before it hit the water (dear kayak tour, better timing next time please). But we went back to our seaside rocks to watch the sunset from that point.
More about Dubrovnik on its way...this city is just too awesome to be captured in one post!
