Boy, have the last two nights been noisy! The rock bands continued performing until the early hours, less than 100 meters from our caravan. As everyone knows caravans are not known for being particularly soundproof, so it was a bit like having the performers in the van with us! At least that’s out of the way now…..
Sunday we nipped up the road to the airport to collect Karen and Geoff, who had flown in from Leeds Bradford – an early start for them as they took off at 7.15 a.m. so they were with us just after 11 a.m.
The remainder of this is our version of events whilst the Howletts were with us, as we are expecting their ‘guest blog’ any day now – let’s see if the two versions coincide!
At lunch back at the caravan we were alarmed when Karen spotted a ‘snake’ slithering along the foot of the wall at the back of our pitch. It disappeared into said wall, so we were a bit perturbed to be sharing our ‘home’ with a potentially dangerous snake. I Google’d ‘snakes in Croatia’ and was reassured that all but four are harmless. It didn’t look like one of the four, but further reassurance was provided by the girls at reception, who when we described this brown snake told us that it was in fact a lizard without legs, was harmless, and actually ate snakes!
Karen (particularly!) and Geoff were pretty bushed so we had a quiet afternoon by the pool and a few beers and some food back at the caravan.
We’d decided to try out the ‘put up’ bed for the Howletts, so we set about making it up, and Grant dictated ‘house rules’ about ablutions – basically they had to pop out to the toilet block if the need arose! It was quite strange all four of us effectively sleeping in the same small room, but it seemed to go OK and everyone got a decent nights sleep.
Monday was a beautiful day, so we set off and walked to Lapad for some breakfast, about 20 minutes away, and then had a pleasant walk around the peninsula, which was dotted with swanky hotels and restaurants – all with fabulous views over the sea.
We’d also been told that the cruise ships didn’t arrive on Mondays (not true!) so we decided to visit the Old Town and walk the walls later on in the afternoon when hopefully it would be little cooler and not as busy. This was a good call, and we spent almost 2 hours walking the perimeter of the city, admiring the incredible views and taking lots of photos.
Dubrovnik has to be one of the most picturesque cities in the world; amazing views in all directions. We stopped off for a quick glass of wine before dinner – we’d found a wine bar when we came into Dubrovnik last week so thought we’d give it a try – just the one drink though as it was horrendously expensive! We were all hungry then so called in at one of the many many restaurants (Restauran Mirakul) for pasta and pizza. An unusual twist on the Pizza Calzone is that it is served here with a creamy sauce and sliced hard boiled egg on top! Then back on the bus to the campsite – they certainly cram the passengers onto the buses here, there were more of us standing than seated.
After another good nights sleep we set off again for Dubrovnik, this time to do the other ‘must see’ of our stay – the cable car which takes you to the top of Mount Srd, again giving fantastic views of the city and coastline. It’s quite a slog uphill to the cable car station which is part way up the mountain and outside the old town walls but once there we didn’t have to wait long to get on, and the very smooth journey up the mountainside only takes a few minutes. Once we could get near the viewing platform (yes, lots of Japanese tourists taking endless photos!) we had fabulous views and again took lots of photos ourselves. When we visited Dubrovnik last week we came across a building which had wall posters outside giving details of the Serbo-Croat war in the early 1990’s, and it mentioned the it was easy to see the extent of the damage to Dubrovnik by looking at the rooftops – they are all made of terracotta pantiles but the newer ones are much brighter and more orange coloured than the old ones – the vast majority are new. It’s clear that the war wounds are still fresh here – they’re very proud of the fact that Dubrovnik – attacked completely out of the blue by Serbian and Montenegrin forces in 1991 – was able to resist and didn’t fall to the invaders. However, it’s clear there’s still no love lost between these countries, and Montenegrin cars are still quite liable to be vandalised in Dubrovnik.
Wednesday we decided to ring the changes and explore the coastline back towards Split and specifically the Peljesac peninsula. We’d been last week and bought wine, but we’d managed to drink that so Grant decided he needed more. We’d also been talking to a friendly Brit on the campsite and he’d mentioned an amazing place for lunch on the peninsula so we decided to make the journey and try out his recommendation. We stopped at Ston for a coffee – Croatians don’t understand the idea of a large coffee, they are all small – and then headed back to the winemakers for more supplies.
I think the sales guy hit his target for the month when Grant asked for 10 litre bottles!
We then went in search of the small fishing village (Hodilje) and restaurant that had been recommended – amazingly we found it as we’d had very few instructions once we reached the village but we turned up at what looked like someone’s house and were led out onto the patio area which was right by the sea. We could see immediately why it had been recommended – a beautiful view with the sea right up to the edge of the restaurant.
We stayed for three courses, plus coffee, and swam in-between in the warm Adriatic. It was fantastic! We’d noticed what the three Croatian guys on the next table were ordering and this swung our thinking – mussels, litres of local wine, with sea bream, swordfish, and king prawns. All wonderful.
The biggest Croatian guy was in danger of losing his money out of his back pocket, so Geoff let him know, and exchanged a few pleasantries (they all speak good English here) and then the waitress brought us a second litre of wine compliments of our neighbours as a thank you! I couldn’t help out as I was driving, so Karol, Geoff and Karen had to polish it off between them! We reluctantly said our farewells at around six in the afternoon and drove the hour back up the coast to Dubrovnik.
Thursday the weather was really close – it was like being wrapped in a blanket! We walked down to the harbour where the cruise ships come in – there were 3 in on Thursday, one in particular was enormous!
We were relieved we had already seen the main attractions in Dubrovnik, as the old town would be much busier with such an influx of tourists. It rained a little on the walk back, but we stopped off at the Tommy supermarket for a few more provisions, had a leisurely lunch, and staggered down to the pool for a couple of hours.
On Friday we decided to drive the 45 km south to Montenegro for a day out. Debi had bought us a guide book, which described it is the Adriatic Fjords, so whilst it wasn’t suitable for us to visit with the caravan, it certainly merited a day trip.
All went well until we got to within 400 yards of the border, when everything ground to a sudden halt. I was a bit surprised, as I had almost expected no border control at all, as both Croatia and Montenegro were in the EU, although only Montenegro used the Euro. The temperature was approaching 30 degrees, so we left the engine running, and 90 minutes later passed out of Croatia. Frankly I was pretty fed up by this time, and for two pins would have turned round and headed back, but at least we were through. A kilometre on we came across the Montenegrin border control, where once again we queued; 45 minutes this time, although the queue was only about 50 meters long. It seemed to take them an age!
When eventually we got to the front of the queue, we handed over the four passports, and on request a copy of our registration document for the car, and our Insurance Certificate. The female customs officer was not happy that my registration document was a copy, but reluctantly accepted it. However, she rejected my insurance certificate insisting that I show her a Green Card. Now, I know my motor insurance law, and in EU countries there is no need to show a Green Card – an insurance certificate is perfectly acceptable. I pointed this out to her, but she insisted that I needed a Green Card. I was equally insistent, saying that I was an Insurance Broker (strains of ‘do you know who I am?’ I’m afraid) and I knew in all EU countries my insurance certificate was sufficient evidence of insurance. “As Montenegro is in the EU this is sufficient!” I was almost shouting by this time; this was the last straw after such a long unnecessary wait.
“But we’re not in the EU yet, although we hope to be in about a year” she replied sweetly, “So you will need a Green Card. You can buy one here for fifteen Euros, or you can turn round and go back.”
“Ah,” said I, deflating like a punctured balloon, and meekly paid up so that we could at long last enter Montenegro. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but in future I’m going to check on the status of every country we visit, and will not assume that just because the Euro is their currency that they are an EU member!
Frankly, we were so keen to get out of the car after all this drama that we stopped at the first town, Herczeg Novi, paid for 3 hours parking, had a drink, something to eat, a walk round the old walls, and then set off back to do the same tortuous journey in reverse.
Incidentally, what we saw of Montenegro was breathtakingly beautiful, and had we felt inclined to go further, we would have seen even more spectacular scenery. I’m certainly up for going back and spending a few days there, but this time I’ll make sure I have all my documents in order beforehand!
Thankfully the return through border control only took an hour rather than the three it took to get in, so as it was still relatively early we stopped off at Cavtat, a peninsula just south of Dubrovnik. This proved to be the highlight of the day, as Cavtat is stunning, and we had a pleasant walk around the peninsula, where we stopped off for a drink, and our evening meal, watching the sun go down over the bay. We then retraced our steps to the car park, which was about a 30 minute walk. We later discovered that had we continued in our original direction, in 400 yards we would have been back at the car park as it was a circular walk! Oh well, live and learn eh?
We’ve enjoyed the pool so much we headed there again for a leisurely morning on Saturday, with Karen, Karol and Grant taking part in the aqua aerobics class – we could justify another glass of wine later without feeling too guilty! A couple of the cruise ships left while we were there so we had a great view of them gliding out of the Dubrovnik harbour.
We’d wanted to fit in a boat trip, also to return to Cavtat, so we managed to combine these by getting the bus back down to Dubrovnik Pile Gate and walking/pushing our way through the old town to the old harbour and just managing to get one of the last boats to Cavtat.
As it was quite windy the boats were not sailing back after 7pm but we were told we could get the bus back, so we paid for our tickets and got on to enjoy the choppy ride down the coast. Whilst we were waiting to set off we saw two wedding parties – some of the boats are ‘Event Boats’ – I’m not sure if the wedding is held on the boat or on the mainland but they were certainly very glamorous weddings!
Cavtat was as beautiful as we remembered, so Karen and I checked out the location of the bus stop while the boys watched a highly competitive water polo match which took place in the sea. The incredible super yachts we had seen the previous evening had left but there was still plenty of boating activity to watch while we sipped our cocktails – it’s a hard life! We found a great place for dinner, right on the sea front, then made our way to the bus stop.
The bus journey was fine, however we hadn’t thought through that we wouldn’t know where we would be dropped off in Dubrovnik, or how to find the bus stop for the number 6 bus to take us back to the campsite. Luckily we followed a group of young girls who were sensibly using their phones to get directions to the old town, so after a steep 10 minute walk downhill we found familiar landmarks and managed to get the bus back. Thankfully the music at the site stopped not long after we’d all gone to bed!
The next morning we were up bright and earlyish to take Karen and Geoff back to the airport for 10am. We’ll miss them. Nice to have the caravan back for just us though – clouds and silver linings eh?