Rainy Dubrovnik

The Croatian government really needs to work on its marketing - to let tourists know what is available. There were no local references to the fact that the HBO series Games of Thrones is filmed there so if I did not know that before I left New York, I never would have had the adventure I had today. For fans who will understand the reference, King's Landing scenes are filmed in Dubrovnik. Sunday night, I googled the series to see if anything else was filmed right around Dubrovnik and found information that the large island right off the city was another film site. My next search was for the island, called Lokrum, which contains a nature reserve and is promoted as a good day trip out of Dubrovnik. Reading on was a small reference that Richard the Lionhearted visited the island off as he returned from the Crusades. He promised money to build a church on the island but the city fathers asked to use the money to build a church on the mainland instead. Of course with this tie to northern European history, I had to go out to the island.

The weather this morning was overcast which means that the boat did not make the 10:00 trip - they said come back at 11. At 11, the boat owners said to come back at noon. The weather did not look any better but for some reason the boat left so I made it to the island. There are about 20 sites on the island - a combination of nature sites on beaches and man made forts and churches so after stopping at the abbey remains and watching some strutting peacocks, I hiked to the fort on the top of the island. The trails were rather rough. Got there as the clouds turned really dark and the rain was visible out on the ocean - so now I have no idea why the boat didn't leave at 10 but made we wait until after noon to get to the island! The views of the city from the fort were magnificent but I decided to be smart and turn around and hike back to the part of the island with more people on it and the boat to take us off the island in case the weather got really bad. It turned out be a good idea as I was about halfway back when the skies opened up. Still, as I was soaking wet and as the boats only came back in hour increments, I figured I should finish the visit, seeing a beach with some neat rock formations and some lovely gardens with ties to the Austrian-Hungarian empire.

Once back in Dubrovnik - which clears out of tourists considerably in the rain, I visited the aquarium which had lots of eels and large ugly fish that I am very glad I did not know swam in the Adriatic when I ventured in earlier in the week and finished my trip by gorging myself on some cheese pastry made with philo dough that tasted really wonderful. The trip homes starts early tomorrow and while I am looking forward to returning home, I am definitely glad I got a chance to see parts of Croatia and the beautiful city of Dubrovnik.