We arrived on a Friday morning, quickly dropped our bags at our guesthouse and headed for the Old Town, stopping for roomys along the way. After a brief exploration we sought out Buza Bar on Yvette and Ryan's recommendation, where we spent several lazy hours swimming, playing rummy and drinking Radler (beer shandy with dry lemon instead of lemonade) while these kayakers paddled by.
Now this looks like the standard guidebook shot of Dubrovnik, but it was a calculated effort to capture it which involved some serious bundu-bashing. We'd seen it six times because of all the back and forth between Dubrovnik/Sibenik/London, but couldn't get a good snap. On our last morning we set our alarms early to beat the heat and trekked up the mercilessly steep hill, dodging a few tourist buses (there is no established pedestrian path). Voila! The pic on the right is taken from the city wall about 180 degrees from the lookout point on the left.
Walking the city walls at sunset is glorious. From up there you can still see the damage from the 1667 earthquake and the 1991 bombing, concealed at ground level. Considering what they have been through, Dubrovnik is polished and almost perfectly restored.
After Dubrovnik it was off to Sibenik, where we arrived the day after a Faithless concert :(
Disappointingly, we were told that we would stay in the marina for the first night (the initial plan was to start sailing at 4pm) but it gave us a chance to go shopping for food which took longer than we thought, and hoist our national flags. Here's a map of where we sailed.
Meet fellow South Africans living in London, Tanya and Kim. Because the majority of us was South African, our flag took pride of place, followed by the Union Jack for our two Brits (only one German on board, hence the teeny flag)
Crewatia! Sadly Tan is missing in this photo. On our last morning we rented bikes in Skradrin and cycled to this waterfall.
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| This little Rasta boat was called 'One Love'. Aw |
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| Another hard day in Croatia. Ho hum. |
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| Happy hour mojitos in Skradrin; Kornati sunset |
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| Tan and Kim; and Lara ('she wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny pink polka dot bikini') |
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| Warm and ever so slightly fermented Watermelon daiquiris. Awesome. |
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| This wasn't posed, we swear! |
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| Our mascots Coco and Pops caused much controversy. Here Coco is still smiling before his brother Pops was monkey-napped by the Swedes. I guess you had to be there. testosterone was in short supply on this yacht. |
El Capitano and his parrot. Sailor sisters.
Just another shit sunset in the Med ;) This one at Murter, where we had a memorable Greek dinner followed by a shimmy. So much fun that Adi came back with a stubbed toe and a serious slur.
Just another shit sunset in the Med ;) This one at Murter, where we had a memorable Greek dinner followed by a shimmy. So much fun that Adi came back with a stubbed toe and a serious slur.
Lara was our 'roaming fender'. Adi digging the donut, taking a break from being the anchor man.
Drinks and canapes aboard Babalas. Luckily we had five girls who all loved to cook.
Arriving in Skradrin ... finally (had left our yacht papers at the previous marina and had to turn back. It was the most scenic day of sailing so we were all happy to do it twice.
Some crazy mofos actually jumped off this rock. Yes Adi was one of them (you can't actually see the highest point in this photo).
We said our goodbyes back at Mandolina Marina where we had started and jumped on a bus at midnight back to Dubrovnik. While we killed a few hours waiting for our transfer to Montenegro, we had coffee at a tiny cafe next to the Gruz fresh produce market with some boisterous locals. It was 6am so we weren't sure if they were having a nightcap or breakfast, though the decibel level suggested the former.
Kotor was our base in Montenegro. Staying In Dobrota, which is 4km from the Stari Grad (Old Town), was the best thing we could have done. We rented bicycles and explored at our leisure, dunked ourselves in the sea regularly and chilled far from the madding crowd of the Old Town.
Here we are surveying the bay from the top of Mount Ivan. No words.
'We don't drink pink drinks Dave' (don't worry, the cocktail belonged to Phil). Sundowners on Palazzo Radomiri's private jetty was truly memorable. Afterwards we had dinner at Stari Mlini which is set around an old watermill on a river, all lit up with lanterns and utterly romantic. We also tested the local wine, Vranac.
Perast is the next hamlet in the beautiful Bay of Kotor, where Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas are rumoured to be looking for property. We cycled from Kotor, stopping to swim every 10 minutes because it was bladdy hot. A short boat ride deposited us on a small island where we could visit the blue-domed Church of Our Lady of the Rock. The entire tour was in Montenegrin, but it was quite nice to know that Montenegro is still relatively undiscovered so English isn't so pervasive.
We left Kotor very reluctantly and headed to Dubrovnik for one last night. Just before we had to leave for the airport we visited the War Photo Limited Museum which made a huge impression on us. Apart from the permanent exhibition documenting the Balkan wars, we were privileged to see conflict photos from the recent revolutions in Egypt, Bahrain and Libya.
We stayed in a really fun backpackers on our last night and thought this friendly note below deserved a mention. At the fresh produce market spent our last Kunas on gorgeous sun-ripened figs, which made it all the way back to London, leaving a trail of sticky fig juice behind us.
