Dubrovnik: Croatia’s Coastal Gem

February 18th, 2008

The coast of Croatia was absolutely breathtaking (pics are posted on facebook!). We were back in the countries where we had sort of figured out the language (Croatia and Bosnia speak same language as in Serbia but in Kosovo the Albanian is totally different). So we attempted to interact with locals, using our new-found foreign vocab, "Hvala" (Thank you), "Molim" (please), "Zdravo"(hello), and most importantly "Topla cocolada" (hot chocolate!!) which is really more like thick chocolate pudding served in a mug…sinfully delicious!!

The night before our arrival to Dubrovnik, we had taken a night bus paaaacked with people to Montenegro's capital, Podgorica. It seemed to be filled with construction workers headed outside of Kosovo to arrive on-site before dawn. Even with ZERO seats left on the bus and people crowding the isle, the bus continued stopping and picking up people off the streets in the middle of the night. We got dumped at 4 am at a bus stop in the middle of Podgorica and from there walked with a young cinematography team of two Serbians and an English girl to the bus station where we waited till 6am to take the next bus along the coast to Dubrovnik. The coast along Montenegro and Croatia is simply gorgeous and a must during the summer months of June, July, and August (apparently packed with mostly European tourists). There is one town in particular that I was able to keep my tired eyes open for that was simply amazing...a walled city from the medieval times on the Montenegro coast where a couple of islands with lighthouses reach out to it.
Dubrovnik itself was simply stunning and the food..."succulent"! People are very friendly and we stayed at a guest house on the top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the beach. Too bad it wasn't summer- however, il faut dire, it was nice and sunny the next two days we stayed. The day before we were to fly back to Paris, we took a morning bus to the city of Split and spent the afternoon in a beautiful port town, already flooded with tourists (It's a special city because the roman emperor Diocletian had his summer home there and parts of it are still in decent shape). The near to last stop was Paris, where we stayed at my friend Sheerin's place for the night (who lived with my Nantes host family two years previous to me), walked a bit around Paris and then headed to Nantes briefly during the morning-afternoon to spend some time with a dear French friend of ours who I hadn't seen in years, Julie Ouvrard (who was our French assistant at Hope) and I got to "chismear" (gossip) with the IES Nantes director who I have always been fond of. She was who was responsible for placing me with my Nantes host family, the Bruns and whom I will always be very grateful to.

Ok, got to go help out a Catholic group today...hope you've enjoyed the read!

In pictures

Kyle on the wall that surrounds the old city and me facing the walled city and the Adriatic sea