Well, it’s been too long. No, not since I last blogged… that was very recent, in fact. Nay, it’s been – or rather, it had been – too long since we went on a fancy vacation. We had our jaunts back in the olden days, with no kids or with one kid. But since Nora was born (2018), it’s been pretty low-key. She’s kind of unimpressed that she hasn’t even set foot out of Canada!
Anyway, having moved west (a year ago now), we’re that much closer to Carrie’s parents, who’ve hinted in the past that they would watch our kids if Carrie and I wanted to take off somewhere. Now that we live closer to them, it’s much more practical to take them up on it.
And so, sometime in the summer, we decided we’d ditch the kids (sorry Nora!) and take a little trip. And we thought it could be fun to have another couple along, so we invited along our good friends and former travel buddies, Reuben & Irene from Ottawa.
On the menu: some parts of Croatia, then Budapest (Hungary), then Prague (Czechia).
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| Study this map or else! green = airplane, blue = car, purple & red = train |
We found KLM flights for Edmonton-Calgary-Amsterdam-Dubrovnik, then back from Prague-Amsterdam-Edmonton. Our friends in Ottawa found flights that started with a coach bus to Montreal, then Montreal-Amsterdam-Dubrovnik. Last I checked, Ottawa was closer to Europe, but somehow our flights from Edmonton were cheaper!
Well, early October came around, and we were greeted with news of strikes happening at KLM. This was a little concerning, but what actually ended up causing delays was major wind at Schiphol airport that caused all sorts of flight disruption. We were informed that our Calgary-Amsterdam flight was delayed and would land about 10 minutes before our scheduled connecting flight took off for Dubrovnik. Not cool. At the first layover, we hung out in Calgary airport for six hours or something.
Another wrench was that we didn’t have boarding passes for our KLM flight out of Calgary. The app just said they weren’t available. And with no KLM desk in Calgary, we asked Westjet (the domestic leg partner) what was up. They didn’t have much of an answer except to say we should talk to the gate people once they showed up shortly before the flight. Over lunch, we kept checking the app, while also being tempted to spend a couple hundred bucks on extra legroom. Once staff showed up at the departure gate I went and talked to them. Turned out there was no boarding pass issue; but while I was there I asked if maybe there were seats with more legroom, and suddenly we had better seats... free upgrade! That makes flying SO much better.
Fortunately for us our ETA was updated to give us over an hour in Amsterdam to make our connecting flight. Better, but still doubtful. But the pilot knew what he was doing, or maybe I paid him off, because between flooring it and finding a tailwind, we made it well in time. Ground speed topped out at 1130 km/h, about 200 faster than normal.
After landing in Schiphol and being assured by a flight attendant that we had plenty of time to catch our next flight, we headed to passport control, where the lineup was of course very long. But since we had a flight to catch, we got to take the short line to skirt the crowd. And as we’re standing in the short line, look who’s 10 feet away in the long line… Reuben and Irene! Their flight had landed on time, so they had the pleasure of standing in the long line for over an hour.
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| Our intrepid traveller friends |
Anyway, we all got through passport control around the same time and headed to the departure gate with not much time to spare. But we made it! The next flight was uneventful and we all landed in Dubrovnik a couple hours later.
DUBROVNIK
Croatia has only quite recently adopted the euro as its currency. (Fun facts: there are EU countries that have not adopted the euro, and there even non-EU countries that do use it.) Having done my homework, I knew to be wary/paranoid as to how/where to withdraw funds, and I didn’t want to use an airport ATM. Our airbnb host had lined up a driver to take us into town, and he wanted to be paid in cash, but since we didn’t have enough euros on us yet, I paid partially in some US dollars I had handy, which he didn’t seem to mind.
Later, and in each subsequent country, I would find a decent ATM and take out enough cash for all of us; while you can only do so much about exchange rates, at least we got to split the bank fees with Reuben and Irene.
Croatian is a highly phonetic language, so once you’ve learned how to pronounce some of their diacritics and digraphs, it’s fairly straightforward to figure out how to pronounce place names and things. That said, Croatian is nothing like English, so we didn’t learn much besides “good day” and “thank you”.
Dubrovnik is a coastal city near the southern tip of Croatia, which lies east of Italy across the Adriatic Sea. The city has become extremely popular due to some popular TV show that was filmed there. Cruise ships stop there, dumping scads of tourists for much of the year. Even in October it was fairly busy, so I cannot fathom how horribly busy it would be in the summer!
Being our southernmost destination of the trip, we figured we should hit it first, to increase the chance of decent weather. Well, the first day wasn’t that nice. After landing around noon, we dropped our luggage off at the airbnb and headed into town. Our lodging was a bit of a walk from the old town, which isn’t normally so bad, but outside of the walled old town, Dubrovnik is built on a hillside. You’re either going uphill or going downhill… hard to avoid.
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| Braving the elements |
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| Local cuisine... the first of many! |
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| This can't be right! |
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| Stairs everywhere! |
The town wasn’t too busy, and we wandered around to get the feel of the place. Later in the day though, it started to rain. Normally that’s not too big of a deal; we had coats for that sort of thing. Except then it rained a little harder, and then more, until it absolutely poured. We could hole up in a restaurant, but there was no end in sight. Oh, and the old town has no vehicle traffic, so no calling an Uber. Home we trudged, getting wetter and wetter until it simply didn’t matter because we were utterly soaked.
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| Gate to the old town |
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| Weather was iffy, so we got the place nearly to ourselves! |
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| Thoroughly drenched by this point. Minor runoff issues in this town = stair waterfall! |
At the airbnb, we had to change our clothes and see about drying things off. Now, most places seem to have a washing machine but no dryer, so you hang your stuff out and hope for the best. The blower dryer was essential for our shoes, although they took a day or two to dry thoroughly. I had taken my trusty Crocs along, so I was good to go while my other shoes dried.
Being a conscientious visitor, I tend to have our passports on me at all times. They were safely in my waterproof jacket pocket during the rainstorm. Except, whether the pocket decided not to be waterproof, or maybe I opened it to add my wet phone, the passports got a little wet. Just enough to wash out the colour on our photos. The photo page is plastic… or at the least the front of it is. If the back of the page gets wet, the water just seeps right in and ruins things.
So I decided we would probably need new passports. The rest of the group was decidedly more optimistic than I was, but I didn’t want to end up being denied boarding somewhere due to some misplaced optimism. Thus began the quest to replace our passports.
That rainy episode aside, we had decent weather in Dubrovnik.
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| Our glorious view from the apartment! |
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| Okay, it's actually this, but we just had to look right for the better view. |
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| Ahhh... coffee in Europe just hits the spot. |
We walked on the walls of the old town, which encircle it completely and offer spectacular views throughout the 2km route. The cost is extravagant, but it needs to be done.
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| Beautiful wifey |
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| Man friend showing some leg |
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| Found a drinking establishment on the wall! (Lokrum Island in the background.) |
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| A view of the entire walled city |
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| Another drinking establishment... outside the wall |
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| What's a dryer? Everyone gets a clothesline. |
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| Taking in the view of the Adriatic. Italy is 200km across the way. |
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| Some very high walls and lots of climbing |
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| Cramped conditions down there |
Everything in the old town is expensive. If you want to save money you need to go out beyond the walls. We happened to be in the suburbs east of the old town, where there’s not much of anything to offer, so going way west where we might have enjoyed cheaper restaurants and shops wasn’t feasible. So we held our noses and contributed to the economy.
Off the main streets and squares, the lanes are tiny and, in much of the old town, all stairs. Many restaurants use half of their tiny street for seating, making for cozy conditions.
It was great not having to worry about car or scooter traffic. Also notable was the complete lack of graffiti, hawkers, and homelessness. Everything was very clean and orderly. I can’t be sure the rest of the city is like that, since we didn’t venture beyond the old town too much. I imagine the walled and touristy old town is the exception, as it’s small and easier to control.
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| Efficient restaurant seating, but not very private when it's busy in town. |
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| Tiny courtyard |
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| Perhaps the narrowest street we encountered |
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| If I move here to retire, I'll need to stoop a little more. |
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| At least the plants enhance the experience. |
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| Custom furniture |
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| An alleyway drink |
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| Stairs and more stairs |
There is a large island nearby called Lokrum, which contains a monastery (built 1000 years ago), a botanical garden, remains of a military fortress, a salt lake, and peacocks. We took a ferry to it and spent a few hours walking the trails and taking in the sights.
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| Our ride awaits |
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| Ruins on Lokrum Island |
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| Spectacular views of the mainland... |
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| ...and of Dubrovnik in particular. |
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| I had to get one geocache on my trip! |
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| No pipe smoking? Are they worse for fires than cigarettes?! |
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| Much walking required, of course. |
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| Cool trees |
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| Island fauna |
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| Carrie braved the sea... only about that far though. |
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| Chilling in the sun |
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| Old monastery |
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| The throne from the Game of Thrones show! If you care (which we did not). |
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| The Dead Sea (a variation) |
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| Fort ruins atop the island. |
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| Back to the safety of the walled city! |
Back on the mainland, there’s a fort to the west of the walled city that dates back a millenium. Its seaward walls are up to 39 feet thick while the town-facing walls are only 2 feet thick. Apparently a thousand years ago the Venetians loaded up their boats with supplies to come over and build a fortress at this spot, but the locals got wind of their plans and beat them to it. Otherwise Dubrovnik would have ended up under the control of Venice. We checked out the fort, which afforded nice views of the city and the sea.
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| Keeping an eye out for Italians. |
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| View of the fort from the city wall |
We checked out a Franciscan church/monastery/museum. Fun fact: it contains a pharmacy that started in 1317, and it's still running! Hopefully the medication and the staff aren't original.
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| They framed an embedded projectile from the Yugoslav siege of Dubrovnik in 1991. |
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| Monk stuff |
Speaking of war stuff, there was a sign posted upon entering the old town, showing all the locations of damage that occurred in the walled city during the 1991-92 war.
We kept walking past a fancy looking building, so we eventually decided to see what was up. Enter Sponza Palace, a 16th-century palace-turned-museum (and state archive). The oldest documents date back to 1022.
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| Ancient chest with sweet locking mechanisms |
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| Ancient clock guts |
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| Chillin' en la palazzo |
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| Fancy room with a carriage thingy they held on poles |
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| Got relegated to the dungeon |
We spent two full days enjoying Dubrovnik. I was a little tempted to head over to neighbouring Bosnia, being so tantalizingly close (20-minute drive), but we didn’t have that kind of time.
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| Mount Srđ rises above the city. We sadly didn't make time to go up for the view. |
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| Carrie spotted an ethnographic museum so we saw some traditional stuff. |
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| The port, looking out. Our suburb was beyond view on the hillside. |
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| Ruins |
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| The main street by day. Very shiny surface (not wet)! |
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| Main street by night |
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| Reuben was deathly ill for half the trip. Doing drugs and puffers all day. |
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| Another cozy restaurant |
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| Delicious food |
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| Old port bastion at dusk |
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| Old port at night |
On the last morning in Dubrovnik, I walked over to the Enterprise office to pick up our rental car. I had planned to cover the rental insurance with my credit card, but that was going to result in a $6000 hold on the card, which I wasn’t thrilled about. I opted for their in-house insurance, which wasn’t too bad because the rental was for only two days.
I was about to leave the rental place with my too-tiny SUV when the guy helping me said I would actually need a permit to drive to our airbnb, as it was on a street that was restricted to use by locals only; if I tried, a municipal camera would catch me and I (via Enterprise) would get a fine at some point. Luckily a chat with our airbnb hosts resolved that fairly quickly, as they could authorize a vehicle for temporary access. The quirky things you don’t learn while researching vacations…
Anyway, I made it back to the group, and we loaded up and headed north. We would spend the next four hours enjoying a drive along the Adriatic coast on our way to the city of Split.
