champagne wishes and caviar dreams....: Dubrovnik, Croatia

Better late than never....

The end of May/early June Karl, Parker, and I took a 10 day Mediterranean cruise with Holland America to Dubrovnik Croatia, Corfu Greece, Olympia Greece, Santorini Greece, Athens, Kusadasi Turkey, and Messina Sicily! We had an absolute fantastic trip and are already looking into a Baltic cruise next Spring! Parker is a very seasoned traveler, so this wasn't hard on him at all (he's been transatlantic twice, all over northern and southern Italy, flew to Paris...the 10 month old has been in 6 countries already!). If anyone wants to see a lot of great places in a short amount of time, I highly recommend cruising and especially with Holland America. We were treated like pure royalty and Parker was the star of the ship (he was one of the only children and the youngest by far)!

I've decided that it's too hard just to do one blog, so I'll do one blog for each place we went (hopefully I'll have this done before we go to Venice/Northern Italy in August!).

Dubrovnik, Croatia was our first stop after a day at sea and it took my breath away. Have you ever been somewhere that was nothing like you imagined it would be? Dubrovnik is an ancient walled city that dates back to the 7th century BC and some even say to 6000 BC. It is seated in the subtropical Mediterranean with a warm southern climate, bright blue sky, and clear turquoise green and dark blue water that hug the rocky coastline, sandy beaches, and steep cliffs. The entire city is turned towards the sun and sea and is decorated with rich, colorful gardens, white walls, and terracotta roofs. (The pics are a little out of order..sorry!)

This is the widest street we found in Dubrovnik. Most streets are extremely narrow with stairs like those pictured below which is making it harder and harder to get people to live in the ancient city.

We thought this was so interesting...still no idea what these birds were fighting over.

Parker was checking out our first port from the window :)

The island of Lokrum right across from Dubrovnik. It is known for it's beauty, spas, and bathing resorts- it is completely uninhabited and has been since Napolean's occupation.

Fort St. John was the main defense for the harbor and one of the most important defense fortifications of the city and dates back to the 14th century.

Fort St. John

The water well in the cloister of the Dominican Monestary dating back to the 15th century. The Monestary is the treasury of cultural, artistic, and historical heritage of Old Dubrovnik. It is also the site of one of the oldest public libraries in the western world.