Ciaran Connolly

Unfortunately, as I’m sure any of you who have been in Croatia before are aware, there is no train service to Dubrovnik from Split, which would link the second biggest city, the largest on the coast, with the biggest tourist attraction in the country. Mind-boggling oversight, but what can ya do, eh?

Which meant getting a stinky bus for 4 hours, and again breathtaking views all the way down, so long as you’re sitting on the right hand side of the bus! Totally unneccessary 20 minute stops dotted the route, but gives the passengers a chance to stretch their legs, get some fresh air. The bus passes through Bosnia and then back into Croatia, which meant 4 passport checks, one on either side of both borders. Again, wasting time and unnecessary.

Arriving in Dubrovnik is confusing, as we passed through a lot of towns thinking this must be it, this must be it, THIS must be it. And eventually we go over a fantastic bridge á la Luas Dundrum, around a bend, doing a complete loop and under the same bridge, and arrive at the bus station. As we worked out our next move on the platform, an exceptionally friendly man introduced himself and offered us his hostel. We told him the name of our hotel, and we was sound enough to give us a lift there, as it was close to his place. As he waited for the passenger he was expecting off the bus (who never arrived) we ate in a roadside cafe he recommended. Sausage in beans, not as exotic even as it sounds. Along with something we thought might have been left out for the for the dog but turned out to be part of my meal. Nice beer.

So he gives us a lift anyway, and we almost took his wine from the boot by accident! It had been in a plastic bag along with our various bags, but laughs all round, all good in the hood.

Kompas hotel, in Lapad, which is around the bend, in the next bay from the Old Town. Very, very friendly service. Bronco at reception took excellent care of us, we both give this place a huge thumbs up. Room with a balcony overlooking the ocean.

Natalie only had the evening to see Dubrovnik, as she was flying back to Ireland in the middle of the night to attend the graduation of her MASTERS DEGREE IN MARKETING (applause all round). So first thing was first, see the old town. Only one thing for it: rent a moped! Carefully holding my Provisional Driver’s License so that my thumb covered the block capitals on the front stating that “THIS LICENSE IS ONLY VALID IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND AND IS BASICALLY NOT A REAL DRIVER’S LICENSE”, Bronco gave me the all-clear, the forms to fill out, and more importantly, the keys to this little puppy.

Sexy, eh? First night, not gonna lie. I was a tad reckless. I just reckon it’s safer to know how fast it can go than find out going down a hill after my brakes fail me. So after a trial run, she hops on the back and we zooooomed into town, (apart from that one killer hill where i was just praying the 50cc engine wouldn’t give up and we’d start sliding back down…) Old Town is beautiful. Especially at night. Dubrovnik is pedestrianised inside her fantastic, monumental stone walls, so the quaint, quiet streets are perfect for just meandering curiously and easily. LOTS of jewellery stores, a fair spattering of tacky souvenir stores, and some local shops, by far the better value for food and drink. The harbour is full of colourful, jolly little fisherboats, the pier is authentic and complete with the bundles of old, well-used ropes, lots of fishing-type old stuff, and fat cats sleeping and fighting over the scraps of little fish left out. There are lots, and lots, of cats in this town. Gorgeous. Only word.

 

 

We ate dinner in one of the squares, delightful mussel risotto for Nat, I can’t remember. Croatian sounds very similar to Italian, and their cuisine is heavily influenced too. Lots of pastas, pizzas, lasagne, etc.

Back to the hotel, we watch some Practice and get an early night as she needs sleep. Wakes me up at 4:30 to say goodbye, we do our goodbye’s and I wait with my tripod for the dawn to come up over Lapad Hill. Stunning. I sleep.

I woke late and missed breakfast. That  was the friday, day 1 of total freedom/independance. The though occured to me that I had never been as far away from anybody I knew; literally thousands of miles, countries away from the nearest person. Gotta be honest, it’s very liberating. So I bum into town on my moped and eat lunch of a very poor pizza in some alley-way restaurant. Feel much more comfortable on the moped today, it’s far more responsive and nippy with one person; these things are so damn easy to drive. There really is nothing to it. Dubrovnik is as cute in the daylight as it is by night. Very clean, old shiny polished-by-thousands-of-feet flagstone streets. The buildings are all made of the same yellowish local rock ( I’m not a geologist) and the light playing through the narrow alleys, the reflections and the shadows, it really is very special.

I visited the oldest pharmacy in the world, open since 1317, still going, but it’s not fantastic.

Spend the rest of the afternoon walking the town, getting my bearings, getting a feel for it. Went back to the hotel to get a jumper at about 4ish. On my journey home, feeling adventurous,I stopped to find the best way to the beach beside our hotel. Park the bike, go down, down down this steep foresty hill, come out at some building and I’m wandering around with my moped helmet and like a hundred kids come screaming out the door to play. It’s a school yard. Suddenly I look very, very strange. I flee. Back into the Old Town for dinner, in Ragusa 2, very, very good food, quite expensive – came to 12 or 13 euro for pasta carbonara, a beer and a glass of house wine (ON the house), but delicious.

As I enjoyed immensely explaining to Natalie when she got back, I had a party the next morning on the balcony, loads of birds came. I was even woken up by the bird in my room. This is struggling to be as funny as when you SAY it. The photos kind of ruin it. Anyway, they ate the rest of our old, old pain-au-chocolat, and made loads of noise doing so.

 

 

 

Today  I was going to go to the island just offshore on one of the boat-trips, but when I got there I felt guilty for doing it without Nat, as she had mentioned she really wanted to do it. It’s a nature reserve now, National Park sort idea, but it was a monastic settlement in the Middle Ages. So instead, I did the highly recommended by the guide-book City Walls Tour. You pay whatever, couple of euro, to get up onto the fantastic, awesome city walls, that reach to 25 metres at times, and are probably close to 10 metres wide at the base. I read they’re the most complete example of city-walls from that period anywhere. 2 kilometres of panoramic views of the Old Town, across the rooftops, and outside, to the mountains and of the sea. They’re hugely famous. Massive Wikipedia page just about them. For those who aren’t aware, in the Yugoslav Civil War in the early 90’s, Dubrovnik was sieged and bombed to bits. Almost completely destroyed. So the roofs that are new-looking and shiny have been rebuilt. By the way, the plural of roof can be roofs or rooves, the latter being antiquated but still technically correct, coming from the Germanic.

 

 

 

 

Made friends with this really lovely retired couple from Florida, him with a navy sweater saying ‘The Aran Islands’. Really great company, Peter something. Told me some great stories of his trip to Ireland hunting down his roots and how unbelievably hospitable the Irish were. He got up to some adventures in Clifden. I thought I’d have company for dinner that night, but they were on a cruise of the Adriatic so were just dropping in for the day, and went back to their boat. Pity. Lovely.

Went back to the hotel after a ride around the outskirts on the bike, going high up the hill and to the south of the town, got some nice views.

Tried out the gym and the pool in the hotel, former had too many beasty, Croat women hitting some scary weights, the latter was tiny, and cold, and, i felt, perhaps seawater. Salty, with no taste of chlorine. Strange.

Got a recommendation of a restaurant called Buono just around the corner from the hotel, and had the biggest pizza I’ve ever been served. Picante, spicy, lovely, but still feel most alone at meal-times. Saturday being Nat’s graduation, back into Old Town I go to smoke the cigar I’d been hiding from Natalie since we left Ireland. In her honour. Sitting on the last bench of the pier, in the darkness, watching the last of the put-put boats coming in from their day fishing, eerily in the dark. A moment I’ll always keep with me. Far, far away from my world, completely alone, gorgeous town, totally happy, smoking my cigar. Perfect. Plenty of things to worry about in Ireland, but not now. Prayed for my Granny in hospital in Ireland, knew she’d be happy to know that I was very happy at that particular moment. Life is good.

Next day, another good-morning committee on the balcony, got better photos. But i put them with the rest of them up at the top there. After a great long explore of the surrounding area, across the bridge,

 

and a refill of petrol (3euro) I hit town, again, for lunch, and got chatting to 2 Americans beside me. From Ohio, one now works in Education City, Doha, U.A.E., which is this brand new city built in the last 10 years, effectively comprised solely of universities and faculties of the best universities from around the world, a lot of American Ivy-leagues have faculties there. So she’s working in administration finding all the students accomodation, get a filthy high wage, tax free, and literally unfireable, as part of her contract she cannot be fired. Which means that a lot of her colleagues are lazy incompetents.

Very friendly girls though, and bored, so I offer them a ride on the moped, one of them is interested, the other will meet us later. But they didn’t finish their lunch, and Ciaran can’t respect someone who doesn’t finish pizza. So I took it.

Boot back to the hotel, grab the second helmet, back in and pick her up. I took her up where I had gone yesterday, and we parked th bike to take in the view. She was telling me all about her business, a new range of clothing designed specifically for users of dialysis machines.Fantastic idea, I really hope it goes global. Anyway, we turn back to the moped and its covered in cats! Like, 5 or 6 of them, just playing on it. And as we are taking photos and petting them, this old lady comes walking up the hill with these plastic bags, and she goes pshhhhhhh, pshhhhhh and doing all the cat noises, and, unbelievable. The bushes, either side, are TEEMING with cats. She’s a crazy cat lady. She has come to feed the cats. Within 2 minutes there are easily 60 cats, with kittens, all around her. We notice a house built, we presume by her for them, in the undergrowth. I had left my camera back at the hotel so I could fit her on the back, I’ll see if I can get the photos from her. As I left her to the bus, and we met up again with her sister, they reveal to me in passing that they are raving Republicans, and think McCain was the man and Obama is hopeless. Thank god the bus arrived. Anyway, I had a rugby game to get to. Ireland-Australia. Wondered, briefly, where my older brother’s loyalties lay. Then I came to my senses, sorry DP. My lack of faith disturbs you.

I go running around the town trying to find those Irish bars I had come across, first one, pack of jokers, watching handball, hadn’t heard of a rugby game, or, presumably, rugby, or Ireland for that matter. Idiots. Didn’t even make an effort. Second Irish bar, and time is now ticking by, same pathetic attitude, couldn’t care less. Third, really decent guy does his very best to wrestle with the Sky channels, eventually finds it on some obscure Spanish sports channel. Thank heaven’s, only it keeps breaking up and freezing for minutes on end. Quite unbearable really, but added to the tension. We steal a draw in the last few minutes, 20-20. I had bought the most expensive pint of Guinness in my life, revelling in my Irishness. 7 lids. Whatever, I’m on holidays. Looking forward to Nat coming back that evening.

So I head back to the hotel after the game, get a chance to hit my email, get some blogging done, and Skype with the family!! Was really good to see you all, and the Gaviria’s, then interrupted by Nat coming back! At least 25 kgs of luggage lighter! After leaving unneeded clothes and shoes all across Europe, she used her break back to Ireland to lose more unneccessary clothes, books, shoes, boots, etc. Funny how light-packing becomes a priority when you’re hauling the stuff around the continent on your back…

Never getting the chance to see Dubrovnik by day, we decided to give her another day for Natalie. By this stage I felt perfectly comfortable on the bike, and scooted about happily. We did the glass boat trip, which Natalie had been looking forward to all weekend.

 

It took us out of the harbour, around the bay and over to the island that I never got to land on, but it looked fairly missable, at least in late November. There’s really nothing on it. On the way back to the port we passed the most stunning house, right on the water, arches and steps and hanging gardens.

Beautiful. I enquired as to whether it was private or a hotel or something, and the boat man told me it was available to rent through a hotel nearby, at a meagre €6,000 per night. Before the boat ride we had lunch, Natalie’s spaghetti and mussels tasty, my squid risotto, literally ink-black rice, very tasty.

Next, comes dinner. Terribly regretting not bringing my camera, I had Natalie on the backseat though. We went to a restaurant I had earmarked after I saw it from the city walls. Just outside the city walls, it was on a cliff looking down into its own little bay and the infinity of sea stretching all the way to the sunset. Quiet seashore noises whispering from below.

Natalie had some traditional croatian cuisine, which neither of us can remember but both recall being delicious. The reason we can’t remember Natalie’s dinner is that we both remember mine: Seafood Pizza. SEAFOOD PIZZA??? Yes, seafood pizza, and by far and away the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. Perfect base, perfect size, delicious melange (not my word
) of shrimp, mussels, and squid up top. Amazing. Accompanied by a fantastic beer, and a shot on the house. Moonlight stroll afterwards and I’m okay to drive home. I’ll miss this spot, I know so many people who would just love this place.

Next morning we have a few hours before our bus, so we wander down to the beach and SWIM!!!

 

 

Lunchtime arrives so we hungrily return to Buono, again, phenomenal food. Stroll back to the hotel, get collected and dropped to the bus-stop, where we avoid the same old man from the first day, as we never called in to see him like we had promised him we would. Get talking to this Asian guy, who was going to Sarajevo. We, on the other hand, were going to Mostar, on the recommendation of our good friend Bronco, and as a chance to get to see Medugorge. Another stinky bus journey… See you soon. Good God that took a long, long time to put together..