“We have some time this morning in Zagreb before we leave. What did you want to do?” My mother asked me. “I dunno. Let’s walk around and see what we can find? Maybe an English book store with the history of Croatia? I think I saw one in the main square,” I answered. I had been looking for a history of Croatia while wandering into book stores since the summer. It seems that Chapters, the Canadian book retailer, didn’t have what I was looking for. I was hoping that I would find something when I arrived in Croatia. So far, no luck. We walked over to the main square and entered the book shop. “Hello, I am looking for a book on the history of Croatia, written in English. Do you have one?” I asked. The shop girl looked sad and answered, “No.” It seems that I was not to be lucky today. Maybe another day. While I had been looking around the store for anything that could be construed as a Croatian story, written in English, my mother saw something. “Hey, J, come here!” She shouted in my direction. “Hmmm?” “There’s an illusion museum in Zagreb. Interested?” “Sure, why not? Nance?” “Sure.” And with that, we headed off to the Museum of Illusions in Zagreb. The museum was a little bit difficult to find, but soon we were walking around the museum learning about different types of illusions, and playing tricks on each other. There were a variety of different types of illusions that you could learn more about, and pranks that you could pull on each other. For example, there is an “illusion” where one person has their head on a plate. The mirrors make it seem that there is an empty space under the table. Since coming home I’ve learned that there is an Illusion Museum coming to Toronto. It is from the very same museum chain that is currently running their museums in Croatia. Now in the strictest sense, this is not a typical museum that you would be expecting. There are no old artifacts. There are, however, a variety of different types of illusions with short explanations on why your mind is being tricked. I’m not sure if museum is the correct title or this type of institution. If you are looking for some fun, this is the place to find it. I hope the one in Toronto is as much fun as the one in Zagreb. With a fun short trip to the museum completed, we headed off towards the airport. We had one more day to go before we were to start our tour. The flight turned out to be a short one hour flight, 2.5 hour affair, that left us in Dubrovnik. Getting around Croatia is really best when done by plane, car, or bus. It seems that the trains here aren’t a good idea because of the times that they run, the price that they are, and the speed at which they go. The flights are pretty frequent and not badly priced. If you are going to try to get around the country check out some of the budget flights. Also, it seems that, from personal experience, the flights are often fully booked. This means that you can ask at the counter if you can check your carry-on luggage for a hassle free flight. As soon as we landed in Dubrovnik we asked a local taxi how much it would cost to get to the Sun Gardens in Dubrovnik, and we were told a staggering 300 Kuna (approximately $60 CAD). We checked with Uber, and it was much less expensive. So we got an Uber, threw our stuff into the boot, and headed off to our hotel. “Wow, this place is so pretty!” I exclaimed, watching the landscape pass by. “Dubrovnik Old Town is down there,” the Uber driver explained. We nodded, and wondered when we would get out of the taxi. We wondered this while we continued to drive on, crossing a bridge, and for the next five minutes or so. “Ummmmm, Mom?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m not sure,” she answered my unasked question, which was “Where are we going?” Soon, we pulled into the Sun Gardens Hotel, Dubrovnik . This hotel was clearly not in Dubrovnik, but quite a bit away from it. “So I guess that we are staying in the hotel tonight?” I ask at the same that that we turn the corner of the amazingly long driveway. The sight which greeted me told me that this was not going to be a problem. The hotel was a luxury hotel, and it had beautiful gleaming white buildings, a whole host of staff dressed in white, luxury cars parked everywhere, and you could see the water from the main reception. This was clearly going to be a very nice hotel room. We were given our room key, our bags were all being taken by a porter to our rooms, and we were being driven down to our own room, located in the residences portion of the hotel. We were upgraded to a larger room with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and three bathrooms. It was quite lavish. Soon, my stomach was rumbling. We were celebrating my mom’s birthday that night, and we set out to find which restaurant that she wanted to eat at. We walked around the resort, and took our time reading all of the menus, as the restaurants didn’t start serving until 7pm. When in Europe, one must eat on European time. “This place looks good, and it’s nearly 7pm. Let’s get a table here,” my mom said. “Hello,” my mother said to the hostess. “Can we get a table for three, please?” “Yes, do you have a reservation?” “No.” “Sorry, we are fully booked tonight.” “Errrr…” “Sorry, most of the restaurants require a reservation.” I looked at my mother, “So…” “Let’s go to reception,” she suggested. Off we went to the food reservation desk and found out that our only option was to eat at a place called the Butcher. Seeing that our choice was made for us, we headed over to the restaurant. The steaks on the menu started at 250 kuna! I hoped for some gold cooked into the steak for that price! We ended up ordering a round of steaks, which turned out to be the best steak that I’d ever have eaten, and we celebrated my mother’s birthday by ordering a bottle of Dingač. Cutting into the steak barely required a steak knife; the gentlest of pressure had the meat falling apart. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare, with beautiful browning on the outside and a beautiful deep pink on the inside of the steak. Biting into the steak allowed all of the wonderful savoury flavours to envelop my mouth. Taking a bite of this steak was simply divine. I’d like to take a moment to describe how much I love Dingač. It is a Croatian wine which is a speciality of the region. Like a Champagne, it is a type of wine that can only be produced in one region of the world. It is a red wine with a bold and peppery taste. It is a delightful wine which we continued to drink for the duration of our trip. Unfortunately, it seems that it is difficult to find it on our side of the ocean. If you are in Croatia, and like wine, make sure to check this gem out. With full bellies, we headed back to our hotel at the end of our meal and rested up for the next day. *********************************** “TIME FOR OUR BOAT TOUR!” My mother shouted at me in the morning; it seemed that she was a little excited about our tour. We had booked a boating tour with Dubrovnik Boat Tours a few weeks before our trip. I read up that the city was packed during the day because of all of the cruise ship guests in the city. It was being compared with Venice. I had no interest in being shoulder-to-shoulder with other people. We decided that it sounded much nicer to be on our own boat. “We got upgraded to a bigger boat for the same price,” she informed me, with a big smile on her face. For $400 we were on a medium sized boat (enough for five to six people) for a private tour around the Elefiti Islands. We arranged for our suitcases to be dropped off at our next hotel, and headed off for our boat tour. Our guide met us at the marina, and we asked him, “So, where are we going today?” “The Elefiti Islands. That is where you booked the tour to, no?” He responded, looking worried. “Sure! We are going snorkeling, right?” “Yes, yes of course.” “Did you have anywhere you would like to go for lunch?” He asked. “Errr...no.” “I can make a reservation for you. During the summer it can get busy.” We thanked him, and with that we flopped our day things on the back bench, put on sun screen and proceeded to tour around the islands. The islands take around 40 minutes to get to on a private boat, and there are three main islands: Šipan, Lopud, and Koločep. We started our tour by walking around the island Koločep. It was a nice spot to start, get warmed up with a walk, before going for a swim. The island had a marina, lots of walking trails, a small beach, and a small fort. We didn’t spend too long walking around because we were most excited for going for a swim. Back on the boat, we headed off to the Blue Cave. The water in Croatia is pristine, and you can easily see to the bottom of the sea. The Blue Cave here is smaller than the famous cave in Capri, but it is much less crowded. There was no line-up to go into the cave, and the light in the cave was a brilliant blue. Getting into the cave is a little daunting because the entrance to the cave is low, and you need to keep your head down. Once you are in the cave, though, there is a lot of room to swim around. When we were in the cave there were three other people in the cave with us. After some swimming around and taking too many pictures with our water cameras, we headed off to the next set of caves. These caves are known as the Three Sisters caves. There are three caves close together. The first cave is very shallow and you can stand up in this cave. We stopped here and took a lot of pictures of us swimming in the cave. The next two caves are more of an open type of cave, and the last cave has access to the other side of the rock formation, if you are brave enough to take a short dive into the cave. I was not so brave without my scuba diving equipment, so I swam around to see the cave and then exited. Next, we went off to our lunch spot on Lopud. “Hey! Look at those paintings!” My mother said excitedly. It was at this point that I knew that the packable duffel bag was coming out of the suitcase for good. We were bringing paintings back to Canada. I had to admit that the paintings were very beautiful. I find that art makes wonderful souvenirs from my travels because they are something that doesn’t go out of fashion, like clothing does. Before we could buy our paintings, we had to find our lunch spot. We walked past several restaurants and eventually found the restaurant where our reservation was. It was a beautiful restaurant on the main walkway. As soon as we sat down the waiter brought over a large tray of seafood, still alive in some instances. Fresh fish and shellfish were being showcased as the freshest bounty of the day. We chose our appropriate meals and enjoyed a lovely lunch, while watching the sea rolling gently. After lunch we strolled down to the artist’s stall and purchased some paintings to take home with us.
We clamoured onto the boat after lunch. “So where are we headed next?” I asked. “To a very nice beach,” was our guide’s response. My mother and I looked at each other. “Did you want to go to a beach?” I asked her. She shrugged in response. “Want to do some more snorkeling instead?” I asked again. “Oh yeah, let’s do that,” she responded. “Is there somewhere that we can go for more snorkeling?” I asked. “Of course.” Have I mentioned that I really enjoy having a private boat tour? We ended up in an area where you can easily spot octopus walking around. We spent the afternoon looking for our eight legged friends. We saw a few and followed them around. At the end of the day we were dropped off at the marina and took at taxi to our hotel. It was a beautiful day, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is heading out to Dubrovnik. If you are going with a group of people the boat is not very expensive to split among travel partners. We would later find out that that day in Dubrovnik was a hot, stuffy day with no breeze. It seems like we made the right choice for our day excursion. This ended our trip in Dubrovnik on our own. That evening we were to meet our tour group, through Exodus Tours.
1 Comment
Liam Carr
6/13/2019 01:26:12 am
Dubrovnik is the most beautiful place to explore with the family and the city is widely famous for its private boats tours and you can hire best private boat tour agency and enjoy with your family and it has many more souvenir things to do like you can take delight of other adventurous activities like water rafting, paragliding and <a href="https://www.dubrovnik-island-tours.com/"><b>boat trips in Dubrovnik</a></b>.
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