** Just a note, the blog has been a bit light on pictures so far, that changes now**
The first major landmark you run across in Dubrovnik is Onofrio's Fountain. In the 15th century the regional leadership commissioned a large community fountain near the main entrance to provide water during sieges and a place for travelers to wash before the came into the city. Nearly 2 stories tall, with 16 sides, ornate original reliefs and cold gushing water it was easily my favorite spot in Dubrovnik. I found myself gravitating back to it throughout the day to refill my water bottle, eat ice cream, and people watch from the shade. Heavily damaged 3 times, twice due to earthquakes and once due to bombing raids in WWII, the locals sandbagged the fountain as much as they could during the air raids of the 90's to prevent anymore destruction. They were generally successful with the fountain, but lost other important buildings do to the bombing.
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| Notice everyone is gathered on the shady side |
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| Did I mention you can drink the water? :D |
After filling up my water bottle at the fountain and throwing a ball cap full of water down my back I headed up onto the walls that surround the old city. I decided to forgo the audio tour and opted instead for a small pamphlet that labeled what I was looking at. Step one of course was climbing out of Pile Square with its lovely fountain onto the walls.
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| 6 stories up, white everything, 40C, this should be fine |
The walk was rough, I'm not going to lie. As much as I wanted it to be good, the bout with dehydration had taken more out of me then I was willing to believe. However the view was worth it.
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| Placa Stradum and the Bell Tower |
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| The area directly below Pile Gate |
Standing above Pile Gate you can see up Placa Stradun (Palace Street), past the Bell Tower and up to the Rector's Palace. The Bell Tower is one of the few buildings that has remained unchanged since before the earthquake of 1667. It survived the bombings of both WWII and the 90's because the planes used it as a landmark to oriente themselves within the city. On one hand its nice that it was not destroyed, on the other, its sad that its survival was due to it being useful in the destruction of the rest of the city. On the outside of the Walls you can see one of the many smaller harbors and Fort Lovrijenca.
The local lore is that it was built in three months in order to deter the Venetians, who were apparently lurking at the time, from taking the highest point around. I love the idea that swiftly building a smaller fort next to your giant walled city with lots of guns is going to be what puts off the invading hoards. Its a bit like saying its the eyeshadow on the Victoria Secret model is what makes her attractive, but thats what they say.
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| The few looking North |
For the numbers of people down in the streets, the walls were nearly deserted. All white on three sides ment it took a special breed to be up there, that of the extremely stubborn. Each nationality handled the heat differently. The few Americans up there with me did exactly what I did, trudge on, chugging water, and enjoying the view because damn it, we came a long way then paid $10 to get here and we are going to enjoy it if it kills us. The Spaniards and Italians sat in the shade with the Croatians fanning themselves and sipping water. The French pretended it didn't bother them while secretly dabbing themselves when they thought no one else was looking.
The Brits just melted. Literally, they would just puddled into the shade whenever they stopped moving for longer then two seconds. Sometimes this was on a bench, but often this was just in shadow of the two foot tall walls linning the sides of the walkway. Seriously, I was impressed by there ability to fit into the smallest sliver of cool.
It took me an hour and a half to walk the 1.5 half of the walls, I drank two liters of water and had to rest half a dozen times, but it was worth it.
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| A" beach" |
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| Old Town from above |
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| I had those cruise ships in my sights! |
Thats really all the interesting stories I have from Dubrovnik proper. It was a very pretty place but I'm not sure I got the full experience of the place. It was just to crowded, to hot and I was to out of it to live it up as much as I wanted. I mean, it took me nearly two hours to go 3 miles. I was just not moving that fast, not covering the ground I wanted to, and grew sick of the sheople that had come off the 5 cruise ships in port to the point I was shutting down when it came to human interaction. After dinner and a much needed stop at a drug store to buy shampoo and conditioner I made it back to my room.
By the end of the day, I had drank 6 litters of water and I didn't pee until I got back. I looked skinier, I kid you not.
When I got back to my room, I met two lovely Dutch girls, Melanie and Renata, who were coming to the end of there trip. They had spent the last few weeks coming from north Montenegro and Algeria and were spending the last week in Croatia before heading home. Melanie spoke English better then I did and Renata spoke it well enough that we could get by. We went down to the board walk area near our house and the girls where very impressed with my knowledge of the area. I didn't tell them I had wandered around lost for an hour the day before, but took the compliment with grace.
At a certain point we grew borred of the Katy Perry music and grabbed a bottle of wine before heading back to the house. We camped out in the courtyard of the house to continue to try to chat. We kept getting distracted though, by a small, crazy eyed dog who kept staring at us from between the blinds. And with that small beady eyed dog hurrying us on our way, we retired to bed.
A friend I met in Salzburg said he tried to boil each city into 12 images and I am going to steal the idea. I give you, the Dubrovnik dozen.
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