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Croatia: Cavtat

Monday May 28, 2001: Departure

Ring, ring, ring. The alarm clock wakes us at 07:30, very early when you have days off, but it’s nice, when you leave for vacation. We take a quick shower, then we go to the Cardijnlaan, very calmly because we’re on vacation. Drink a coffee, have a sandwich, say goodbye to Gorbo, Balou, Boris, mum and dad. Then Maurits takes us to Zaventem, traffice was OK, only some traffic jams on the ring in Brussels. He drops us off and we arrive at the airport building: delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, cancelled, cancelled, delayed, delayed, cancelled. What is going on here? We have no idea, but we have no problem with it. We check in and do all we have to. We have a delay of about 15 minutes and leave. Timo has a lot less fear than last year on the plane (very brave lad). For details about this see the travel report from Rhodes. So the plane leaves and so do we: we eat, buy cigarettes on the airplane and listen to children weeping. GPS in the plane is really nice to see where we sit, I mean fly. After about 1.5 hours we arrive at Dubrovnik airport, we queue to get a visum and we laugh with the people on the plane; the youngest persons there were we and the average age was 84. We get on a bus and drive to a monster of a hotel. Luxurious, airco, bathroom prettier than we have at home, even prettier than the new one from Linda and Patrick, 482 rooms, 7 suites and a reception from the Verhaerenstreet to the Schelde. We relax, unpack and go to explore the hotel; in half an hour you can leave to the right side and return from the left side. It’s a nice walk, there seems to be a beautiful village, but we will check this out later. Back in our room we – guess – off course rest and relax. After the relaxation time we go to Suzanne, hostess of Sunjets, listen to what she has to say. In this case this is really not interesting. We do book a trip to the Neretva delta. Afterwards we go and reserve a table for the gala-dinner (shit!). Timo takes a shower and Eef is trying to hit on the macho of the hotel (Italian type, blond one….). So then we go to dinner: the food is very good in a romantic atmosphere – with about 1000 people in a restaurant sitting at a table with a strange couple. On the menu we have: Slovenian salad, soup of asparagus, turkey-filet with vegetables, ice cream with a lot of fuzz. They fired up the ice cream and walked trough the restaurant with a total of 35 waiters. The people next to us already disappear before coffee and we leave 5 minutes later, because we’ve had enough of this. We seek quieter places: we walk the stairs down to the village. Eef will tell later on how many stairs there are. We drink something on a terrace in the harbor, not a café of Stella, but a nice Croatian tavern. We have two beers, the next round Timo has a loza and Eef has Ozusjko. After the loza and beer we walk back up and check where we need to take the bus. We smoke a cigarette on our balcony and go to bed. It’s already 00:30 and we don’t make it that late, we sleep well. And remember: close your eyes and sleep tight. Goodnight!

Tuesday May 29, 2001: Trip to ancient Dubrovnik

We get up at 09:00, take a shower and go for breakfast. There is only 300 men in the restaurant of 1000 (divided over three hours). It’s really quiet here now. The breakfast is: cornflakes, muesli, sandwiches, bread, cheese, paté, meat, marmalade, toast, honey, croissants, biscuits and much more. Also there are cevapcici-sausages, omelets and something indefinable. At 10:00 we go to the centre to get on the bus to Dubrovnik, but we will not catch this one, because my darling has forgotten his glasses at the hotel, so we need to go back. We buy some water in a shop and finally we take the bus at 11:00. One trip costs 10 Kuna per person, about 50 BEF for a ride of only 15 kilometer. At 11:45 we arrive in the old Dubrovnik. We arrive on the wrong side of town to start the walk in our tourist guide, so we walk straight through. First we visit Pile Vrata (access gate), then the Onofrio fountain and the museum of the franciscan monastery, but we did not enter it. Then we pass by the monastery of the nuns, where children were left as foundlings. Following the Placa Stradun we arrive at the city hall that also serves as theatre and at a small fountain. We continue our walk to the Palace of the rectors and the city museum. Here we saw an aggressive Croat hit a little tourist. Very nice: start hitting someone with a skateboard on the head. The city museum is very nice, but we’re not allowed to take nay pictures, but Timo can’t stop it and takes one. We then move on and search for the aquarium. The most spectacular guests were a seahorse, an octopus and many fish. The Maritime museum is left aside at this moment. Meanwhile we’re starting to get hungry – it’s already 14:00 – so we have lunch: a mixed salad in a very quiet alley with a beer. At 15:00 we go out to explore the city over the ramparts. It’s really magnificent, but very warm, you could say hot. This takes about 1 hour. We return at the old harbor and see here we can visit the Elafiti islands from Cavtat. This is interesting and for the same price as they’re doing from Dubrovnik, 220 Kuna per person. We’ll certainly do it this week! Especially because we want to return by boat this evening and we then have a discount: 40 instead of 80 Kuna for two. We have 1.5 hour until the boat leaves, so we drink something on a terrace. We find a very cozy one near a very busy square. One pint costs less here and tastes better. At 18:00 the boat leaves – it’s nothing more than a speedboat. When we arrive at the harbor we see the average age is 93. Really it is! We hope they don’t get seasick. At the harbor of Mlini some of them get off and at the harbor of Cavtat too. We stay on the boat together with 2 other couples of about 30-40 years old. We need to stay seated. The captain of the boat starts a race. This is cool. We arrive soon at the hotel. We want to do a dive in the Adriatic Sea, but the sun has already disappeared and as a consequence it starts to get chilly. Starting at 19:00 temperatures start to sink. So we decide to swim in the pool, but ‘The pool is closed’. And indeed we see the pool is only open until 19:00 and it’s 19:10 now. So we return to our room. We notice we did not yet buy anything yet for tonight, so we put back our shoes on and go to the village. We buy Loza, cola and some sweets. We remove the drinks from the hotel from the fridge and put our own drinks in there. Cooooooool. We take a shower and then go down to eat. It’s already 20:30 so it is not very busy in the restaurant, which is quite nice. The woman on our table is feeling sick and she will not join for diner. The man is all by himself and leaves rather quickly too. We eat very slowly and enjoy: soup, salad (that you can mix as you like), fish (salmon and another kind), potatoes, meat (pita, steak and chicken) and some hot vegetables. Then there is a desert: cake and other stuff. Very nice. At 21:45 we go to our own balcony and have a Loza-Cola. Well, yeah, not one off course. Maybe a little more, but not too much. We write our postal cards. Timo starts to be a bit drunk, because he switches names from Bijle and Patrick of Seven. We will go to sleep then at 23:30, because tomorrow we’re woken up at 08:00. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Wednesday May 30, 2001: The islands of Elafiti

This is your wake up call, this is your wake up call, this is your wake up call. The Croatians call us at 08:00. Isn’t this way to early guys? No, you’ve asked this yourself. So we get out of bed, shower, have breakfast and run to the private landing-stage of the hotel. There we need to wait a bit, because the boat is not yet there. After 15 minutes it arrives, but this boat is not for us. We need to go to the main pier of Cavtat and there they pick us up. “Don't worry, boat will come”, and then miss the boat in Dubrovnik, because we need to take another one there. But everything seems to be OK. We don’t need to take another boat in Dubrovnik, we’re on the right one immediately. A bunch of Slovenians traveling, a red lobster from Wallonia and a whole bunch of noisy Flemish people from Mortsel. So we sail out with the same boat, it originates from 1907 and is a sailing boat, but now has got a motor, it is nice that’s true. After a few small and very small islands we arrive on the island of Kolucep, we have free time for about 45 minutes, so we dive into the sea. Very cold, cold, but after the first time under water it is refreshing cool. We get ourselves together and swim around. What has Eef on her foot? She already has felt something, but she thought it was a rock. Not. The fucking sea-urchins did it. She got stung by an urchin. We look for a hotel very close and that guy says: Ein Tag Schmerz und dann OK. We go back to the boat to ask if they have a pair of tweezers, but they don’t. Eef is able to remove dome of the quills. She is brave but it hurts not that much, so now the real fish-pick-nick can start. Fish with zucchinis on the BBQ taste very good, but we haven’t eaten a lot. The lunch is on the boat itself, so we throw the rests in the sea. Fish come to get it and also gulls, even closer than 2 meters from the boat. We stay on the boat and sail to Lopud with the gulls behind us. We use some sun-oil, because it’s dangerous to get sun burnt on a boat. After about 20 minutes we arrive at Dubrovnik and it is already 14:30. We rest on a terrace nearby until the sailors and the Belgians join us, then we go. We walk a block and then Timo dives into the sea and dries in the sun and then we leave back to Dubrovnik. The return takes a long time, but it’s nice in the sun. we have a 15 minutes break in Dubrovnik and then move on to Cavtat. It seems there are Russians on the boat, so Timo talks with them and they say he speak very well Russian. Temperatures fall and we feel it’s taking a lot of time to get back, especially with the loud people on the boat. They almost tear down the ship and are way to noisy. We arrive in Cavtat at 19:00 and want to see a pharmacy, but that is closed because of a holiday, so we decide to pass by Suzanne at the hotel for info on the stings. She says there is nothing much she can do about it. Se we try to remove the quills ourselves and we manage to remove some. About 4 or 5 are stuck in her foot. After that a quick shower and go to the restaurant. Chicken soup, fish and greasy satay with fries and a salad. Afterwards we chill a bit on our balcony and then they day is over. We had a good time after all.

Thursday May 31, 2001: New Dubrovnik

09:00: get up, eat, take a shower. At 11:00 we take the bus to Dubrovnik. The idea is to check if we can reach by ourselves Korçula or Mljet. We are not lucky. We can reach Korçula from the new harbor, but ferries only leave on Wednesday and Mljet only on Monday. We will not go there then, which is a great pity. So tonight we will try to rent a car. We walk in the city of New Dubrovnik and buy a kilo of cherries for lunch. We enjoy it with some bread. At 14:15 we take the bus back at the station and we arrive back in Cavtat at 15:00. We find a quiet place in the bay and Timo swims. Eef doesn’t want to because she has a trauma from her last experience with the urchins. At 17:00 we have a drink, because Eef is thirsty and needs to go to the bathroom. We drink at Michaël two Ozsjusko’s and when we want to leave we hear ‘It’s no good’ from Depeche Mode on the radio. So we stay a bit longer. This means our day is now great. It was already very good, but this makes it even better. We walk to the hotel and prepare for diner, immediately at 19:00 this time. Today it’s really great: fries, fish, meat and lots more. Eef also has desert. After eating we pass along the desk of the rent-a-car (Rubikon). Because we’re not able to go far on Saturday and Sunday, we will rent a car. We arrive at the desk and ask if we could reach Split in 1 day. The guy yes, but also says we will be very tired when we return. He gets a map with all locations between Dubrovnik and Split. According to him there are a lot of interesting places to visit. We still haven’t smoked our cigarette so we want to go to our room. Then the guy offers us one, very well. After a lot of discussions he still can rent a Kia Sephia (with airco and a Mazda engine). We go out to check on the car. Timo gets in and the car is rented. Then we return inside and negotiate about the price. We have done good business: 1000 Kuna for 2 days, while he was at 550 per day with discounts. Probably he still earns a lot of money on top of it. But we’re both happy, because my car is my freedom. Besides we found out we can reach Korçula anyway: every day there is a ferry from Orebic and we can drive there by car. At 21:00 we’re back in our room; we have roomnumber 730, unbelievable isn’t it? We sit on our balcony and have Loza. Not for too long, because tomorrow we need to get up at 06:00 to visit the Neretva-delta.

Friday June 1, 2001: Metkovic and Delta of the Neretva

Today we have a great day: we are going to visit the delta of the Neretva river and that is a reserve. We get up at 06:00, quite foolish when you’re on vacation no? wake up, have breakfast. There are already many people in the restaurant, we’re not the only ones. After breakfast we need to wait 10 minutes for the bus and then we go. First we experience the same shit as ever and we need to pick up all different people at different hotels. After Dubrovnik this is finished (1 exception) and we start our busy program. We drive by a bridge that is being constructed over the bay, but now we need to make a detour of 12 kilometer. Then we visit some small villages, known for the salt export and pass along Zaton (big, small and something Zaton). Via Trsteno to Neum in Bosnia (BiH). We pass along a island that is for sale at this moment, but is the property of 5 families in Dubrovnik. The price is: 60 Million USD, so we quickly stop and buy the island. We pass the border and stop in Neum. In the past you had the republic of Dubrovnik and everything north belonged to the Venetians. There were a lot of fights and therefore Dubrovnik gave a small piece of coastline to the Ottoman Empire. That way there was a bufferzone. At this moment this piece of land still doe not belong to Hrvatska (Croatia), but to Bosnia and Herzegovina. We stop here for about half an hour and what do we find here: a CD shop with CD’s from Depeche Mode. We buy 1 immediately and with that we have spent our money. We think it’s rather strange to be in BiH. We then drive on to Metkovic. That is a stop for the Ornithologist Museum: more than 200 stuffed birds. Timo is freaking out. This was a very nice, but a short visit. The weather is dark and we hear that in Zagreb a hurricane is forming. We move on with the bus to Vid; there we visit a Roman site and a museum. We have boats to access the delta. A small race with the boat. We receive cherries, strawberries and nuts for lunch. And suddenly we stop and get out of the boat and arrive on a small piece of grass in the swamp and here we see tables: here is our real lunch. On the boats we had schnapps, now we have wine, soup, cutlets and chicken filet. After lunch we get into the boats again; again schnapps. We stop in a small restaurant for desert: apfelstrudel. We are here at a table with German people. They also were sitting with us during lunch together with Flemish and French people. We Flemish people can talk to anyone in different languages. After desert we get back on the bus, because it’s pouring rain. We’re both very tired, so we try to get some sleep, before they start talking again. We see islands Kolucep, Sipan and Lopud again from Wednesday. The driver drops everyone off at their hotel and then we get off, go and get money, rest, shower and eat something. Fish and chicken and wine. After diner we need to schedule the last things for our car tomorrow. The guy gives us a quick driving lesson and gives us a map. So then we go to our room. We drink some Loza Cola and go to bed.

Saturday June 2, 2001: Korçula

08:00 Get out of bed!. Take a shower and have breakfast and then at 09:20 we’re on the road with the mega-Kia. It is a Kia Sephia SLX with airco and radio with a Mazda engine. Actually I can’t be bothered. We leave in the direction of Korçula. Timo is driving. We leave in Cavtat via Mlini, Kupari, Dubrovnik, zaton, Orasac, Trsteno and Slano. In Ston we leave the highway (1 lane in each direction) and take the yellow mapped road on the peninsula Peljesac. We drive on to Zuljana, Draçe, Trstenic and Orebic. Here we buy tickets for the ferry to Korçula: 7 Kuna per person one way. We have to wait for the boat for 40 minutes, so we have a drink in the harbor. Cola and Karlovaç. Then we go on the ferry without the car. After 15 minutes we arrive on the island of Korçula; we first look for something to have lunch. We find Seven II where they play U2, but they don’t serve food. So we only drink something and that’s nice too. We make a short walk and buy some bread in a supermarket with sausages and mustard. A nice lunch. So then it’s culture time. First we visit a small museum with many icons, clothing from priests and cardinals, we see many holy grails. It’s a small museum, but really worth a visit and for 10 Kuna for 2 people, this is not to be missed. Immediately besides the building there is the Cathedral of the Holy Marco. We enter, but there is not much to see. The Municipal Museum is closed. Then we visit the so-called birth-place of Marco Polo: very dangerous. The stairs are 7000 years old and creak like hell. Really exciting. Will we survive or not? Entrance fee for this: 5 Kuna. The old gentleman sitting there seemed to be very happy with 2 visitors. Then after culture, time for nature. We walk in the harbor and then drink something on a terrace. At 17:00 we return because the ferry arrives back here at 17:30. we hang around in the harbor and take the boat back to Orebic. At about 18:00 we get back in the car and drive to the hotel. We have driven 5 hours today and about 300 kilometer today and this seems to be a high average here – we think. At 20:30 we’re back at the hotel. We seek refreshment and then go to the hotel-restaurant. We have hamburgers, potatoes, steak, cauliflower, fresh beans (yeah, Eef is starting to like fresh beans) and especially a lot of salad. Today we do not have desert, because we already had too much. We sit on our balcony with the already famous Cola-Loza. Later we will go to bed.

Sunday June 3, 2001: Visit of small villages

We sleep a little bit longer than before; we get up at 09:00, take a shower and have the regular breakfast and we immediately leave with the Kia. We then drive to the spot most remote and then piece by piece we come closer, so we first drive to Ston. Here we climb the walls of the city. To the top it’s no problem, but downwards that is less easy and less fast (it really is very steep). During the morning it is still chilly, so both of us have long trousers although we should be wearing shorts. After this effort we stop for a drink and walk through the village. The people here in the village have had a lot of trouble during World War II. Then the Civil War came and on top of all this in 1996 they suffered from an earthquake of magnitude 6 and the epicenter was in Ston. A lot of them did not have a house anymore and the barracks, where they used to live in are still located in the centre. Most of the houses are used at this moment. We move on to Mali Ston, where we can’t visit anything. We then drive through Dubrovnik and stop in Slano for a short walk. Here there are still houses with remains of gunshots and a harbor (nice to sit here and rest). From Slano we ‘set sail’ to Trsteno where we can visit the arboretum. Two very old plane trees are located at the entrance. The fee normally is 1 Kuna, but not now, because nobody is there. In the arboretum we find some surprises: a small summer-house with sea-view, a fountain and a lot of trees of course. We enjoy the peace here for half an hour and then move on. We start to feel hungry and we look for a place to eat in Mali-Ston. A good salad, amongst Croatians with a view at the sea and a small harbor. We drive on to Dubrovnik and further to Cavtat and even to Cilipi, but that is not very interesting. Back at the hotel we think we should have swam in the pool, so we do it now. It is way too cold to swim today, so nobody is outside. That is very good. We have the whole pool only for ourselves. We need to take some rest after this “very intense” sport event. At 19:00 we have diner. It is our last evening here, so we go out to the centre and have something on the terrace of Michaël. After two beers it’s already dark and we feel high, so we go back to the hotel and have a good night of sleep.

Monday June 4, 2001: Departure back home

We get up at 08:30 and go to the magnificent restaurant for the last time. On our table there were already other room numbers than ours. It really is more a factory than a restaurant or hotel. At 09:30 we go into the village for the last time. There is a lot of wind, the beaches made of concrete are being hidden under huge waves. We buy 3 bottles of Loza, a bottle of Slivovic and 4 cans of Ozusjko. With our bag packs filled with drinks, we return to the hotel. We already see a small boat that was sinking. Eef finally counts the stairs: the total is 127 instead of 125. When we arrive there, we immediately go to our room to pack the suitcase. Eef does this and wie immer very professional. In the meantime we are interrupted about three times by the cleaning ladies, who want to know if the minibar is still full: Yes it is!! We go downstairs and wait at the reception for the bus. Eef wants to take a picture especially of the restaurant, but they are cleaning it now and she is allowed in there. At 11:45 the bus arrives and we leave to Cilipi and arrive there 15 minutes later. We check in and buy with our last Kunas 1 package of Marlboro. We walk through the tax-free area and see that Marlboro costs only 28 DEM and Gouloises even 24 DEM; that’s less than 500 BEF. We take the maximum quantity allowed three cartons. We wait to board and talk to a lot of people. Nice people as we are we give away some of the Dramina (Croatian Tourisil). In the end at 14:00 we actually board and at 14:30 we get in the air. From time to time there is some turbulence, but nothing serious. The flight is very nice, we even land too early. Roel is there on time. We drink 2 beer and white beers on the airport and then drive to Sint-Amands. We notice it’s over again; it was short, but very nice.