Sunday, June 9, 2019

The Balkans: Croatia, Dubrovnik


The next morning (Monday 11th of June) I woke up at 6 am and left 6.15 to walk towards the bus station and buy a ticket to 7 am bus to Dubrovnik. The ticket cost me 128 kn and the bus left 20 minutes late at 7.20. At the border crossing one woman and a boy were thrown out from the bus since they didn’t have visas. We stopped in Neum for 20 minutes for toilet and snack break. The bus arrived on time to Dubrovnik and from the main bus station it was around 2.5-3 km to the Old town, so I took a local bus towards the Old town for 12 kn (bought from the kiosk). I got off one stop before the main gate of Old Town, at the University stop and my hostel was literally on the other side of the street.




The room was a 4-bed room (no bunkbeds) and the owner was a bit untidy looking man that explained stuff to me in a fast forward mode. I left out for a walk, it took me around 5 minutes to reach the main gate and oh it was packed with tourists. I walked through the city walls to the old port and went to find this coffee / bar called Buza that I had seen pictures of. It was basically build outside of those walls in the ocean side.. There were some young British lads jumps of from rocks to the ocean which was a nice entertainment for the people there. The view from the place was pretty nice! 









After I was starving so I went to eat at this place within the walls. I had a little bit of a headache, but I still wanted to start climbing to the hill where you could get also with this Cable car thing. THAT WAS A CRAZY DECICION! I started making my way up and there were so many stairs.. I thought I was already heading there nicely until I noticed that the path leading there hadn’t even started yet.. It took me maybe 20 minutes (with picture taking breaks) to reach to the starting point of the path. And then the hell started. No steps but this path heading up little by little. I started recording videos but towards the end my humour stopped, and I was struggling in the heat. My water run out and I was exhausted, and it never seemed to end. I did make it tho! All in all the whole climb took me maybe just bit over an hour. I was red as a tomato when I entered the restaurant up top. People calling me madam there and I looked like shit in that fancy place.. The view was pretty ok 😉 I drank a 5-6€ small Coke there and decided that my legs were way too shaky to walk back down. I took the cable car back down and it cost me somewhere between 84-86 kn one way.









The place where the cable car landed was still some walk away from the main gate. I was so so sweaty I decided that what ever it takes (except for climbing) I wanna find a beach to go for a swim. I walked towards my hostel and from the Sesame restaurant I took a left and just walked towards to ocean in between the narrow streets. I ended up in a cemetery. Eventually I found the rocky place were there were mostly locals and good places to dip in! Perfect! It was so refreshing!! After I tried to dry a little and enjoy the view and the crystal clear water I walked a bit back towards the old town and found a place to eat since I was starving! Shower and then headed back to wander in the old town. Quickly I realized I was hungry once again and went to eat again :D While waiting for my food I bought a ticket to Kotor, Montenegro paying 112 kn. 






The website I had used to whole trip was called getbybus.com the only minus was that if you bought it online you needed to print the ticket somewhere.. I went to bed rather early around eleven o’clock and didn’t even wake up when my roommates from Chile came in.



On 12th of June I woke up feeling rather fresh and good. Packed my stuff and left my bag back under this on table and gave my key back. I wandered towards the Old town and I place I had asked to print my ticket. It cost me 10 kn to print two sheets of paper. Then it was omelet time and then to the same “beach” place. I couldn’t decide whether or not to stay another night in Dubrovnik so I had solved it by leaving in the afternoon so I had the whole morning time to chill by the water. Finally, after all them cloudy days (still warm tho!) they had promised a clear blue sky and sun! Well. Cloudy it was of course but I still went to swim and enjoyed just chilling and laying. After my patience ran out of staying still I once more decided to go to the Old town and I had spotted a restaurant with gluten free options, so I headed there for a Spagetti. (I tried to eat accordingly while travelling but I wasn’t that strict if I wanted to drink one beer for example since my stomach didn’t come that sick after).

Then around two o’clock I walked back to the hostel, rang the bell, took my bag and walked 15 seconds to the nearest bus stop. It took maybe 10-15 minutes to reach the main bus station and I was there 14.35 (early as always..). So I went for ice coffee in this coffee place (their ice coffees always comes with one scoop of ice cream and cream). I headed to bus station at 15.05 and for once the bus came early. I was the first one to put my stuff and first one to choose the seat. I wanted it of course from the right side of the bus with a sea view all the way. Here you always need to pay extra if you put your bag “under the bus”. Same way as the air companies nowadays charge you extra. I only had 7kn or a big 100kn note, so the guy took my 7 kn instead of 10kn..



The bus left on time and the drive went smoothly but oh god them border checking’s. Yes, checking’s. If you zoom the map you can see that there are two borders in between there is someone’s land there. At the first border we were 60 minutes and the next one maybe 20-30 minutes. One by one they took all the people out from the bus and walk to the passport control then walk over the border to wait for the bus to pick us up. Ridiculous and so slow! I did get a stamp to my passport tho! 😊The bus took this ferry boat thing to cross over and eventyally we arrived in Kotor (via Tivat first.) an hour late at 19.00.










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