Dobradan (hello) from the eastern shores of Europe. I have to say that my expectations of grey communist settlements, big farm hardened women with mono brows and delicious cabbage meals has been quashed by what we have experienced so far. Firstly the area is as pretty as hell, more so than Italy. The communist settlements have not eventuated as yet and the women, well no farm hands around here! Our first four days in the east have been spent in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where we rented a private apartment which is all norm about these parts. What a good move too, the apartments here are cheap, clean and only a short walking distance from the beach. Using this as our base we have explored Dubrovnik quite well and I have to say it is a very pretty, clean and friendly place. Unfortunately it is also very tourist driven and hence the price of most things is what I would consider over inflated for the area. But for all this, they have made one hell of an effort to turn this town into something first class and you really need to see it to appreciate how nice it is.
Our apartment in Dubrovnik. Notice the home made pizzas and the BEER! Thats right guys, all 2.5L of it!
As with all things that seem too good to be true though, there usually is a catch. My experience with this place is that the catch is: there are too many old blokes here exhibiting wrinkly bits that should be kept housed! Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these buttered up old dudes and their need to expose themselves to a whole group of other old blokes? We first stumbled upon this disastrous happening when we decided to hire some kayaks off a less than obliging rip off merchant for a 2 hour paddle around a nearby island. The paddle was great and as a reward we managed to pull up on a rocky part of the island where the water went from zero to 10m deep straight up. Good territory for me to try out my new dive watch I thought and the free diving I managed in these crystal clear blue waters was brilliant although a little fresh. Taking the time to let the sun warm us both back up we lounged on a rock at the water’s edge like a couple of lazy lizards. Soon enough we are greeted by an old man paddling his way over to our spot looking a little perplexed. As I watched him make his way over, I started to think, hmmm, that guy is acting a little strange…..Well…… the white bum gleaming from just below the water’s surface was a dead giveaway and correspondingly my look of indifference became one of keep on swimming bloke! But no, he thought it cool to pop up right next to us for a bit of a dangle before heading off over the rocks behind us. This got me thinking, where the hell have we pulled up? So foolishly I turned my gaze over the rocks behind us to find a whole garden of naked 60 somethings bopping around. GREAT. You had your peeping toms, your buttered up crispy fried’s and your “I just like the sun and wind on my dibs” old blokes. DOUBLE GREAT! With a big “let’s get the hell out of here” to Dids, we were off. Since that point, every beach outing has not been complete with me finding myself face to face with an old dude, his package, my expression of disgust and his “ain’t it all awesome” attitude. No, no it is not.
Filling in our time between the wrongful nakedness, we managed a boat trip around the nearby islands which kept us entertained for a whole day as did a tour around the cities fortified old town.
The little lady on the city wall
The coastline outside the old town. This is where we kayaked
Dubrovnik has provided a beautiful, fun, safe and clean stop over, but for what this place brought to offer, we yearned for something more……and that was……spit roasted suckling pig. That’s right, both Dids and I had heard that there was a place down the coast near Budva that served a mean spit roasted suckling pig and so we were off to experience this splendor of the culinary kind. We found our way into a nice little sea side apartment at the beachside town of Sveti Stefan which was delightfully exclusive and came complete with hotel attendants solely hired to keep people like me off the beaches. Way coool. But it was the pig we were here for and it was the pig we found our way too. I have to say, we were not disappointed, it was one awesome meal. The food was first class and the price was ridiculously cheap. Both Dids and I ate and drank until we were literally comatose with the meal costing 34 Euros including a nice tip. Mmmmmmmm…….. I didn’t want to leave the next day but Dids promised me more food of this nature up in the mountain country of Montenegro along with some cool adventures of the wilderness kind. How could I say no? So it was to the trusty Ford mobile and after pointing it north, we are on our way to adventure it up gen Y style. Later.
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Still so great and lovely to follow you both, really great!!!!
Big hug from us here in Julianadorp, we say..... Till soon and cheers! X