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I’m finally back with the rest of Day 1 of our trip to Croatia! I can’t bear to make one day last four blog posts, so this is going to be a long one. As much as I enjoyed my walk along the city walls, I was a bit relieved to be back at ground level, inside the walls of beautiful Old Town Dubrovnik.
I took a break from being out in the sun by doing some indoor exploring, starting with St. Blaise’s church, which I had already walked by quite a few times at this point. My Lonely Planet Guide clued me in that St. Blaise is the patron saint of Dubrovnik
Right next door is the stunning Dubrovnik Cathedral. I had already been enjoying the sound of the bells ringing there every hour, and the baroque visuals inside were just as beautiful. (I posted photos of the outside of this one in my first Croatia post from earlier that morning when it wasn’t open yet.)
Next up, Rector’s Palace, a 15th century mansion that is now home to the Cultural History Museum of Dubrovnik.
Lots of interesting historical artifacts, but the palace itself was really the main attraction.
Pretty nice digs, eh? ;)
I took a brief stroll through the Maritime Museum.
Lunch time! The cuisine of Croatia is heavily influenced by nearby Italy, so pizza at Olivia seemed like a good choice.
I was a bit confused about the very American decor, complete with chalk art in English…
…so I ordered the pizza named after the region (Dalmatia) to try to make up for the underwhelming culture of the place, ha! It was tasty!
Alex finished his meeting for the day just as I was having lunch, so he finally got to join me! We walked around the lovely harbor that I had so far only seen from atop the walls.
We enjoyed some gelato! (Yes, that’s a baby Jonas bump… the blog is a little behind. ;)
We stepped into this fabulous Orthodox church to round out our Old Town Dubrovnik sightseeing for the day.
I was pretty worn out since I got up so early, but Alex suggested we take a walk outside the Old Town rather than taking the nearest bus back to the hotel. I resisted, but I’m glad I ultimately agreed.
I had no idea that this fence full of “Love Locks” existed, so it was a fun surprise!
But the real highlight was the scenery. Wow!
We found a random little trail and walked down by the water.
At long last, we made it back to the hotel to rest. I still can’t believe this was the view from our room.
Later, we joined some of Alex’s colleagues for a fancy dinner at Michelin-recommended Proto.
Delicious!
It was pretty magical seeing the Old Town at night for the first time!
Goodnight, Dubrovnik! :)
