Everyone,
We have had a real adventure since we headed to the airport on Monday May 6 to get our Lufthansa flight to Munich, due to arrive Tuesday morning with a second flight to Dubrovnik, the first stop of our spring adventure.
Unfortunately after a long wait at the airport, just after midnight, the flight was cancelled. The pilot who was going to fly the plane had noticed a dent in the stabilizer during his pre-flight inspection. Pictures were sent to Frankfurt but time was running out and the decision was made to cancel. We were given taxi chits and got back home at about 2:00 a.m. Allan then spent from about 2:45 a.m.--6:45 a.m. trying to sort out new bookings with Air Canada and Lufthansa. After what seemed like a long game of ping pong between the two companies (we had booked with Air Canada but our flight was a code-share with Lufthansa), the last Air Canada agent got the Lufthansa agent on a joint call with Allan and told the agent that she was writing a report and that he needed to fix the problem "or he would be looking for a new career." She then proceeded to tell him how he could delete the initial booking so that we could rebook a flight from Toronto to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Dubrovnik. Needless to say, we were exhausted and had very little sleep.
On Tuesday May 7, after a lovely brunch at our neighbour's, we headed to the airport to board the 4:15 p.m. flight to Frankfurt. It also was delayed "due to maintenance", but luckily a service rep told us that another plane had replaced the one that needed maintenance. We left about 45 minutes late, but made up the time and arrived in Frankfurt at 6:30 a.m. Luckily, it was a very uneventful flight. We had a four hour lay-over, but spent a chunk of that time walking to our gate (Frankfurt is a very big airport). We also had time for a pretzel.
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| Pretzels at the Frankfurt Airport |
The Dubrovnik airport is located about 15 km south of the city centre. We passed a number of islands and some lovely countryside just before we landed.
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| Picture from the plane just before landing |
We took a shuttle bus to one of the Gates at the entrance of the old part of Dubrovnik.
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| View from the shuttle bus approaching the city |
As we were getting our bearings, we saw a sign for Kawa, a coffee shop serving Cognito beans (from Zagreb) as well as having lots of artisanal items. The owner/curator/barista was from Vancouver and had moved to Dubrovnik about 20 years ago. He was very helpful suggesting places for dinners and interesting things to see and do in the city and surroundings.
It also has a lovely deck with a view of the Adriatic Sea. It will be great to have coffee and breakfast out there.
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| Allan on the deck |
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| Our door is on the right-our hosts are on the left, though we still haven't met them yet. |
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| View as we head down the stairs |
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| View from our street (hard to take) |
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| View of the old city |
We walked down a winding stairway to get to the old town.
Our apartment building is just outside the walls.
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| Beach club near us. |
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| Folks on the beach |
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| Interesting boat in the background |
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| Great walls and fortifications, which we will be exploring |
We passed a commemorative stone in honour of photojournalist Pavo Urban who lost his life on Dec. 6, 1991, while photographing a bombardment of Dubrovnik.
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| Sign about commemorative stone |
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| The Stone... |
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| View of restaurants in old town from top of stairs |
We had a reservation at Kopun, which turns out to mean "capon". The restaurant is located at the top of a large stairway in a corner of a large square.
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| Outside of Kopun on left side of picture |
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| Lovely spot on a large square |
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| Church St. Ignatius across from the restaurant. |
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| Cats are everywhere in Dubrovnik |
We had. delicious meal. Allan had one of the specialties - Dubrovnik capon, based on a recipe from the 16th century with stewed capon meat, fig, peach, raisons, sour orange marmalade, honey, white wine, vegetables, and barley. I had a "royal seafood stew" called Brodet, a traditional recipe from Croatian Islands with different types of fresh fish and shellfish, wine, polenta, tomato sauce, olives and capers. The sauce was amazing. Luckily Allan could help me with the very large portion.
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| My seafood stew-- excellent fresh seafood |
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| Very large but extremely tasty meal. Love the bib they gave me. |
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| Walking down the stairs from the restaurant at night |
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Stained Glass looked beautiful at St. Blaise Church, which we passed by.
St. Blaise is the patron saint of Dubrovnik. |
We deked into a gallery that was having a show of works by Mirsad Begic (b. 1953).
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| A lovely portico on the way back to the apartment |
We are very happy to have arrived in Dubrovnik, even though we have missed a day. It is a beautiful city with a lot to explore and a fascinating history. We our taking the Free Tour tomorrow (Thursday May 9) at 11:00 a.m. Time for a good night's sleep.
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