Korcula and Dobrovnik—The Wonderful Adriatic

Korcula and Dobrovnik—The Wonderful Adriatic

As last wrote my computer died and I had no converter to charge my batteries. But, I found a converter and I can type up an update on my last couple of days!

As we arrived on the Croatian Island of Korcula, we got in line to ride a bus over the island to the actual city of Korcula, but the bus was full and we piled into a taxi with 4 ladies from Australia who were taking a year off from their 5 year law program and traveling the world. They were going to attempt to camp for the first time, having purchased a tent in the previous city. Good luck to them!
Dropped off in Korcula we scrambled to find a room as we had nothing set up (aka jesse and I hung out with the bags as my parents ran around asking people if they had Sobe’s (Rooms) aavailable for rent. It was a little hit and miss as it was quite busy, but eventually we were able to get two rooms (in two different places). Mom and Pop had a wonderful view out of theirs . While ours, was not as scenic, but still very nice, a couple of long stairs up the hill.
We dropped our stuff and practically sprinted for the ocean. The swimming was great, the Adriatic, beautifully blue, looked like all sorts of flavors of Gatorade frost. Blissfully cooled off we proceeded to explore the city of Korcula. If you ever travel to Croatia, and want somewhere romantic to take your wonderful partner…I suggest checking out Korcula. What a great city to wander, get a drink, and enjoy the sun setting over the Adriatic. The actual old town was relatively small and designed to look like a fishes skeleton, with all the streets branching off the one main street. Then walls were designed to let the wind rush down into the city fromn the west (good), but not from the east (bad wind). Very cool.
Jesse and I explored past the city at night, through the marina and down towards the resort areas that mainly cater to European tourists, not that cool, but interesting. We found an ocean based water polo court and swimming pool, just walled off with ocean water allowed to flow in and out. We explored the local fruit market, which was very cool and had really delicious fresh fruit. Also of note, we discovered in the local supermarket that they sell beer in 2 liter plastic bottles. Talk about classy! Reminded me of the classiest drinker I know. Kenny Curry. So there is a picture for you sir.
The next day we opted to spend most of our time relaxing along the water, swimming when hot and reading books, in full view of the beautiful old city. (PHOTO) Very amazing. We had an interesting conversation out on a huge metal buoy with a guy from New Zealand there with his Croatian girlfriend about the prevalence of “hotties walkin around.” Nice guy, and was curious to know if the weather was as bad in Seattle as people say. Also was aware of Nirvana and the grunge movement, oh what our city is known for! We walked around the city one more time in the afternoon, enjoying the vista’s again. We boarded a catamaran for the journey to Dobrovnik, a very hot 2.75 trip.
Arriving at the dock we spent a good 25 minutes trying to get into the city (aka talking to a cab driver who tried to charge my mom 50 Euro for the journey) . We eventually tried to take the bus, but then headed back to a cab and got the trip for like 15 bucks. It dropped us outside the Pile entrance to the old city (no cars allowed inside) and we walked into the city.
This was a surreal experience, it felt like walking into a city from lord of the rings, across a drawbridge, down some steps, through a wall and then BOOM, thousands of people, speaking languages I didn’t understand, milling through a beauuuuutiful old city. Pictures really don’t do this city justice, but man it was an experience to walk through.
We eventually made our way to where we thought our apartments would be, started a huge climb up a narrow steep road. My mom was having trouble getting her stuff up and a gentleman stopped to help her. He carried it about half way and I thought we were going to building 15, but the guy said “no, it is number 19, I am Peter” aka, he owns the place we were going! It was pretty funny and he is a very friendly man.
After settling in we headed out for dinner, ice cream and a walk through the city streets. Back to the room for some BBC in ENGLISH!! Also the tv here has like literally over 100 porn channels of some sort and at least half are Arabic…..kinda weird.
This morning we awoke and ate breakfast in our room, and headed to the city walls to walk around them. It was over a mile walk all the way around and pictures are better than words so here you go (PICTURES). But what is really important to note is the prevalence of brand new tiles on the roof mixed with maybe 10 % old tiles. The new tiles are a result of the 8 months of shelling the city suffered under during the Yugoslavian conflict about 10 years ago. The white cross up on the hill (shown lit up at night) is where the artillery launched the explosives into the city. Pretty chilling. Over 2/3 of the roofs in old town were hit. Here is a map showing all the places with damage. ( PICTURE)
Next we grabbed lunch, headed back to the room and grabbed some swimsuits. Going outside the city walls we eventually found an area to jump into the water. Swimming a bit we jumped from some pretty low rocks, but a tour boat video taped me and cheered. If only they knew what we were about to do…. We swam a bit across a little tiny bay and climbed out of the water. Scaling some rocks we eventually climbed maybe 20 meters up to a small ledge out of the cliff and jumped, very exhilarating. Some British dudes thought we were “crazy” as they told our parents. Next continued swimming to another little area where a guy from Iowa pointed us in the direction of the big jump. From the water it looked crazy, but we figured, lets go up and check it out. Well from up there it still was crazy. 30 Meters above the water, back against ancient city walls of Dobrovnik Jesse and I did our secret handshake and Jesse jumped (as he requested to go first this time). It was a crazy long time till he hit the water, and he did not look too happy when he hit the water, but of course I had to do it. Jumping, the water seemed to take forever to reach up and smack me. 30 meters/9.8 meters per second = a little over 3 seconds of hang time. RIDICULUS!!!!! Similar feeling to jumping out of an airplane. The air knocked out of me, we gathered our senses and swam back to the other side. We came, we jumped, it was awesome, something I will never forget. Let me just express myself again. IT WAS EPIC.
We walked back, got some water, and then headed back to our room to shower, watch the Olympic opening ceremony (which is a manageable time diff here), and to write this here blog. Another good day so far. Off to the Bay of Kotor in nearby Herzegovina tomorrow. Hope all is well back at home! Miss you guys (and gals) already. WEEK 1 COMPLETE!