Chris and I have been talking about going to Dubrovnik for over a decade now and we finally got around to doing it.

Despite Croatia being a very small country, it took us more than a day to get from Cres to Dubrovnik. We traveled in style however.

By next morning we were in Split…

And a few hours later in Korcula.

Dubrovnik is Croatia`s tourism hot-spot and they are seriously working on competing with world class hotels. They are fairly successful at it, but there are some systematic problems that creep up, but considering that the whole area was devastated during the war in the `90s, they are doing quite well.

Of the whole walled city, my favorite part was the main gate antechamber, a large open air `room` with solid walls on all sides and two cute lacey looking lanterns in the middle.

The second day we were there, we decided to take an excursion boat to the nearby islands. We booked the boat at the hotel and showed up at the appointed time only to be picked up by the wrong boat (did I mention systematic hospitality problems?). It was no matter though because there were two other families who were also stowed away without their knowledge. The boat, Roditelj, was actually really cool and it turned out to be the oldest boat in Croatia.

After the stop on the first island, Kolocep, we straightened everything out and got onto our assigned boat (which had actual sides and shade – more appropriate for a baby). The islands around Dubrovnik are very similar to the islands I used to vacation as a kid and I got quite nostalgic. Bathing on the rocks, though the best thing in the World, requires some skill so we decided that it would be too difficult with Owen so we had a swim on the beach in the town of Lopud.

The next day we had a walk on the walls. Because Owen categorically refuses to have anything on or near his head, we had to do the walk early in the morning and only did one stretch of the wall.

Up until about five years ago, the walled town was the center of Dubrovnik and all people living in Dubrovnik (old and new part) went to the old town to shop and get their business done. Over the last few years, the rent has gone up and some older people have sold their houses for exorbitant prices to people who do not stay there. There are some incentives for people to live in the old town year round. You can get up to 10,000 kn (2,000 CAD) a year per child, entrances to movie theater and other entertainment is free and the city covers the cost of installing internal air-conditioning. I hope that these incentives work and people keep living inside the city walls. It would be very sad if Dubrovnik turned into another Venice. It is still not too late, look at the vegetable garden someone is keeping just inside the city walls:

We had a chance to see a few museums of which I particularly liked the modern art gallery. But, I do tent to be fond or those.

I had a really hard time leaving Cres this time. We stayed for more than a month and I had so much fun. I also managed to get some of my thesis work done. Best of all, the kids had a chance to spend time with people who love them.

On to a few more adventures and then back home…

I was walking around in Cres the other day when I saw a poster advertising “4th Annual Sheep Exhibition” in Orlec. I had not heard of this event previously, but now that I have, I was not going to miss it. The poster promised tasting of sheep delicacies and “Harmonijada” (Accordian-fest) in the evening hours. It invited us to come and be entertained and I was instantly interested.

Orlec is the first town up the hill from Cres. We decided to take the regular bus line to get there which was all we needed to get Trevor interested in the trip.

Trevor in the bus

The twenty minute bus ride was so exciting, Trev fell asleep. He missed seeing the Renault 4 on the right

I might or might have not been to Orlec previously but I had no expectations of it except to see some abandoned houses and a few old ladies stubbornly holding onto their routines and evading their children’s attempts to put them into nursing homes. Well, I was to have my prejudices of small island villages overturned! Orlec seemed to be booming. Maybe it is the vacationers that make it busy in the summer, but there were more newly renovated houses than houses falling into disrepair.

Orlec

Orlec seems to be the magnet for the few Renault 4 cars remaining in the world. I think I saw at least three. The town also seems to support agricultural community of sorts. Sheep, a horse, some veggie gardens and a kiwi tree were to be spotted.

Sheep

Kiwi

The sheep exhibition was small but vibrant. There were 10 sheep pens with four sheep each competing for the best specimen. There was to be a a sheep shearing with traditional (non-motorized) scissors, but we missed it because we had to catch the last bus back to Cres.

Trevor was quite tired and a bit weary of sheep so we got some jams, honey and rakija (grappa) at the stands, had a nice meal of tripe and roast lamb and headed home.

Tripe was actually very tasty though it is the kind of meal I would have on very few occasions this being the second time in my life that I tried it.

The first time I had tripe was in a fancy New York restaurant and then it was beef, rather than lamb. I was talking to my great uncle, zio Peppi, about it a few years ago and he told me how, when he was younger, you could only find tripe in small hole-in-the-wall-working-man’s eateries.

Lovely Bicycle! is a blog about pretty and vintage bikes.

As far as bicycle design goes, nothing is more dear to me than the old Pony bike. These classics are not so much bicycles as they are kitchen chairs on wheels. This is possibly why they are so omnipresent and timeless. I believe they are still being manufactured and sold.

Ours are, of course, equipped with child seats. The orange pony has a vintage hand made seat, wound with kitchen rag. Very posh.

I was going to go around Cres taking pictures of ponies but I am too occupied with my thesis to catch many good ones.

There was one pony in particular that is our favorite and we managed to discretely take a picture of it.

Despite the fact that it probably has not been ridden in ten years, it is still a great bike for two.

Sandra Juto writes an arts blog

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