coastal croatia - by land

our first stop after getting off the sailboat was one of the most beautiful cities by the sea i have ever visited - dubrovnik, croatia - world heritage site #4 for the trip. dubrovnik is in the very south of croatia on the adriatic sea. on our drive there we learned that bosnia has a coastline - a whole 5 kilometers of one - making for four passport checks and stamps (croatia - out; bosnia - in; bosnia - out; croatia - in) in a very short amount of time! 

the old town of dubrovnik is a massively walled fortress that gently slopes to the sea. it has many features of the other "old towns" we visited, but the scale of dubrovnik was so much larger that it was enthralling. we spent part of an afternoon and evening walking the streets of old town and getting lost in the narrow alleys and corridors. we spent the second day circumambulating the walls of the city (with a throng of other tourists), enjoying the views and color combination of the red tile roofed city against the backdrop of the blue adriatic. 

fortress walls and the monastery at night

 marble streets and a left-over guillotine

 the city early in the morning

 the perks of being an early morning runner -

beautiful places with no people

 walking on the walls overlooking the city

 narrow streets and our walking adventure

 seaside wall; and just when you had forgotten that real people

live in this idyllic place, some well-placed underpants

 beauty abounding

 despite the mono-color from afar, the roof tiles were beautifully varied

 fortress walls 

 another view from the fortress walls

 andrew, jenny, & pete

dubrovnik from the belvedere - gorgeous!

from dubrovnik we made a deviation from our planned route - but that is for another post. finishing out the coastal croatia series is world heritage site #5, split. split is quite close to where we started our sailing adventure and is famous for being the roman emperor diocletian's retirement locale. seeing split after dubrovnik was a bit anticlimactic, but there were some cool features such as the egyptian sphinx from the 15th century bc, the beautifully carved features in the cathedral, the cathedral bell tower, and an early morning fish market. 

driving was an adventure to be had in split - tiny streets, many one-way, lots of impatient drivers who are willing to come within an inch of your vehicle to maneuver around, and parking shenanigans for breakfast entertainment. 

diocletian's palace

 one of two sphinx from egypt (the other still has its head)

 cathedral of st domnius (second sphinx on far right)

 the city from the bell tower of the cathedral

 one of the intact temples (minus the roof) - 

men would occasionally come into the temple and sing for the 

tourists. the acoustics were amazing and the sound floated up and out

 early morning fish market (another running find)

parking entertainment from our breakfast perch. there was clearly

a parking hierarchy here and a known language of honking that

required certain people to move their cars for others. fascinating!