Life Eaters

Well, we have completed our week on Gulet boat Andi and are once again on dry land. In a nutshell, the Dalmatian coast is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever traveled to. Aside from the miles of coastline and turquoise blue water, the tiny towns are a straight from a fairy tale, the cuisine, especially the seafood, some of the most delicious, and the people consistently, warm, social and friendly everywhere we’ve been. I would love to come back someday and maybe charter our own board to explore the area, but fora first visit, the 13 of us on this wooden boat was a perfect decision. We especially loved our hard working crew of 3 and appreciate everything they did for us.

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Today was Tom and Cheryl’s 39th wedding anniversary, so all of us on the boat decided that we would throw a second wedding for them so they could renew their vows. The evening before Alyssa and Bernadette went on a bit of a wild goose chase tracking down a bouquet of flowers for the event, and Ken and Linda went on their own adventure to find some cherry sherry (one of their favorites). We had Iviča perform a make-shift ceremony (of course), and the result was a pretty cheeky little play that we all took part in. Bernadette had her camera at the ready and will be putting together a nice digital photo package for them when they get home. It was a lot of fun and actually pretty sweet.

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For our next stop our faithful Gulet Andi anchored off the island do Vis. There were two towns we visited here, the town of Vis, and on the opposite side the town of Kmoviča.

We disembarked at Vis, but we immediately took a taxi over to Kmoviča to check out the opposite side first. Our highlight here was the swim that we had atone of their rocky beaches. Wade about 50 into the water and you’ll have a view of a centuries old church, red-tile roofed houses climbing the hillside, a small harbor where fishermen untangle their nets ansa dock where sailors stop to take a break from the sea. The water has been pretty cold most of the trip since it’s pretty early I the season, but we’re definitely feeling things warm up as the weather stays hot and we move north.

Back in Vis we walked around d a little more. This is a Great town and we Would definitely have liked to spend more time here. Instead of a marina or mooring field for boats, the sailboats here back right up to the Main Street which runs along the waters edge, so if you walk down the main drag you have shops, restaurants and sidewalk cafes on one side, and rows of boats on the other with sailors and crew lounging and drinking on their decks and cockpits.

This island also has an attraction called the “blue cave” which we opted not to because of our limited time, but it’s worth looking into if you ever find yourself here.

That evening on the boat we had our dinner prepared on board rather than eating out in tow. We dubbed this the “Captains dinner”, and Iviča sat and ate with us. Ivan slaved away in his teeny tiny kitchen all afternoon prepared seafood three ways for us, fried calamari, octopus salad, and pan fried whole sea bass (and/or some similar Mediterranean delicious fish).

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Hvar has a reputation for being the party island around these parts. Honestly though, we didn’t see it. We are here still fairly early in tourist season so things haven’t really ramped up yet. We did see a handful of beach bars, clubs and discos, but for the most part they either closed early or were relatively calm. Thing will pick up in a couple of weeks when the people show up for Yacht Week, and continuing on for the rest of the summer. What we did see though was another quaint little Mediterranean town nestled into a hillside overlooking the harbor.

At the very top of the hill, If you walk for about 15 minutes up a steep road, there stands an old fortress that you can still walk around. At the top, the views are amazing. You can imagine 16th century soldiers scanning the horizon keeping guard against enemy ships. The coolest part of the fortress was probably the prison, where there were a half dozen dungeon-like cells carved out of the stone.

There was clearly a lot more to is town than we had time to see, so I would certainly come back and explore more if I had the opportunity. Although I feel as though this is a reoccurring feeling I have for every place I visit along this coast. There never seems to be enough time. As per the usual drill, we spent some time wandering the narrow streets of their old town, had a glass of wine, and finished off with some gelato.

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Instead of parking the boat in a harbor we anchored in a bay at the island of Korčula, had a swim, and were shuttled via dinghy to the town later in the afternoon. The old town of Korčula juts out from the mainland in a small peninsula, and the tile-roofed buildings rise up on a small hill a church and tall bell tower. We did climb that bell tower just after sunset, which provides some stunning views looking down on the tiny town and sidewalk cafés and restaurants, and also out to some of the neighboring islands and the sea beyond. My only regret here was that we arrived a little too later to see the sunset from the tower.

Back up just a little bit. To when we arrived in Korčula. We stopped at an adorable alley wine bar and had a few drinks. Almost everything we had, both wine and some spirits, was grown and made right there on Korčula island or one of the neighboring islands. It’s nor uncommon for a particular bar to be. The only establishment that serves the sine from a specific vineyard because of the small batches some wineries put out, and many of these wineries are tiny, family run operations.. I must say too that it nice to get a glass of delicious wine for about a dollar.

Soon after, we bumped into our crew Iviča and Ivan at one of the local patios having a beer. They invited us to jon them and we got to hang out and talk for a bit while they were not performing their duties of watching after tourists (us). They are really great, hard working people. One of my favorite things so far about this entire trip is the infectious sound if Ivan’s laugh.

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After our first night at Šipan, we motored to the island of Mljet (not a typo). As Iviča said, this was not a very large town… (“You look here , you can see house, house tree, church, house…the is all”). We took a taxi to the other side of the island, then a short boat taxi across an inland lake to a pretty monastery hugging the lake’s edge. The monastery wasn’t spectacular and a tally pretty dull compared to most of the others we’ve seen, but the trip made for a nice walk and some sightseeing.

After the monastery we took the taxi boat to another small, inland salt lake where I took a swim. The interesting thing about this lake is that is connected to the adjoining lake by a small channel, and The current I’d the channel changes directions twice a day depending on the tides. We sat in the sun by the lake for a while watching fish, sea urchins and sea anenomies in the shallow water.

The highlight if this stop was dinner. There was a restaurant near where we docked that serves up a traditional Croation dish called peka. Peka is typically lamb, veal or octopus, cooked in a wine and garlic sauce with potatoes and vegetables. It is cooked on an outside fire or grill under a bell shaped dish, for up to three hours. Mark and Bernadette ordered lamb and Alyssa and I ordered the octopus. The octopus was the most tender, deliciously rich and flavorful I have ever had, and the lamb got similar reviews. If you ever come to Croatia make sure to put this dish on your “must eat” list, and remember to call the restaurant at least three hours ahead of time so they can get it started cooking before you arrive, otherwise you’ll have a very long wait.

Outside the restaurant as we left we met a very cute and spry mustached man at the grill names Stephan who had been our cook. He told us about how he liked to go out and fish by himself and how our fish was caught earlier that day.

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We were not scheduled to arrive at our boat until 3pm, so we had all morning to sight-see in Dubrovnik one last time. Here is one thing that can be said about old town on a weekend, it’s crowded…really crowded. The cruise ships pull on in the morning, and tour busses drop tourists off from anywhere within a few hour’s drive, and the streets were packed with tourist (including us). If you come to this town on the weekend, do everything you can to get get out and about between 8am and 10am, or after 7pm. Of course, everything is relative, it’s probably no worse (or better) than Venice, or Paris, or Times Square, but it was a big change from the relatively calm streets from the day before.

And finally the pearl In the oyster of our Croation getaway, our boat! Our boat is a 22 meter Gulet boat with 6 cabins.

It is a wooden ship with two masts, and loads of space for lounging up top. The stern has a table large enough to comfortably seat eight and two lounging beds able to fit two people each, one I each corner. The bow has a deck with lots of room for lounging in the sun, or if the afternoon is too hot a shade can be unrolled from the boom to create some shade. There are five guest cabins down below (cramped quarters, not unlike camping), and one cabin for the skipper, the other two crew members sleep in a hatch on the bow that they share with some of the boat’s equipment. This is no luxury cruise, but it right up our alley, and the small size and only three crew members means we really get to know everybody really well. Here is a run down of who we will be Sharing our boat with for the next 7days:

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We had an entire day to explore town, so after our morning cappuccino at bikers café near out apartment ( nicknamed smokers café because of the cigarette smoke cloud that filled the place), we walked down to old town to check out the photo museum that was at the top if our to-do list. This was the war-photo exhibit, which showcases photos from the 1991 Croatian war and the war in the Ukraine from only last year. The photos were stunning and powerful and emotional. It puts a lot into perspective when you can see some of the effects of a war that happened In The very place you’re standing, after talking to people who have lived through it. This is an absolute must-visit for anybody who comes to this town.

We wandered town a bit and headed back to our apartment in the afternoon for some cheese and wine and relaxing patio style.

For dinner Alyssa and I split from Mark and Bernadette. They headed out to enjoy some fine dining on the wall of old town overlooking the harbor at a restaurant named 360 (which they gave high praise for, most notably for the view, atmosphere and service). Alyssa and I started out by taking the cable car to the top of the nearby hillside for a panoramic views of the entire city, sea, and nearby islands. The view was quite stunning, but whether or not it was worth the $15 price tag to get up there may be questionable.

For dinner, we decided we were getting a little worn out from the traditional Mediterranean cuisine (yes, we actually needed a break from whole, grilled fish and octopus salad, as delicious as it is), and headed toward a small place along the south wall named Azure that specialized in Asian food and curries. It was lovely and I would recommend it to anybody in town.

As we were leaving, it was after dark, and we happened to be walking at a particular point in the street where we had a view of the harbor in a break between the high wall surrounding old town, and above it the wall where Mark and Bernadette were just being served their final course for dinner, fireworks started to fire from the harbor. This apparently happens the last weekend of the month, and we found ourselves at the right place at the right time to see the sky light up with the city walls silhouetted in the foreground. It was a great endcP to an amazing day.

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The old town of Dubrovnik is one of the best preserved walled cities in the world, and is a UNESCO world heritage sight. Since it was build over 1200 years ago it has seen many rulers and wars, and remains an impenetrable fortress even up until the Croation war in 1991. One of the first things we did here was to walk the walls, which do a 2km loop around the town. This walk gives amazing views of the orange roofed stone buildings on one side, and the Adriatic sea on the other.

After the was we made a stop for a cold drink at cafe bar Buža. To get there, you literally enter through a hole in the city wall and come out on the rocks lining the sea-side of the wall. There are umbrellas and tiny cafe tables along the rocks, and stone steps going down to the water where you could take a cool swim in the turquoise waters.

We continued walking around the old town for a bit. Like Rovinj, every corner holds a visual treasure of narrow alleys with stone steps, cute sidewalk cafes, Cats sunning on window sills and locals pinning their laundry up on lines stretching across the 3rd story windows. Main Street was a bit of a crowded mess of tourists and cruise board passengers, but the back neighborhoods were full of gems.

We had dinner at a restaurant on top of the hill named Lady Pi-Pi, (aptly named after a stone sculpture by their entrance of a lady peeing). The food was good and the night view beautiful, but we discovered that as soon as the sun goes down the wind picks up and it was a very chilly meal. The staff had blankets at the ready though and it became one more in our list of unforgettable meals.

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The majority of this day was mostly uneventful as it was spent in a car driving south to Dubrovnik. I have to sat though that the coastal road between Split and Dubrovnik is stunning! Even better than Hwy. 1 on the West coast? There were winding cliff-side roads, islands dotting the coast with local fishermen working oyster nets, mile long tunnels built through mountains, and small orange-roofed villages nestles into sides of hills and calm bays.

We stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant just outside of Dubrovnik named Orsan. The tables sat feet from the water, close enough to take your socks and dip your toes in ( the water is cold!). The interior was built out of a 17th century boathouse with an arched stone ceiling, and the seafood was incredible.

We got to our Dubrovnik apartment and mer the owner, Katica, and her husband. They lived in the house for thirty years I. This house, raised a family, survived the recent war, and were maybe the cutest couple I’ve ever met. Out apartment is great, with a large sunny terrace covered with grape vines overlooking the Adriatic. I can definitely handle spending the next few nights here.

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