Tourist Stuff

One day last week I was at one of our sister hotels in Dubrovnik since it opened up for a week to host a huge Allergan (makers of Botox) conference. Since I was in Dubrovnik and was done working around 12:30pm (I know...life is so hard), I had the afternoon to wander around and spend some time by myself. It also meant I had to find my way home. You can believe I used that map in the picture. I circled where I live so if anything, I could just get in a taxi and point.

So on this day, I was talking to Nikša from Grand Villa Argentina (the sister hotel) and he told me I had to go see the work of Vlaho Bukovac, a famous Croatian painter, in the Dubrovnik Museum of Modern Art. Considering it was about 50m from the hotel, I figured I might as well do it on my way home. My ticket to the museum is the post card above. There was a good mixture of paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations. Bukovac didn't disappoint either. Fun Fact: Bukovac is from Cavtat, where Hotel Croatia is. I would have taken pictures but I was the only person there besides the employees, and one of them followed me around the entire time, which I didn't appreciate. Art is kind of a personal thing, you know? Anyway, there was as series of photos documenting places before and after the war, which I thought had particular impact.

From there, I walked to Old City at the Ploče entrance of the Stradun (Main Street of Old City). I sat for a little while and people watched, also I needed to brace myself for the street/heel combo of what was about to happen. The Stradun is very slippery because of the amount of foot traffic it's had over the past 800 years. I just came from work and was wearing heels and the Ploče entrance is on a downhill slope so I just sat studying how the other women accomplished the walk with out falling. So after I babystepped my way down and through Old City, I watched some guy get his Audi towed from the middle of the street. I really wish I would have had my camera because he literally parked in the middle of the street and was blocking the taxi stand exit. The tow trucks are not like ours, they park parallel to the car and use a lift mechanism to lift the car up and over onto the back.

This is a picture of the Stradun last time I was there in 2007:

After people watching for about 45 minutes, I bought a public bus ticket (shown above) for 8kn at a newsstand and waited for my number 4 bus to arrive. I remember thinking to myself, "I bet no one knows I'm a tourist," and feeling so proud, then I inserted my bus ticket upside down and clogged the machine...and the entrance to the bus, and then I'm pretty sure everyone knew I was a tourist. Either way I arrived home feeling pretty independent because mastering public transportation is pretty much key when you don't have a car.

Last weekend, Ana and I walked the 2km around the Old City walls in the freezing cold and bora (which is really cold, gusty winter wind). Bora is the reason my camera was shaking so badly while I was recording.

Now that you heard the wind, keep in mind it is freezing outside. The speedo model from one of my previous posts has made a comeback. The same guy was swimming in the same spot again. The Adriatic isn't even warm in the summer!




I wish I could have actually taken pictures while I was on the walls. Unfortunately, I've been having trouble remembering to charge my camera before I want to take pictures. I'll have to get some next time I'm up there, which I most definitely will be... at some point.