Day trip to Cavtat, September 17, 2008

We all were a little lazy today. Originally we had thought about the fish picnic but decided to do it later this week (we should have done it on one of these bright sunny days and not waited). Instead we took a boat down the coast a way to Cavtat. The ride was pleasant and it looked like we had plenty of time to explore the town if we wanted to.

Right near the boat landing is a nice walk way with benches and tropical looking trees in planters. We parked ourselves at a little place and had a drink. I don't know why we didn't do the Rector's Palace that was here. We sort of walked around, peeked in a few shops (all the wares here were the same that we had seen), picked up a couple of trinkets at the outdoor market and tried to locate the TI. We did find the office, but it was simply an office space and the woman there appeared tied up with someone else. There were no brochures or anything like that. We did find a large map on a wall down the road and it outlined the area. Unfortunately if we wanted to explore more of the area (Konavle and the restaurant Konavoski Dvori -which I had read some nice things about) we would need a car. We had not come in our vehicle because for one, we didn't want to lose our parking space and two, it just was too big for these narrow roads. Unless you are a party of 8 don't accept an upgrade to a van. We would have ventured out differently if we would have had something a little more reasonably sized. In Dubrovnik the parking was a huge issue. We did end up moving the van because someone left a nasty note on it. Our apartment rental (Simply Angelic Apartments) insisted we could park anywhere on the opposite side of the street we were on. I think we sort of doubted this. We wished there were better parking arrangements here. A smaller vehicle would have helped, but honestly, parking for her place was a problem.

We were sort of bummed to find out we really couldn't venture away from town on this excursion. This is probably a place that is really hopping in high season, it just didn't seem to have any umph while we were here. Maybe our expectations were too high, don't know what it was. We decided to have our lunch here though, right on the main drag and it was pretty good. After that we caught a boat back to Dubrovnik. We weaved ourselves in and around some of the back streets, popping in interesting looking shops before we headed back to our place. We stopped at the grocery store, picked up a fresh batch of goodies and then headed up to our place. Tonight we were going to have the Tischer's and Bruechner's up for a farewell drink.

This was sort of a regroup day, we did some wash when we got back, had a little personal down time and then got our little spread ready for evening on the patio. We enjoyed another simply breathtaking sunset while listening to music from the iPod. By the time our guests arrived the weather had really taken a chilly turn. We had a drink outside and then moved to our "suite". Baily's and coffee, that will warm you. Even the beer drinking boys enjoyed that. Tomorrow our friends would be taking off for Germany. Our plan for the next day is to walk the wall.