Hi, everyone!
On Monday, we started taking trips to pretty places around Dubrovnik! Mostly, we would get on our little bus and drive to the starting point for a nice walk. Sometimes, our guide Lela-san would make a stop along the way to the beginning of the walk to see something else! On our first trip, we stopped at the festival site opposite Lokrum Island to look back at the old city walls.
Then we stopped at a farm to learn how silk is made. Marco Polo brought the first silkworm eggs from China to this area a very long time ago. Mare-san learned to take care of silkworms and unwind their cocoons into silk from her older relatives. Lela-san told us that silkworms like the smell of bacon! After the silkworms make their cocoons, Mare-san soaks them in hot water and untangles the silk threads a few at a time. Then she washes them with homemade soap to make them smoother. I got to see the embroidery that Mare-san’s family does in traditional patterns. Then we all had a yummy snack of kumquat jelly and candied almonds and little doughnuts. I made sure to thank Mare-san for our visit!
Then we got on the bus again for a short drive to the beginning of our walk. We took a shepherd’s path toward the town of Cavtat. There are lots of rock walls in the fields! The ground is so rocky that farmers have to dig up the rocks and pile them somewhere before there’s room for plants or trees to take root. We walked down to the harbor and had lunch there.
While we were eating there was a little bit of rain, but it stopped in time for our walk around the Cavtat peninsula. I got a close look at the superyacht, but it had a “no cats” sign on it! Then I found the local playground, saw some pretty shoreline and made friends with a crooked-trunk tree. It was getting cloudy again by the time we got back on the bus to go back to Dubrovnik.
Lela-san wanted to check out a new museum in town, so we all went along to see it. The Red Museum is about the history of Croatia during the Communist period. Lela-san lived through that period and was excited to see many things she remembered having herself as a young woman. I liked the Yugo car and the map that explained the jigsaw puzzle of countries that came together as Yugoslavia. When we were done visiting, we had rain and a traffic jam on our way back to the hotel. At least I got a good long look at part of the old city wall!
On Tuesday morning, Lela-san said we should start early to walk the walls of the old city. Mornings have fewer tourist buses coming and the predicted chance of rain was low. We climbed up the stairs right inside the Pile gate to the old city. Part of the stairway was a little scary because it was high up with only a railing on one side! Once Grandma and I got up on the wall, I was glad we came! We could see the buildings inside the old city and all the surrounding area. The wall goes up and down in places, so there were even steps to climb from one part of the wall to another!
Lela-san explained that before the Bosnian war shelling in the 1990s, all the roof tiles had been tan colored. After the war, all the damaged roofs had to be replaced with red tiles. There weren’t many undamaged tan tiles left! Lela-san showed me some historic buildings outside the city wall. Then I pretended I was Kahleesi from Game of Thrones and stared at the same wall the actress did for Season Two!
We stopped to get a drink at the old harbor, then we took the ferry to Lokrum Island. There are lots of peacocks and rabbits in the nature preserve! We took a walk to the fort at the top of the island and I made another twisted-trunk tree friend on the way. There were lots of construction machines around, making a new path to the top of the fort. I got to see the trencher in action!
After we walked down from the fort, we took the path through the botanical garden and all the way around the edge of the island. The cactus reminded me of my cactus friends in Moir Garden on Kauai! I was really tired by the time we arrived at the monastery for a picnic lunch! After lunch, Grandma and Grandpa took me to the Game of Thrones museum. I got to sit on the Throne of Seven Kingdoms before we took the ferry back to Dubrovnik!
Since we were walking through the old city to get to our hotel, I had a chance to make friends with a tiger who lives in an art studio. Then I had a drink at Big Onofrio’s fountain. The fountain was very important to the old city, because it has provided fresh water from a spring up in the hills for many centuries. Grandma posed me in the flower shape because it reminded her of Florence. Lela-san says this is a typical Croatian design, too!
After we all took a rest at the hotel, Grandma and Grandpa decided to take me to Fort Lovrijenac. It was getting cloudy, so we thought earlier was better than later! We got all the way to the top, and on the way down it started raining! We planned our trip just in time, because it rained all the rest of the day!
On Wednesday, our bus trip took us away from Dubrovnik for the last time. We drove to Ston, at the base of the Peljesac peninsula, to visit a salt making operation. Salt is made by letting sea water into ponds and letting the water evaporate in the sun. What’s left are salt crystals. The ponds were empty because it had been raining, but we watched a video showing how the salt is harvested. Ston is another city with a fort and old walls.
There are oyster farms in the Adriatic all along the peninsula, so we stopped to get fresh oysters. Raw oysters aren’t my favorite food, but the people who tried them said they were yummy!
After another bus ride, we stopped at a Carmelite cloister. The sister in charge invited us to see the chapel. There is also a refuge for donkeys there, so I made some new friends. From the cloister, we set out on our walk for the day. We walked through vineyards and meadows to get to Bartulovic winery.
Maro-san, the winemaker, was a good host! He explained how he thinks about making wine and showed us some of the old equipment that his family used for generations before him. Then his wife served a yummy lunch! I made sure to thank Maro-san for letting us come!
Next was a surprise! To get to our next destination, we had to drive back down the Peljesac peninsula and cross into Bosnia-Herzegovina for a little ways. So I added another country I’ve been in!
When we got back into Croatia, we headed for the car ferry terminal for the island of Hvar. It was raining again by the time we got there! Grandma and Grandpa and I had some kinderbueno flavor gelato while we were waiting for the ferry. Lela-san told me kinderbueno is a local candy with chocolate, hazelnut and milk. Then Lela-san offered everybody a chocolate biscuit. By the time the ferry had loaded all the cars and buses, it stopped raining. Grandma and Grandpa and I went up on the top deck to see Hvar as we arrived.
Hvar is a very long island, and we needed to drive to the other end! Since it was getting late, Lela-san arranged for us to have dinner before we got to our hotel. Her friend Mate-san made peka for us! Peka is a way of cooking meat or octopus with vegetables on a stone surface where a fire has been built. Once all the ingredients are in the pan, the embers of the fire are scraped to one side and the pan goes right on the hot stone. Then it gets a special cover that is covered with more embers. This way of cooking makes yummy roasted vegetables and very tender meat! Mate-san grew all the vegetables for the meal and baked the bread in the peka pan, too!
It was WAY past my bedtime when we finally got to the city of Hvar, but I was glad I got to stay up for dinner at Mate-san’s! Hvar is supposed to be the sunniest island in the Adriatic. I hope the rest of the trip is dry and sunny!
Love,
Lion-san
Making those embroidered pieces must have been a lot of work if they were started with silk worms. I have never seen the silk worms only the cocoons that we boiled to get the silk. It is interesting. You have seen a lot of Croatia, all those forts and walls the Red History Museum. You have eaten well too.