Jen and Rebecca Climb the Walls

We were much refreshed after our 10 hours of sleep and feel mostly cured of jet lag now.  Certainly cured enough to enjoy a full day exploring Dubrovnik.  We must thank Rick Steves for recommending we walk the walls around Old Town first thing in the morning before it gets too hot and before the cruise ships dock, clogging the walls with tourists.  We started at 8:30 and managed to work up quite a sweat even at that early hour, but the walls didn't feel crowded until we were almost finished.

Rebecca on the wall with the pretty red roofs

(though they are only so bright because they were replaced after the recent war)

Many pretty red tile roofs

Jen taking a break from the heat under a mangrove tree (it may not really be a mangrove, but it sounds good to us!).

As we were walking along the walls, we spied a cute little restaurant offering breakfast until noon.  Once we finished our trek along above the city, we hiked the edge of Old Town up many many stairs until we found it again.  And it was definitely worth it!  It was a lovely setting and we had decidedly delicious omelets with a crepe for desert.  And our waitress filled our water bottles with ice!  Who can ask for more?  (It's possible that this breakfast was way more exciting because we were so hot, sweaty, tired, and hungry after our wall walk.)  After brunch, we filled our water bottles in the Onofrio fountain on the main street through town.  More cold water was much appreciated.

Since our wall walk tickets got us into the nearby fort as well, we hiked up more stairs outside the city wall.  For some reason, not many other people shared our enthusiasm for climbing stairs in the middle of the day and it was practically deserted.  We like to have historical landmarks to ourselves!

Rebecca's got more than one pair of big ones.

We headed to a cliff-side, ocean-view bar for a much-served adult beverage (Jen had her first Croatian beer and it was yummy) then we hopped on a 15 minute boat ride out to Lokrum Island where we went sea-bathing and were followed around by squawking peacocks. 

Jen drying off on Lokrum with her Greece 2007 souvenir towel on the "rocky beach". 

(Yes, it was literally all rocks, but we didn't mind since we spent all of our time in the water.)

After cleaning up on the mainland, we decided to sample the Croatian interpretation of Mexican food for dinner.  We both consider ourselves connoisseurs of Mexican food, and the obligatory margaritas, and this was a really good dinner!  Really awesome enchiladas (and margaritas).  We rounded out the evening by strolling through the brightly lit Old Town (still a ton of people even at 10:00 at night) and enjoying a night cap at an American-favorite wine bar (at least most of the customers seemed to be American, and it was recommended in several guidebooks. But the Croatian wine was tasty, so who are we to argue?)

Tomorrow we're off to tour Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  And we're driving ourselves!  Updates to follow on if Rebecca allows Jen to test out her new driving skills.  Or if our map reading skills extend to Eastern Europe.