Yesterday morning we ventured out in the thunder, ominous clouds and finally the inevitable rain to our kayaking embarkation location. Not surprisingly, the weather had thwarted our kayaking plans. The nice guys putting away all the kayaks told us we could come back at 4:00 to kayak later, but for safety reasons, we could not go kayaking in the storm. No problem, we said. We had no intention of risking life and limb (or being that cold, wet, and miserable) on kayaks with lighting all around. Safety first! So we scurried into a nearby cafe to wait out the storm, enjoying our coffee like the Europeans do, which is slowly. It rained long and hard enough for us to have to flag the waiter down (no easy task) to get second rounds of coffee since they don't like to serve the venti size in Europe.
Rebecca relaxing with cappuccino number two.
After an hour and a half of lingering, however, we wanted to get up and move around, even though it was still raining. Sadly, Rebecca's umbrella broke upon opening it, so we were on a mission to find a new one before going too far. Because she is a lover of tacky touristy items, she bought one that says Croatia all over it.
Yup, still raining.
Since outdoor activities were not at all appealing in the rain, we decided to head to some of the museums and religious houses of Dubrovik's Old Town. We went to the synagogue, St. Blaise's Church (Dubrovnik's patron saint), and then the Rupe Ethnographic Museum which used to be a granery and now houses a collection of traditional clothes with their Konavle buttons, farm equipment, and other handcrafts. The rain was mostly done by this point, but to let the dripping from rooftops dry up, we stopped for pizza at Dubrovnik's oldest pizzeria (so they say). With the sun now peeking out, we decided to head out of Old Town to take the cable car up to the top of Mount Srd where we would have good views of the city and could visit the Museum of the Defenders of Dubrovnik to learn more about the impact of the recent war on the region.
The sun returns! This was before Jen realized how far the drop-off was on the other side of this wall.
Jen from Mount Srd with the Old Town and Lokrum Island below.
By the time we came back to town, it was time to meet for our sea kayaking adventure. Apparently the later departure time is the "sunset" kayaking time, and as we all know, sunsets are supposed to be romantic. So it was us with four other couples. How romantic for us! Oh well. We had a few issues maintaining a straight kayaking trajectory, but we never got lost from our group, and only hit one rock head-on (though we bumped into fellow kayakers' kayaks a few times.) We had sandwiches and some swim time at a beach that is only accessible by kayaks, though it wasn't so exclusive as that makes it sound, because there are a lot of kayaking trips departing from Dubrovnik throughout the day.
Ready to take off.
On the open sea, with the Old Town in the background.
The one bonus of the sunset tour was that we got wine when we got back to shore. After three plastic cups of wine and some fun conversation with the Brits in our tour group, we cleaned up before having a late dinner, as we were still dripping sea water. Jen was pretty well tuckered out, but apparently wine wakes Rebecca up, so we managed to be a moderately lively twosome for a late meal. Jen was generally pleased with her fish, but Rebecca should have asked about the shell status of the scampi on the menu. Having to work so hard to get to the food you've ordered is annoying (and messy.)
We had to finish this blog post from our next hotel since the car wifi failed, and once we got that fixed, the computer battery died. So more later on our drive up the coast from Dubrovnik, through Split to our destination for the next two nights, Plitvice Lakes National Park.
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