Old Town Dubrovnik

We enjoyed a late breakfast and a late start to a guided tour of the city of Dubrovnik. I was thankful as due to the jetlag I found myself wide awake still at midnight and slept until almost 8:30.  We wandered around a guided tour of the city for about an hour and a half. At first, I was a little amiss to put in the headset that allows you to hear the guide better as you walk, but as we continued I was SO glad we did. Our guide, Nikola, shared so much about the history of the town and the Croatian civilization that I had not known, including small facts that Napoleon did them a favor by building a fortress atop the hill when he took over Europe, as almost a century later it helped the city to ward off attacks by Serbia during the early 90s. She showed us little points of interest, such as shrapnel damage from bombings still visible on the face of the oldest church, buildings that are original vs. restored after damages from the attacks in the 90s, and a small carving on the side of the wall in an alley from 1597. 

After the tour, we were able to wander around the many shops to explore, and buy food, or you can opt to board a boat out the island to see the monastery and botanical garden, take the gondola up the hill to view the fortifying from above, pay a small amount (250 Kuna or about 35 Euro) to climb up and walk the 2 km of walls around the city, or visit the small museums or art galleries contained within. We return to the boat early afternoon and sailed from there to Slano, a small fishing village where we walked around the town a bit before dinner onboard the vessel.