0
0
Dubrovnik, Croatia (Good Friday)
Weather: Drizzle/rain and low-lying cloud all day!
Even with the extra hours sleep this morning, we were woken up at 7.30am with the noise of the engines and thrusters kicking into action as we were reversing into port. As we spun around, we saw the bridge that took you towards the North of Croatia. We also saw what we thought to be a naval ship and a yacht from some Emirate state in the Middle East. Not particularly keen on their choice of colour scheme though – nice shade of beige!!
We headed down to breakfast in the Main Dining Room about 8am and by the time we got ourselves sorted, we were off Azura by 9am, heading into the old town.
The shuttle bus dropped us off just outside the Pile Gate. It was still a little drizzly, but the one thing we wanted to do was walk the walls. Once inside the old city, we bought our tickets (Callum was free – you don’t pay for children until they are seven) and found the entrance to Walk the Walls. Renovations were taking place and we missed the sign telling us which way we were meant to walk and along with several others, we walked around the walls the wrong way around (those long flights of stairs you were meant to come down … well, we walked up and boy did our legs feel it at the end!!).
The views were amazing though. Overlooking the city over the orange roofs gave you a great perspective. You could look down on all the incredibly narrow streets.
We climbed up the Minceta Tower – the highest point on the walls and stopped to admire the views on the way around. Thankfully, the numbers of people walking the wall that morning was quite low so it didn’t cause too much hassle going the wrong way around and the ticket inspectors didn’t bat an eyelid (or they were used to it when the English cruise ships were in port).
After completing our lap of the old city, we were drenched but at least the rain seemed to have stopped … for now. The cloud was still descending down the hillside so there was little point in taking the cable car to the top to admire the old city as you couldn’t see the top of the hills.
We walking down the main street “Placa” and wandered out onto the harbour front. Callum and Jon spotted fish in the clear waters then Callum spotted the ice-cream! We came back into the main square with Orlando’s Pillar and the Clock Tower for Callum to eat his ice-cream without bumping into anyone and listened to the musical trio play outside the Sponza Palace. A Violinist, A Guitarist and a Clarinettist … they were pretty good, playing all the classical favourites.
From here we wandered up past the Rector’s Palace and to the Cathedral.
We found a little cafe for a drink … Coffee, Beer and Hot Chocolate did the trick before we explored the narrow streets a little more before heading back to catch the shuttle bus.
The queue was already stretching back to the Pile Gate but was moving very quickly. We couldn’t believe the brazen cheek of a couple of passengers though … heading more or less to the front of the queue and just pushing in, pretending they’d been there all the time. There were a fair few people with walking disabilities and in wheelchairs queueing so it’s a shame a few have to be a little selfish. Shuttle buses were arriving very regularly, so we’d gone from back to front in less than 10 minutes.
As the shuttle bus neared the port, there was a surprise – another cruise ship had berthed behind us. The MSC Magnifica had recently arrived and as our passengers were heading back to ship, the MSC passengers were heading into town.
Back onboard, we opted for the Glass House once again for lunch. Prawns (no surprise!), Salmon fishcakes, mushrooms in blue cheese and hummus with pitta breads.
After lunch Callum was dropped off in Kids club. It was now raining quite heavily so Jon and I headed up to The Planet Bar and managed to get seats overlooking the aft of the ship so we could see Dubrovnik disappear into the drizzly cloud. Jon read whilst I emailed off Days 2 – 5 of our diary! We also checked on the weather forecast for Venice. Not drizzle but heavy rain forecast! Oh well, nothing we can do about that now!!
Just before we pushed away from the dock, the Captain came on the tannoy to give us some information on the Royal Ships berthed in front of us.
We were in good company – the yacht was the third largest in the world – “Al Said” – the Royal Yacht of the Sultan Qaboos of Oman. As well as his yacht, he had a support vessel in tow too – the “Fulk al Salamah” complete with helipad and crane to take on supplies!!
It was only to be expected really, but the sun decided to break through about 1 minute after pushing away! Hopefully we’ll get a good run across to Venice though.
Callum wanted Kids Tea tonight (he didn’t want to eat with us two nights running!) so that meant that Jon and I were free to go down to the Main Dining Room for Dinner. No queue this evening … and managed to get a table for two.
I had a duck terrine for starters, we both had beef consomme next and chicken tikka for main course. It was really tasty with a bit more of a kick than you’d get back home. We even managed a chocolate brownie for pudding (well, not quite all of it!).
An early start beckoned in the morning. We collected Callum from Kids Club and headed back to the cabin. We set a wake up call, an alarm on our phones AND ordered coffee/hot chocolate to be delivered to our cabin nice and early … we didn’t want to miss the sail into Venice.
Luckily our cabin was on the right side of the ship to see the sail past St Marks Square from our balcony.
