On location at the port of Dubrovnik

Our arrival in Dubrovnik was fairly swift - the last hour or so, especially smooth in the lovely motorways of Croatia.

The view on the motorways as you enter Dubrovnik

At our guest house, we were greeted by the nicest old lady I have ever met. Jele had fresh juices and water ready for our arrival, and told us about the best places to visit during our stay. If you ever get the chance to visit Dubrovnik, be sure to pay her a visit at Guest house Nikolina
An invaluable tip she gave us was about the Dubrovnik Card. It's a but like the London Pass, with options to choose from 1 day to a week. They grant you entry into quite a few places and museums along with free travel on the public transport, So, our walking tour was ditched in favour of the Dubrovnik card, which pretty much dictated the sites we'd visit.
That night, we drove up to mount Srd at the recommendation of our lovely lady at the guest house to watch the sunset. Oh my! what a spectacular view of the walled city and the surroundings. You can take the cable car up here and walk down too. Or if you fancy, there's a restaurant on top of Mount Srd where you could dine as you look at the beautiful city and the sea beyond.  The baa-lamb and me- we did none of those things. We did, however did go slightly overboard with the clicking of the walled city in the sunset, the sunset, the kids with the backdrop of the old city in the sunset, us with the backdrop of the old city in the sunset, a random couple clicking pictures of the sunset...you get the drift (you see, the Baa lamb had just discovered this wonderful thing called the selfie-stick).

Tell me you don't find that beautiful!

My mum in law though we were complete nutters. Refused to have anything to do with us, The smart woman. Of course, we chose to drive down in the dark (it had some pretty tricky moments with no lights and car coming both ways when really, its a one-vehicle road in some places).

A fabulous sunset at Sdr

The view as we drove down Sdr

Didn't have a tripod, so not the clearest of shots. 

The next morning we set off by bus to discover Stari-Grad and walk along the walls of the old city. We were instantly surrounded on all sides by avid Game-of-Throners who insisted on clicking themselves at every single spot ever shot at for 'Kings Landing' occasionally letting out an excited squeal or an 'OhmiGAwd!'. The slight more articulate ones kept throwing phrases like 'Winter is coming!' at unsuspecting tourists (who were looking rather bewildered on the hot, sunny day).
Me? I kept clicking all those spots too- But more for the jaw-dropping views it afforded, yes, yes, I know I have probably exhausted all synonyms for spectacular by now, but really... here. Look!

This is one of my favourites- a musician playing outside the church, 

Roaming around Starigrad was fun (for me) but the kids by now had had enough of 'old stuff' and 'dead people' and so off we went, to Banje beach, which was a stone's throw from the old town.

Blue seas as far as the eye could see and tiny. yelling humans occupying every square inch. The kids didn't seem to care a jot, but I was frantically trying to sit under the shadow of resting surfboards and kayaks being hauled in from the sea.

Banje- somewhere in the sea of humans is young Pickwick. 10 points if you can spot him!

This couple obviously didn't want to share the sea with screaming rugrats, so they decided to take a dip just off the fortress. 

Got myself some pretty dubious looks the way I was skulking about, so after about an hour of suffering in silence, I finally gave up the ghost of an afternoon by the sea and moved on to the restful, cool climes of the apartment, only stopping long enough to book a sun-set sea-kayaking expedidition. That got the kids (and frankly, us too) so excited, we could hardly wait. and just like most things that get us really excited, it ended up in a damp squib - no literally. We were hit by thunderstorms just around sunset. Considering there were about 1.5 swimmers amongst the 5 of us, we decided sea-kayaking would just have to wait another place, another time.
Having found ourselves at loose ends on account of the weather, and not behind able to enjoy the beautiful outdoors, we decided a few of the museums mentioned in the City Passes would be worth visiting (that being the only way to drag the baa lamb into the museum - inclement weather).

The Natural History museum in Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful buildings, housing one of the most disappointing exhibits! It was full of stuffed animals, you couldn't touch any of the exhibits and there wasn't a single dinosaur bone in sight! There were some interesting fossils in in bubbles, but again, we couldn't touch the bubbles! (have you tried telling kids you can't touch bubbles, especially ones with interesting stuff in them?)

the only interactive thing at the natural history museum!

 

To soften the blow, we had Pizza that night, and turned in early.

The kids wanted to know if the plane would find the pot of gold of it flew into the rainbow :)

We also caught sight of a rainbow to make up for the rain. That cheered the kids up no end! Our next leg covers 3 countries and ends back in Croatia! Stay tuned...

Of Volcanoes, Squalls and other Natural Phenomenon

The husband, having spotted a great deal on a low-cost airline had booked us on a spate of holidays, the last of which was to Naples. The idea was to catch the last ferry out to Capri the same evening. 

However the last ferry, this being winter wasn't going out this late anymore. so we ended up having to stay at Naples for the night. I though we were going to catch the first ferry out. But the Husband being the husband, decided to throw in a surprise. We decided to catch an active Volcano before catching the ferry. 

The route to Ercolano (that's where you need to catch the bus to Vesuvius for) was nothing if not colourful. People obviously have a lot to say here.  

They say it with plaques

and Graffiti. yes, Even love poems. 

 

Don't you just love this little car?

The buses to Vesuvius will take you to the bottom of the hill and you have to make a short trek to the top. We met a lovely Canadian family on our way to the top. The kids were so nice, even my little bossy boots forgot to grumble as we walked up the volcano. Vesuvius was smoking gently as we reached the top. Fascinated young Pickwick no end, as I fended off a zillion questions from him. 

The way down was a slightly different story as poor little bossy boots took a slight stumble. And would only cheer up once she was safely perched on daddy's shoulders. Poor daddy. 

But we had not time to lose- after waving a fond goodbye to the Canadians and promising to keep in touch, we raced to catch the ferry out to Capri. There can be just one word to describe Capri - Beautiful. It doesn't matter what you click a picture of or where from. It's all beautiful.

Capri Porta

We were staying at Anacapri- which was a bit higher up than Capri and the only way to get there was by a tiny little bus. And if you though the bus was tiny, I wonder what you'd make of the streets. Lets just say that if I were Van Damme, I'd have no problems doing splits across the breadth. 

Once in Anan Capri, we walked an uphill 10 minutes to reach our lovely B & B. The view would have been lovely if the weather hadn't been so grey. 

The alley may look eerie, but it was perfectly lovely as we made out way up to the B &B. 

The town center of Anacapri is beautiful, even in the nights, with half the shops shut on account of this being off season.

we decided to have dinner at this lovely little Pizzeria - Aumm Aumm which had traditional wood-burning oven resulting in lovely pizzas made from the freshest ingredients. Made up for all the walking we did in the day. That and the Limoncello. :) Ooo...Yumm. 

The next day after a casual stroll around Anancapri to soak in the sights, we made out way to the chair lifts for Monte Solaro, 

Casa Rossa

They do love their ceramics here... and such a lovely selection there was to see.

The view from the top was, needless to say, lovely! 

Yes. that's right. a chair with one rickety bar across your lap. Kids are so thrilled at this complete disregard for safety

The View from Monte Solaro

And since we are an adventurous little lot, we decided to walk it down from Monte Solaro to Capri via the Phoenician Steps. With a brief interlude at the Axel Munthe house. 

The sculptures and the Axel Munthe Museum

The sphinx and the view from Axel Munthe

Only, we got sort of lost  and we ended up walking all the way to the Port. Right. So we need to stock up on the carbs again with another round of pizzas and pastas all around. Not to mention a swig of Lemoncello. 

By this time, the tiny ones were protesting quite vehemently at the the idea of walking it back up, so we took the Funicular to Capri. A quick round of gelato and Coffee (for the eldest moaner) quickly quelled the brewing rebellion and we made our way to more lovely sights around Capri. 

The view from Tragara

Faraglioni. The seas were too rough for boats to take us around, so we could only admire it from afar.

Faro di Punta Carena

The Faro di Punta Carena or the light house at dusk was a lovely place (albeit a tad windy) to end the day and head back to the B& B for a, yes, you know it - Limoncello. 

We wanted to explore Sorreonto and the Amalfi coast the next day, but choppy seas meant no ferries out until 1pm in the afternoon. 

Finding ourselves at loose ends that morning, we decided to visit the gardens of Augustus, and quite miraculously the weather cleared up for some more fabulous views. (I know, more views, but you have to admit, they are fabulous!)

We spotted lots of interesting bits and bobs in the island as well, All adding to the charm of this wonderful island.

yeah, a bit of ghost writing to entertain the kids...

Just randomly. In the middle of nowhere. 

Doesn't he look like he's saying 'whatchoo lookin' at?'

Pickwick and his bugs

 

The rest of the trip I'd much rather forget - lets just say involved a lot of chasing after buses only to get off  because we didn't have tickets - and not being able to purchase said tickets because everything was shut! Also muchly delayed flights,  icy landings in zero viz conditions and very very sleepy babies trying to get into random cabs.  

Still, all part of the fun, eh? Took us only a week to recover from this one :)