We woke up this morning on the plane. Our beds were not quite a comfortable as those we have had on other airlines, but I still slept for a few hours and John had something close to a full night’s sleep. Breakfast was uninspiring, but I happily ate it anyhow. I kept an eye on the clock and the plane’s progress as the plane entered European air space. Even if he had left on time from Los Angeles, we only would have had a 70 minute connection time in Munich, and we left close to 60 minutes left. The pilot had assured us that he would make up some of the time, but I was not so sure. We had splurged on a really nice hotel in Dubrovnik, and if we did not show up we would get charged anyhow. Plus, who wants to spend his first day of vacation at a day at a German airport?
We landed at 2:20 in the afternoon. The flight to Croatia — and it was the last one of the day — left in 10 minutes. A man pointed us to where the gate was and I sprinted there, determined that even if John were trailing behind I would not let the plane leave without us! I probably should not have worried so much. The plane was solidly booked, and there was a long line of people still waiting to get their seats. We were crammed into tiny economy seats in the back of an aging A320, but it was thankfully only an 80 minute flight and I fell asleep for a good bit of it.
As I looked down on Croatia I was struck by how much it looked like Southern California. There were the same granite mountains and cliffs, scrubby forests struggling to survive on the bare slopes. Even the red tile roofs reminded me of home. I thought of how exotic all of this probably looked to the German and Dutch tourists on our plane and how exotic their green temperate landscapes were to me.
Stress returned when we discovered that our time in Munich was not long enough for our luggage to have made the transfer. There were several people on a flight who had this problem. A nice Lufthansa agent scanned our tags and saw that the two bags were indeed still back at the Franz Josef Strauss airport in Munich. She took down our information, including Dubrovnik hotel and home address, and promised us that we would have it tomorrow.
We are staying at the Villa Argentina Hotel. It is an old place just outside of the city walls. It has a nice view of the fortified old city and the island of Lokrum. It rather looks like lots of places in Italy or on the Riviera. It’s made of limestone with travertine balconies shaded by stripped awnings.
The grounds are lovely
and the view from our room is quite exquisite.
As we wandered about the hotel, I really felt like I was back home in Los Angeles when I saw blue NBCUniversal swag bags! Apparently the European division of E! Entertainment is holding a meeting here. We wandered about the grounds. Somehow all it needed were a few noisy peacocks to turn this place into a Maggie Smith movie set.
John is unhappier than I am about not having our luggage, so he wanted to make sure we at least had swimming trunks. He asked at the desk and they told him that their gift shop closed just after lunch, so we would have to go into town to buy any clothes. We walked the short distance to the nearest gate to the old city. Along the way I stopped endlessly to take pictures.
John stopped and posed as we entered the city gates.
The parapets and walls are well-supplied with a variety of embrasures, but I found this arrow slit particularly amusing.
Dubrovnik is quite enchanting, but whatever normal life it might once have had has been overwhelmed by the tourist industry. Every building is pretty much a hotel or a pension, a restaurant or a gift shop.
There are quite a number of churches, mostly Catholic though we did find one rather spartan Orthodox chapel.
None of these are particularly interesting inside. John stopped at a store and bought some extraordinarily overpriced swimming trunks.
We walked around until well past sunset. We admired all the old stuff
and saw traces of real people living in a real city.
Just outside the city walls, we found a few old mansions dating from the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A couple had been refurbished, while others, curiously enough, were still awaiting the arrival of some London banker or Paris designer. We were intrigued by one with two rather hungry-looking stone canines on the gates.
I was really tired, so I suggested that we take a taxi back to our hotel. Tomorrow we will explore Dubrovnik in more depth. And, with luck, we’ll see our luggage again. Nadam se! Google says that “I hope so” in Croatian.
