Day 6 Monday 10th October Dubrovnik
I went out on deck as Oceana came into Dubrovnik’s port. The decks were very wet after the overnight rain. I watched as another cruise ship reversed onto the quay before Oceana spun and did the same manoeuvre. A third cruise ship was coming down the channel towards the port – it was going to be busy today.
After breakfast we caught the shuttle into the town. These were the first ones this cruise that were not free to all passengers and everyone’s cruise cards were scanned before boarding the coaches.
The walled city of Dubrovnik is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is now famous for its streets and walls taking centre stage in The Game of Thrones TV series.
It was about a 20 minute journey to the Pile Gate in the City Walls where the shuttle bus dropped us off. The first sight of the city walls as we had wound our way to the gate was breathtaking as we walked across and then down through the Pile Gate.
Walking the Dubrovnik Old City Wall
Once through the gate we purchased tickets to walk the walls. These were 120kn each and only cards or Croatian Kuna were accepted. We joined the queue of visitors climbing the steps up to the top of the wall. Everyone had to turn left to follow the one way walking system around the walls. This direction took us towards the Fort Bokar and the sea.
From the walls we could look into a school, houses and what looked like the remains of when Dubrovnik Old City was shelled.
Old Port
The walls wound around Dubrovnik Old Port.
Then past a church tower with an interesting bell.
Minceta Cafe
We stopped here for a sit down and to sample some local beer, Karlovacko, plus access to wi-fi.
What a friendly place this little cafe was. We had a long conversation about cars, especially those made in the UK. The owner was fascinated about Morgan Cars and once he learnt that we had owned one the conversation honed in on the fun of driving such cars!
Fort Minceta
I climbed the steep steps inside the fort up two levels to get a great view of the Old Town.
As we left the fort we had the first real drops of rain which mad the descent towards the Pile Gate quite treacherous. This was one of the stretches of the wall made famous by The Game of Thrones.
As we carefully descended towards the Pile Gate the heavens opened. Our decision to leave the Old Town and walk out through the Gate was probably not a good idea as everyone else of all the ships in the harbour had the same plan. The nicest description of the bus terminal would be chaos as tourists and coaches all tried to be in the same place at once in the pouring rain.
Back on-board Oceana
Once back at the port we walked back out through immigration to the supermarket just down the road past the bus station. By now the rain had settled in so this again was not a great idea but the bars of chocolate were worth it.
Lunch was in Cafe Jardin in the Atrium making a nice change with salad and then a panini to follow with Doombar.
Oceana was delayed from leaving by a couple of missing passengers after its planned leaving time of just after 4.30 pm. The rain had passed over and we left with blue skies as we watched another cruise ship depart that had been moored under the road bridge.
Under the bridge was some graffiti tags – the only I’d seen all day.
The views along the coast were spectacular ….
… and as we left a UK registered yacht sailed into port.
Once out of the channel and the pilot had left the ship we rounded the headland and the Old Town walls were visible away in the distance.
At 7.30 pm the ship ran into a thunderstorm with spectacular lightning flashing across the Adriatic accompanied by a torrential downpour. The good news about the balconies on Oceana is their design protects against the elements as rather being open they resemble a window frame without the window.
Dinner was Waldorf salad followed by lamb rump with chorizo and tomato cassoulet.
The storm had passed and we instead has moonlight over the Adriatic and time a bottle of Jaipur.
The next day Oceana would sail into Venice passing through the lagoon to her berth past all the famous sights.