July 4: Dubrovnik to Kotor, Montenegro & Back

This morning I woke up a little bit before 4am, but luckily I was able to go back to sleep until Maddy woke me up around 4:45. LB was able to sleep a little bit more and woke up a little after 5. They were both hungry so they ate the leftovers from Pivnica Dubrava, which was the mixed grill with french fries. Luckily they didn't completely ruin their appetites since we headed down to the hotel breakfast at 6:30. The breakfast had a lot of different options and my favorites were the potato and Swiss chard patties, baguettes with different cheeses, and the sour cherry juice.

After breakfast we went back to the room for a quick bathroom break and to grab our things and then meet everyone in the lobby at 7:30. Ivan was waiting for us there and we all hopped on the bus and started driving south to the Montenegrin border. Because Montenegro is not yet a part of the EU it took a little bit longer to get through the border patrol, but it still only took about 20 minutes or so. Once we entered Montenegro, Nemanja, our bus driver, drove us around the perimeter of Kotor Bay to a small town called Perast. Along the way the bay was studded with small mussel and oyster farms everywhere and people swimming and playing in the bay wherever they could access the shoreline.

When we got to Perast we unloaded from the bus and met up with our Montenegrin tour guide, Sonja. She took us into the town to catch a short ferry out to a small island that had a catholic church on it.

Catching the Ferry

The church was called Our Lady of the Rocks and the island it is on was man-made sometime in the 1400's. After Sonja had given us a thorough tour of the church and museum we took the ferry back into Perast and got back on the bus to drive to the town of Kotor.

Our Lady of the Rocks

Kotor is located at the very back of the volcanic fjord that houses the bay of Kotor. When we arrived, Nemanja dropped us off just outside the city walls and we walked to the main gate. After entering Kotor,  Sonja gave us a tour through the city that focused on the 5 squares within the city.

Kotor's City Walls

Each square had some sort of old palace and the main square even had a shame pillar under the clock tower where they would publicly shame people who had done stupid things.

Kelsey & the Obelisk of Shame

After we finished the walking tour Sonja showed us her favorite restaurant in town and said goodbye and luckily they had room for our entire party. Christal, Maddy and I were at our own table and we ordered grilled sea bream and a shrimp tagliatelle.

Grilled Sea Bream

The grilled fish was exceptional and it came with a sauce that was similar to a salsa verde, but with less acid and more garlic. The shrimp pasta was very good as well and had a white wine and tomato sauce.

Shrimp Pasta

After we finished lunch we walked around town looking at souvenir shops and going to the atm to get euros. Maddy even found a mermaid souvenir that might be her new best friend. Once we had wandered for about half an hour it was time to walk out of the city and meet Nemanja and Ivan back at the bus where we had been dropped off. From Kotor we drove back to the border and then back to our hotel in Dubrovnik.

Back in Croatia

I think pretty much all of us took at least a little nap on the drive back. When we got back to the hotel we all got changed into our swimming gear and headed down to the beach to cool off in the water. Today we jumped off some of the rocks into the sea and Maddy swam in the little pool by the beach.

Cooling Off in the Adriatic Again

When we were done swimming we all headed back to our rooms and got changed for dinner. Our dinner was at the hotel in the restaurant where we had breakfast and it was a buffet with lots of local foods like beef pasticada, fish soup and plenty of seafood. LB was so tired that he hardly ate anything and fell asleep at the table. Once we finished dinner we headed back up to the room and got ready for bed.

July 2-3: Sacramento to Dubrovnik

We had to leave the house at 2am Wednesday morning so I went ahead and stayed up all night. Apparently so did Megan and Lindsey, since they all are flying on the same itinerary as us. Our flights from Sacramento to Denver and Denver to Newark went pretty smooth, but we had a very tight layover in Newark. By the time our plane parked at the gate we had about 30 minutes until our flight to Dubrovnik was scheduled to leave and we had to go to a gate two terminals away. Luckily there were other people from our first flight that had to make the second flight and another connection that was also late, so they held our plane and we were able to make it with minimal sprinting. We had a tailwind for the flight to Dubrovnik so even though we left Newark late we were still able to arrive on time around 8am Thursday morning.

First Look at Croatia

The passport control and customs lines moved pretty quickly and we were able to get through and meet our tour guide, Ivan, who then showed us to our tour bus, which we will have for the whole trip. Ivan will stay with us throughout the Croatia part of the trip. Once we loaded up into the bus they took us over to the hotel, which is located on the Lapad peninsula, just west of old town Dubrovnik.

When we arrived at hotel Neptune we checked in at the front desk, but it was before 10am and our rooms weren't ready yet, so we left our bags at the front desk and walked around the promenade that Ivan had pointed out on our ride to the hotel. It was a very pleasant walk that followed the coast for a good while before going into town where it became surrounded by lots of restaurants and eateries. Everyone was getting hot and hungry by the time we got to the end of the promenade so we went to a grocery store that was a block or two away to get some snacks and drinks.

Along the Promenade

After the grocery store the kids still wanted a real meal so we walked back to the promenade to one of the few restaurants that was serving lunch food, versus breakfast, called Mamma Mia. I ordered the cevapi, which are small minced sausages that are grilled and served with fries and ajvar, a sweet pepper and eggplant dip, LB ordered a kids spaghetti bolognese and Christal ordered a pizza Margherita for herself and Maddy. The cevapi had good flavor, but they were a little tough, which I thought was a little bit odd for ground meat, but the ajvar sauce that went with it was pretty good, and the fries were quite crispy and fluffy. LB's spaghetti bolognese was a little sweeter than what I'm used to, but it was still not bad, and I was too full to try the pizza, but Kelsey and Lindsey said that the pizza they got was good.

Cevapi w Fries & Ajvar

After finishing lunch we walked back on the promenade and stopped at a gelato stand. Surprisingly, only Megan and I ordered something. She got cappuccino gelato and I got strawberry sorbetto that I shared with Mads. When we got back to the hotel we all grabbed our swimsuits and changed so that we could cool off in the Adriatic. Our hotel was made up of several different "hotels" with different names that were all under the same resort name and directly down from our hotel were several of their pools and some rocky shoreline where the hotel had installed some small concrete platforms to help people get into the ocean. We all jumped into the Adriatic and swam around for a while, even Maddy came in and was having a ball. The temperature was probably high 70's, so it was perfectly refreshing after all the walking in the hot sun. After swimming in the sea we all transitioned to the pools, which were filled with salt water, and hung out there for a little bit before we got a text from Charlene that said their rooms were ready. Christal and I packed up the kids and we went up to get our room keys a little earlier than expected and then settled into our room.

Someone's Ready to Swim!

Once we were in our room we showered, did some laundry, brushed our teeth and then took naps until about 5:40. We made our way up to the lobby drowsily and met up with everyone in our group as well as Ivan, who walked us over to the restaurant for dinner. On the walk to the restaurant Ivan pointed out some trees that had lots of pods growing on them and said they were carob trees, which both Christal and I found really cool.

Unripe Carob Pods

We ate at a restaurant called Pivnica Dubrava, and Auntie Shirley had already arranged a fixed menu for us and we had each selected what we wanted. We all started with a vegetable soup and a beef soup, both of which were served with some homemade bread. The vegetable soup was pureed and had a thicker consistency and was quite flavorful. The beef soup was delicious and had small, bite sized chunks of tender braised beef with some thin noodles in a very clear broth that was almost like a consommé. Both soups were a solid start to the meal.

Beef Soup

For our main course we had a choice between a mixed grill, that they called a "Dubrava" grill, and vegetarian risotto. The "Dubrava" grill came with burger, cevapcici, sausage and a pork chop. Auntie Shirley had also arranged for there to be an option that was without pork which included grilled chicken and a small steak that had a parsley-garlic butter on it instead of the pork chop and sausage. Both options were served with fries and both were really delicious and way too big for me to finish, and poor LB was still so tired that he basically slept through the whole meal and we had to take his mixed grill to go. The ajvar that came with our mixed grills was really good and a lot better than the ajvar that came with my lunch.

Dubrava Grill

The vegetarian risotto was pretty good and seemed to be more well cooked with a better texture than the vegetable risotto that Brian had ordered at lunch. The main course was served with some salad that we dressed with some house olive oil and vinegar.

Vegetable Risotto

For dessert we had fruit salad and apple strudel. The fruit salad was a bit basic with grapes, apple, orange and apricot. The apple strudel was really good and the apple filling was made with grated apples and orange zest, which created a unique texture that I'm not used to in a strudel, and served over a generous amount of crème anglaise.

Apple Strudel

Once we finished dinner we said good night to Ivan and walked back to the hotel. When we got back to the hotel it was about a half an hour until sunset so those of us that weren't ready for bed (Yeh-Yeh, me, Brian, Julie, Lindsey Kelsey, Megan, Paul, Andrea and Lana) went down to the shoreline to take some sunset pictures.

After that we headed back to our rooms and went to bed for the night.

Night Night