Dubrovnik Old Town

On Monday, August 22^nd, after breakfast at the hotel, we all took the #6 bus downtown.  It was raining, on and off, but after about half an hour gave up.  We had no more significant rain for the rest of the trip.  We climbed up the many steps to Dubrovnik’s intact city wall, then walked counterclockwise around the southern half of the old town, between tile-roofed buildings and the Adriatic.  Some of the roofs looked old, but many looked new: repaired after Yugoslav Army shelling during the siege of 1991-1992.  When we came down from the walls, near the Cathedral, we were met by a local guide, who gave us a tour of the Old Town’s highlights, including the Rector’s Palace and the Franciscan Monastery.  On the way, I pointed out that a statue of St. Blaise, the city’s patron, had a beer bottle in its hand.  This incensed our guide, since it might have damaged the statue’s fingers, and she called it in immediately to the authorities.  Her cell-phone photo of it then went to the website of the local English-language newspaper.

We had lunch together at a restaurant called Marco Polo, in a side street off one of the squares—not bad.

There afternoon was free, so Mary Joy and I walked up to the cable car station outside the northern gate.  There was a long line, and it was beginning to drizzle again, so we considered changing our minds, but the rain stopped and the line moved quickly.  Mary Joy asked some women in front of us where in England they were from.  Wrong question!  If we had listened a little longer we would have recognized their Scottish accents.  But they were nice about it.  They had voted against Britain’s exit from the European Union, but were not in favor of Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.  The cable car took us up to the top of Mt. Srd, which gave us a wonderful view of the city and its surroundings.  On the way back to our hotel. we looked into the churches of St. Blaise and Holy Savior.

That evening, the tour group had our Welcome Dinner at a restaurant near the Ploce gate.  Not horrible but not great.  Afterwards, Mary Joy and I went to a Dubrovnik Summer Festival piano recital in the open medieval courtyard of the Rector’s Palace.  If it had rained, the concert would have been called off, but we were lucky.  The young Russian pianist, Andrey Gugnin, is not yet famous, but he played spectacularly.  His rendition of Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata Romantica No. 1, a piece we had never heard before, was exciting and moving.  I think that he will make a name for himself in the near future.