Luxembourg Gardens and Dubrovnik

We slept in very late on Saturday, August 20^th, until after 10:00.  We had a light breakfast at a quirky-but-cute nearby patisserie-café, Colorova.  We went wandering around the neighborhood, had lunch at Polidor, an oldie-but-very-goodie (since 1845), then visited the Luxembourg Gardens.  We picked up our luggage at the hotel and a little before 3:00 caught the bus back to Orly, from there flying on EasyJet to Dubrovnik.

We got in as twilight was ending, and had to wait awhile for the shuttle into town (I had bought the tickets online).  Once we got there we were met immediately, as we got off, by a man with a sign that had my name on it: our host, Stijepo.  He took our bags and led us into the old town, giving us a comprehensive travelogue of the place as we went!  When we finally arrived, by a roundabout route that took in most of the major sights of the town, at his rental apartment up the hill near the south wall, he was kind enough to give us even more of his time, even though he was missing a major sporting event on TV: Croatia was playing Serbia in water polo in the Olympics.  Water polo is very big in Croatia, especially in Dubrovnik.  The game was on TV in every bar that we passed.  And Serbia, of course, is a major rival.  Stijepo, a really delightful person and personality, finally went off to see the end of the match (not good for Croatia, we later learned).  The apartment was simple but comfortable. 

We went to a late dinner at one of the restaurants on the discount card he had given us: Toni’s Spaghetteria, a few blocks down the hill.  Our meal was very good, and we talked with three young Frenchmen at the next table.  Two of them were working in Romania and had driven down by way of the Montenegrin coast.  They asked us the big question on European minds: Would Donald Trump be elected President?  We reassured them that that wouldn’t happen, and they, in turn, reassured us that Marine Le Pen would not be elected President of France.