Dubrovnik, Croatia

July 12, 2014 5:48 PM Leave a Comment

Here is another part of the trip that went off without a hitch. I use Expedia a lot–I just graduated to an Expedia+ account. But when I booked the Enterprise rental car through Expedia for 11 days for $487.09 I was pretty sure there was going to be some problem. In March we rented a car for 10 days in Hawaii and it was a true beater and cost $751.15. So really, Europe, I thought–how are you going to give me a better car and a better deal?

We arrived at the airport and had a short wait in line, then walked out to pick up the vehicle. Oh my gosh. What an adorable, clean, brand new, 4-door Audi A1. Color me surprised. The only small problem was that the hatch was just a touch too tiny for our two 22″ rollers and small back packs. We had hoped to be able to put everything away out of sight. We threw our backpacks into the back seat instead. We got in, set the GPS to the ferry dock in Ancona, and hit the road.

The drive from Venice to Bologna looked like Ohio. Maybe I always think that. Rows of corn, farmhouses. The only thing missing, said John, were the evangelical “Jesus Saves” billboards. Perhaps in the land of the Pope there’s no need to advertise. We were making great time so we decided to stop for lunch by the sea.

Before leaving the states I pre-ordered an 800 MB data plan on AT&T for my iPhone (it was worth every penny of the $120), so I hopped onto my TripAdvisor app and found a restaurant I wanted to try, Ristorante Guido, and we headed into a town. While we navigated into a parking spot, I was salivating over the delicious looking photos of innovative dishes. But when we walked up, the restaurant was closed. We never found out why, since it said they were usually open for lunch. We wandered in through the town and found a sidewalk cafe off the grid. At first I was disappointed we weren’t getting our fancy gourmet seaside meal. However, I’m so glad we had the experience of eating at a little local joint. And when I reflect, this yummy meal was one of the most delicious of the trip. It confirmed my suspicion that it is hard to find a bad meal in Italy.

We arrived at the ferry dock and this was the part John was most nervous about. I had booked our passage on directferry.com. Would the line, SNAV, really have our reservation? Would we get a hassle over passports? Or about bringing a rental car on board? The answer was yes, no, no. It was efficient, easy, exciting, fun, and gorgeous! I really loved the ferry ride and spent much of it on deck taking pictures. We had a great night’s sleep and woke up in view of land. Finally! After so many years, I was finally in Croatia!

We first commented on how rugged the landscape was. How would we possibly get down the coast from Split to Dubrovnik? It was all steep mountains and craggy bays. We started out on the coastal road, found an ATM to get some Kuna, (the second of three currencies for the trip), and finally we stopped in the little seaside town of Omis for some breakfast. We parked along a river where about 50 cars were lined up.

What an adorable town! We wandered around, looked at the market, then had a delicious coffee and a cheese and cherry pastry. By the time we got back, only one other car was left and an officer was giving it a ticket! We started running towards our car to move it before he got to it, but he screamed at us so we got out our International Driver’s Licenses and he wrote us up for $100, which he said would be only $50 if we paid him right now in cash. This happens routinely when we travel in Mexico but we didn’t expect it to happen in Europe. I was disappointed that our first interaction was a bribe from a grumpy police officer.

We shook it off and found the freeway and headed south. This drive took about 4 hours. Finally we got straight to Hotel Bellevue, which I had chosen because it had a forward design, free parking, and gorgeous views. Our room was not ready, so we walked into the Old Town and had a fun lunch at Dalmatino Konoba. We really enjoyed all of our food. We had the octopus salad, the mussels, and the squid ink risotto. Perfect amount for two people and we enjoyed sharing the flavors. This was our first experience with a phenomenon we had been warned about–the harried Croatian waiter. Ours was flying solo but really moved fast! The slow service had nothing to do with attitude, as I had read it might. The waiter was friendly and kind, just terribly over-worked. Later we found it to be common to keep restaurants under-staffed.

After lunch we walked back to the hotel (about 1.5 K from the walled city) and got to our room, which had an amazing view and was large, perfectly appointed, and comfortable. We spent a little time at the private beach and in the hot tub. After a bit more rest it was time for dinner. John chose Otto Taverna, and I’m glad he did. It was a delicious meal, though again the staff was running around like mad. I had fun listening to the French family sitting next to us complaining about the service, the wine glasses (they brought white wine glasses to serve with red wine) and the medium-well steak (I like it bleu too!). We caught a cab back to the hotel and fell straight to sleep.

Water Taxi leaving Venice

Mussels in White Wine Sauce

Spaghetti Carbonara

Lasagna

On the beach at Rimini

Adriatic Sunset from the ferry

Our berth on the ferry

Greeting Croatia

Adriatic sunrise from the ferry

Approaching Split

Our first Croatian coffee

So delicious and worth the $50 parking ticket

Market in Omis

Our little Audi

A breif stop in Bosnia

The lobby, Bellvue Hotel

Streets in the walled city

Dubrovnik!

Walking the wall

Views on our walk

Laundry on the line

This kitty

Mussels in white wine sauce

Octopus salad

Squid ink risotto

Our view

Time for dinner

Onion soup au gratin

garden salad with roasted beets, goat cheese and orange

Fish fillet with warm salad of beans and fennel and caramelized onions

house made tagliatelle

Risotto with prosciutto, arugula and pine nuts

Breakfast at Bellevue Hotel

First Stop, Venice

July 11, 2014 1:00 PM 3 Comments

I’m just going to put this out there. I think this might have been one of our most challenging trips yet. We knew it was going to be a stretch–we had several conversations about what could go wrong. Let’s face it–the loop we planned to cover would require every transfer to run perfectly. In fact I was so worried about the timing that I created a pdf trip guide that listed every single mode of transportation, reservation, and driving map. The document was 59 pages long. I memorized it, then I had John memorize it too.

How would we possibly cover seven countries, nine hotels, an overnight ferry, and 1300 miles of driving without a hitch? The answer is, delightfully! The entire trip ran smoothly. The hardest hardships were: John had a terrible chest cold, we got a 50 Euro parking ticket not an hour into our visit in Croatia (we called it the Gringo tax), and one of our 30-minute driving segments took two hours due to construction. But otherwise, we hit every mark, and best of all–we got along really well! Hardly an argument to speak of. And if the true test of a relationship is a long road trip, I think John and I have this thing covered.

Here’s how the whole thing went down: our friend Kyle dropped us at the Phoenix airport around 6 pm, and our direct flight from Phoenix to Heathrow was luxurious. We had a totally flat bed on British Airways–it’s a 9 hour flight so that makes all the difference. We transferred Heathrow-Gatwick on a coach I had pre-booked online. Super easy. Then we flew Gatwick-Venice, where we caught a water taxi to our hotel the Sant Antonin. I had written to them for a late check-in, and it all went well, except for the strange internet system that required us to click deep into a menu on the television, and then it never worked anyhow. More on the various internet systems we encountered later.

We were too tired to head out into the cobbles and canals, so we went to sleep to get ready for a lovely day of touring. But what a night we had! Thunder, lightning, rain. We managed to get a touch of rest before breakfast downstairs. I must say the Europeans get this right–they don’t send anyone off into the day without feeding them first. Every one of our nine hotels came with breakfast. This one was nice, though since it was raining they had to move the service from the garden to the tiny dining area, and it was cramped. But we got enough to eat, then headed out to beat the crowds.

We used an App called Triposo that offers walking tours at various distances. The App pointed us to all the right spots, and we hit all the must-see’s in about 2 hours. My favorite destination was the Peggy Guggenheim museum, where her personal residence has been transformed into a refuge for some of the most famous modern artists: think Ernst, Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall; in short, all my favorites. It was such a treat to visit this museum, even though I felt a touch ethnocentric visiting an American’s home in Italy. We wandered back towards the hotel for lunch since we planned to nap after. At Bacarando Ai Corazzieri we accidentally ordered nearly all the food in the restaurant.

After a long nap, we wandered back out for a little wine at Cantinone Gia’Schiavi and a lovely dinner at Osteria Enoteca Ai Artist. We got a gelato for the walk back the hotel, which was a little touch and go there when the evening flooding crowded off several of our routes back.

What a magical place, Venice.Would we really have to leave? The following morning we enjoyed breakfast in the garden before taking our last stroll through the cobbles, where I stopped to salivate over some dresses in a window. Too bad the shop was closed. We caught a water taxi back to the airport to pick up our rental car so we could make our 4 hour drive to Ancona to catch the ferry to Croatia.