Stuart Pinfold

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Travel Review: Dubrovnik, Mostar and Montenegro

26 September 2008 at 17:44

Getting there
We flew to Dubrovnik from Luton Airport on ThomsonFly. It cost £190 or so for both of us return, although we did book six months before. ThomsonFly only fly to Dubrovnik over the summer, although easyJet and Ryanair both fly to other Croatian cities, such as Split, Rijeka and Zadar year-round. Cilipi Airport is about half-way between Dubrovnik city and the Montenegro border.

The Hotel
Croatia is full of business-class hotels (with price tags to match) which are well out of most tourists' leagues. The good people of Dubrovnik and other coastal cities have realised this, and have opened up apartments in their own properties. These vary in the number of guest rooms, but the one we stayed in, Apartments Nadramija on Put od Bosanke, has seven apartments of various sizes for guests to stay in. Our double-room apartment (A1) had a perfect view overlooking Dubrovnik's Old Town and harbour, Lokrum island and the cruise liners which pull in and out. As I said in my TripAdvisor review, the only thing you have to worry about is the amount of steps up to the apartments - 192 to the city centre, or 269 down to the beach.

Old Town
The best way to see the Old Town itself is by taking a walk on the city walls (right). It's an amazing way to see the city contained within, the sea and the fortified gates at both ends - expect to spend at least half a day wandering the walls.

In the evening, make sure you head to one of the Buza bars for the perfect sunset view. What makes it so special is the fact they're outside the city walls. They were built during the war, when planning permission was the last of the authority's worries, and have remained since, despite local objection. At both Buzas, the brave dive from the rocks into the sea, and the others watch in amazement. Don't stay here all night though; drink prices were the most expensive we found in the town, at around 35Kn (£3.50/$7) per beer or alcopop, compared to an average of about 20Kn for a beer (£2/$4)

Summer Festival
While we were in Dubrovnik in July 2008, the city was gearing up for the annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival. It started a few days into our trip, with a beautiful fireworks display (left) to mark the start of the 45-day extravaganza. Festival events include open-air opera, choir-singing, acting and plenty of street-art.

East of the Old Town
Banje Beach - the city's main beach - is a rocky beach just outside the Plocé gate, and was always packed when we were there. Half of it is owned by a beachside bar - they've filled it choc-full with beach furniture and parasols, and six four-poster beds, which were quite cool but too expensive unless you're there for the whole day.

Lokrum Island is a large island about four times the size of the Old Town. Taxi-boats shuttle between the island for 40Kn (£5/$10) each until 8pm (Apparently no local will stay on the island after 8pm due to some ridiculous Old Goose tale). It has an abandoned monastery, currently under some reconstruction, a 'dead lake' which is perfect for swimming in, rocky beaches (and a naturist beach), plus - if you're really fit - a lookout tower at the top of a very steep hill with a beautiful view back to Dubrovnik Old Town and down the coast to Montenegro.

Bete's Cave - A small cave about half-way between the city and Hotel Belvedere (see below). The legend goes that Marin Getaldic, a mathemetician and physicist, spent his time here working on hypotheses and theories, making the locals very suspicious of him.

Hotel Belvedere - Walk around the coast, away from the Old Town, down quiet lanes surrounded by fig and cypress trees, and stumble across tiny, private beaches. Continue walking, and you'll come to a rusty gate with the words 'Hotel Belvedere' above them. This once-mighty hotel was completely destroyed during the seige of Dubrovnik, because the tanks firing shells towards the Old Town were based in the scrublands just past the hotel grounds. The gates remain wide open today, and visitors can wander round the 1950s faded glory of this huge hotel complex. See the two now-graffittid swimming pools (right),
outdoor entertainment arena with a backdrop of the Mediterranean sea, Lokrum island and Dubrovnik Old Town, lift shaft with the lift cabin somehow staying up on the top floor of the shaft, kitchens with blackened extractor pipes and utensils still visible, and, looking up although inaccessible, the hotel tower itself, with broken windows, pockmark shell holes, a stuck-in-time exterior clock, and the feeling it's all going to come crashing down around you. Just below the complex is a fairly quiet rocky beach with a bamboo shack cafe and watersports.

Excursions
There are plenty of excursions to go on from Dubrovnik. We had a hire-car throughout, but you can get to Mostar and Montenegro through organised coach excursions - visit the tourist offices in the Old Town.

Mostar - Think Mostar, think the Old Bridge bombed by the Croats in 1995. Well, now it's been rebuilt - the 'new Old Bridge' - and stands proudly among the churches, mosques and still-bombed-out buildings on both sides of the emerald-green Neretva River (left). Watch young divers from the Mostar Diving Club jump off the bridge, explore the Turkish-style gift shops and climb Mosque minarets for the picture-perfect view of the Old Bridge.

Montenegro - This tiny, mountainous country has a long coastline, the largest fjord in Europe (Bay of Kotor), and lots of national parks to explore. We started by making our way up Lovcen Mountain - a very hair-raising drive - and stopping at the top for a well-deserved drink and magnificent view over the fjord. Kotor itself is like a mini-Dubrovnik; a walled city with a harbour and more fish restaurants than you can tease a shark with.

Mljet Island - A popular Adriatic island, a 2-hour boat journey north of Dubrovnik, which contains the tiny St. Mary's Island, St. Mary's Monastery, a delicious sea-food restaurant and excellent opportunities for swimming. It'll take you just 15 minutes or so to walk around the entire St. Mary's island, but make sure you stop off and go for a swim on the east side, where you'll be surrounded on three sides by forest on the opposite shore, and the other side the island itself. Also on Mljet is the National Park, where you can swim in a dead lake at 'Mali Most' (Little Bridge), see traditional Croatian island villages and listen to the sound of cicadas all around you.

Photo Gallery
See more photos in the photo galleries for Dubrovnik, Croatia, Mostar or Montenegro.

The full article
This blog post is just an extract from the full article on my website.

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