Welcome to volume number 8 of Edd's Travels. It's 18 months since the last instalment. In the interim Sunderland have been relegated twice, and I've spent the last nine months living in Milton Keynes. You see how leaving the country acquires a certain appeal.
Here in Dubrovnik I have a very cosy one-bedroom apartment. Having my own kitchen has saved me fortunes compared to subsisting on the overpriced pizzas that are this city's staple diet. My apartment is only £20 a night because it's up on a very steep hill a few miles away from the Old Town. But I like my long walks, and frankly the air is fresher up here.
First impressions were mixed. Nice weather, lovely coastline, etc etc. However it's badly overcrowded and the air in town is thick with fumes, not just from cars & buses but also from huge cruise ships, vast carbuncular monstrosities that loom like gloss-painted Death Stars over the town and disgorge endless floods of dumb fat tourists into its hitherto sleepy streets. Worse still, the general level of customer service here is frankly rancid. No matter how easy you try to make it for the locals, no matter how meekly and uncomplainingly you stand in line with the correct change ready, almost every interaction still seems to result in tutting and vengeful scowls.
On the second morning I set my alarm for 5am and was wandering around the Old City before dawn; I was first to queue, an hour before the office opened, for tickets to walk the Walls; and when the time came I literally
ran up those stone steps, just to put a clear furlong or two between me and the massed ranks of aged coach-trippers shuffling along behind. I'm fairly sure I heard people below laughing at me as I went (it's hard to run up a steep stone staircase with any kind of dignity) but who cares? I got the peace & quiet that I was looking for. See photos below.
There's no point in me complaining about places like this being too crowded. I'm a member of that crowd like any other. Time to step off the main tourist trail a little: watch this space.
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| The Old Town, seen from the fort to the west |
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| Inside the Old Town at dawn, before everyone else shows up |
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| As above |
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| Splendid isolation up on the Walls |
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| As above |
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| Another view from the fort, this time from the top |
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The Old Town, seen from Fort Imperial, after a quick 400-metre scramble on foot up the hill.
(Cable car, schmable car.) |
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| View to the west, of Babim Kuk (where I'm staying), from halfway up the hill. |
