Dobro Jutro,
When we left you last time, we had just finished our time in Shplit, and were making our way down the Croatian Coast. And what a beautiful change it has been.
Our first stop was the island of Hvar, and again that meant a ferry. These car ferries really are amazing – endless masses of cars, buses and trucks are all jammed into a seemingly endless belly of the ship – I haven’t seen such inconceivable stuffing of a restricted space since I saw a couple of minutes of the Kim Kardashian video that made her famous. And this ferry was far more relaxed than the trip across from Italy. Not sure if it was because it was much shorter, or there was an absence of machete wielding German bikies. As much as I love sitting next to toothless men wielding knives that could lop my head off, I’m leaning towards option 2.
So it was a relaxed journey to Hvar – and what an incredible place it is. At the centre is a magnificent stone town square with buildings cascading down a steep hill, and of course an obligatory fort at the top. And all surrounded by sea, with little beaches dotting the coastline. Although like most of Europe the beaches are rocky, which means watching people walk into the ocean is like watching Peter Garrett dance.
And where we were staying was a restored historic house that we found through Airbnb. What we didn’t know when we booked was that the house was used as a photo stop for tour groups in Hvar, meaning that hordes of tourists would stop to take photos of the house while we were in it. This combined with my refusal to wear pants when I’m inside would mean some interesting photos now floating around in iCloud (and maybe some questions as to whether the tourists were actually staring at a chipolata factory).
We have now hit quite a rhythm for our trip, with the kids falling asleep in prams allowing us to go out for dinner. And the setup in Hvar was exceptional given there was a restaurant outside the front door. So we could put the kids to sleep in their prams inside the glass door and watch them as we ate. Although it gave plenty of tourists cause to stop at two sleeping kids like display dolls in the apartment window. A few didn’t find it as amusing as we did when we offered them for sale for $5; don’t know if they were affronted by the concept or the price? If it was price I’m sure I could have been haggled down to $3, and I would have thrown in a chipolata viewing for free.
Then it was onto the historic town of Dubrovnik. It really is magnificent, so we decided to do a walking tour to get some of the history of the town. Although 5mins in it became apparent that the only experience we’d be getting would be trying to contain 2 kids that seem to have an irrepressible reflex to chase any pigeon they see. I reckon they’d follow one into the gates of hell if they could (although if they did follow one into Westfield Miranda I’d have to cut them loose and focus on making new children – every parent has paternal limits). I now regret judging all those parents who had leashes on their children (sure they were disguised as backpacks but you weren’t fooling anyone). At some stages on this trip if it was socially acceptable to put dog choker chains on these children I would. But if we could treat humans like dogs I’m sure before I could put chains on the kids Krys would have me up the vet getting nuetered.
The added bonus of Dubrovnik was a great beach right below where we were staying, although the beach was dominated by a beach club where the timing wasn’t quite in line with what we were after. As we would turn up in the morning they were still hosing the place out and scraping some lost dignity and regrets off the walls from the night before. But we slowly warmed to the task and before long were questioning when was an acceptable time to have our first drink (we settled on 11.46am as by the time the drinks arrive you could round the time up to 12) plus maintaining a balance between mild intoxication with parental responsibility. Although the day I stood on the shore yelling to my wife ‘I want to be on you’ as the kids frolicked in the shallows may have been pushing it. Sure it was an ironic Anchorman reference but after a couple of wines it was also very true.
But Dubrovnik itself is very busy – and we aren’t even near peak season. Lines of cruise ships park off the coast and disgorge a seamingly endless stream of tourists, like a McDonalds run gone wrong after 12 scotch and cokes. Just when you think the stomach of these ships are empty, the tourist equivalent of another 20 pack of half digested chicken nuggets manages to find its way out of the ships mouth, to be deposited on the egde of the historic city, where they congeal in clumps that you try not to step in.
And I think Dubrovnik may be Croatian for ‘steps’. The city rises abruptly from the ocean up a very steep hill. So to go anywhere involves more steps than an assembly manual for an IKEA entertainment unit (although I guess the advantage here is that if you miss a step you don’t have to go back to the beginning). There were 148 steps from our apartment down to the road leading to the beach and town (yes I counted). And that took some time given kids stopped every 5 steps to pick up snails, flower petals, bottle tops, random pieces of trash, dad’s belly… But the amount of steps allowed us to delude ourselves into thinking that this incidental exercise meant we had to take on lots of protein and fluids before proceeding back up them at night. Although I didn’t see Rob DeCastella eating 1kg of meat and washing it down with Pinot at the 20km mark of his marathons? Perhaps that’s why all the Kenyons got faster than him in the end?
We have since had a mini-submarine experience implode, and I’ve put 5yrs of Engineering study to use by taping two pieces of wood to a pram. But more on that later.
Ugodan dan.
Trent, Krystal, and some kids on sale for $2.50.
smallthoughts 