The morning is a repeat of yesterday. Monique makes our American favorite - eggs, salty bacon and toast. She works in the morning for one of her clients. Dave goes down to his favorite cafe in the square for coffee and works on the blog text from the previous day. Around noon we leave Old Town through the "Ploche" gate. We are heading to a secluded beach called St. Jakob where we can swim and get lunch. It’s about a 25 minute walk so we start down Frana Supila - a street that climbs uphill along the waterfront. Just past Hotel Argentina we take the downhill fork onto a road called Vlaha Bukovca where we walk down a beautiful lane with very nice homes. It reminds us both of the beauty of Italy. At the end of the road there is a church (St. Jakob) and right behind it there is a path and stairs down to the beach.
When we arrive at the church there is a couple who are in swimsuits with a very young boy who is crying. Dave gives him one of the rubber band bracelets that Trisha made and he immediately stops crying. The couple seems to know where to go so we decide to walk with them. They are from Berlin, Germany and are very friendly. We all walk and talk right past the sign for the beach. We end up, at what we learn later, is an abandoned communist open air theater. The place is covered with graffiti and you can see signs of people sleeping on the ground in the buildings. We all know immediately that this is the wrong way. We read our guidebook and learn we went too far. We backtrack and now see the big sign pointing to the beach. We all laugh realizing how big the sign is and the fact that we walked right by it. We go down the switch back stairs to arrive at a quiet pebble beach. We can see Old Town in the distance. It was worth the walk.
The restaurant is vey small and we pick a table about 15 feet from the water. When the Caprise salad and grilled chicken breast with French fries comes, we feast. After lunch, we pick our place in the sand and go for a swim. The water is refreshing and because of the salt in the water you float like a cork. It is very relaxing. Dave brings some rocks over to make another turtle in the sand. The waiter from the restaurant comes over and says you cannot move the rocks. He sternly says "We clean the rocks from the beach and throw them to the back and you bring them to the front and this is pointless." Dave smiles and says he will put them back when he’s done so it doesn't matter. The waiter turns quickly and goes back to the restaurant. The German family has been watching and laughs with us. We agree that creating something temporary might be pointless but it is fun do and to look at. Dave completes a simple turtle. We enjoy the sounds of waves and swim several more times. After a couple of hours we decide to leave. Dave disassembles the turtle and puts the rocks back from where they came - all is well. We walk up the many steps and follow the road back to Old Town. This trek was great because it allowed us to see more of the area away from where we are staying. We wonder how much a house or apartment would cost here. There are plenty of tourists to rent the place and have them pay the bulk of the costs. Something to look into.
A quick stop at the apartment to drop off our bags and change out of our wet suits. We head out again and walk up the grand staircase (aka walk of shame stairs) to St. Ignatius church (the base of the stairs begin right outside our door). We turn left and follow the lane that runs right along the inside of wall. There is a sign that says "Cold Drinks" and points to a hole in the the wall. This place is called Buza II - Buza means "hole in the wall" imagine that. We enter the hole and follow the narrow stairs down to many layers of decks and find a spot to sit on the deck with the bar. The place is full of people because it is a great place to watch the sunset. They have a lower observation deck with a place where people jump off into the water. The fall looks to be about ten meters. We get a seat and right next to us are three guys from Australia. We all drink beers and talk about traveling. They are going to Munich the week after us. They went to two beaches in the day and told a funny story. They are friends and two of them put rocks into one of the guys backpack. He didn't notice the large increase in weight and carried the rocks the whole way back to their hostel. We all laughed and agree he should keep one of the rocks to remind him to get revenge. After watching the sunset and drinking another beer, we decide it’s time to go. We try to pay with a credit card and are told they only take cash. We don't have enough Kuna so we tell him one of us will run to a cash machine. He tells us he will accept US dollars. We do have a stash of US currency for emergencies. This is the not so exciting emergency. This is unusual because most places here only take Kuna and will not even accept Euros. We are lucky and are free to leave.
Back at our pad we shower off the salt water from the day. Monique makes us a simple Italian dinner consisting of noodles, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. It tastes great and we eat it up. The day in the sun makes it feel later than it is. We work on the blog and watch CNN. We want to keep up with the election and other news from the states and the world. Around eleven we are sound asleep. Another beautiful weather day with fun in the sun. Croatia has a certain charm that is hard to beat.
Looking back at Old Town and the harbor as we head out for a beach.
On the way to the beach we walked past this compound that was full of Moorish and Moroccan design influences. It is the only blue domed building we have seen since we left Greece. This place is impressive - I wonder who owns it?
We thought this lane looked like it could be in Italy - they are just on the other side of the Adriatic after all.
St. Jakob beach is tucked in the cove just around the corner. The Adriatic is calm today.
We fount it! This is St. Jakob’s church.
This is the communist era compound we found. It’s crumbling and we think it’s a valuable piece of property just wasting away.
We realized we must have missed the staircase heading down to the beach so we backtrack. This is our little group of beach-goers.
We can see a new view of Old Town from the beach - it looks far away, but it only took us about 25 minutes to walk here.
St Jacob’s Beach, a nice little cove with a mostly pebbly beach.
Dave’s “pointless” turtle getting ready to swim to sea.
Heading back we take one last look at the beach and restaurant - it was a nice, refreshing break.
This is just one of those things you see when you are walking around - it’s kind of a simple solution for blocking out the mid-day sun.
The hole in the wall we need to walk through to get to Buza Bar. You can see how thick the wall facing the sea is.
Two Croatian beers please.
Another amazing sunset courtesy of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Simply amazing.