Having survived the Hungarian-Croatian border crossing (oh wait, all we did is wave our passports at some bored looking guards while the train sat in the middle of nowhere), we spent three lovely days lazing around Mljet. Our second day, we took a jaunt to a twelfth century monastery in the middle of a tidal lake on the island. The monastery rents out rooms, where my mother stayed over forty years ago. After weeks of traveling with three of her children all over eastern Europe in 1966 in search of relatives that had survived the war, my grandmother decided it was high time for a break and brought the family there for a week of swimming and sitting in the sun. So a touch of family history mixed into our lazy afternoon on the little island.
Then we headed to Dubrovnik, only to find out that no one was home at Villa Adriatica, where we had rented a room. Oops. A young guy finally showed up and brought us up to our room, where he proceded to tick off at least thirty rules related to opening doors, keys, use of the balcony, furniture, coffee making, etc, etc, etc. There were severe penalties, too, for rule breakers, including expulsion from the house, which would have been fine with us, except that the rule ridden room was accompanied by the best balcony in Dubrovnik. The glowing city walls stretched out in front of us to one side, complemented perfectly by the deep aquamarine of the sea. So, with a portrait of a very Victorian lady on one side of the bed and the Virgin Mary on the other, we endured the rules the best we could.
Dubrovnik itself managed to exert its charms, even when stuffed to the brim with wealthy European tourists. You can't help but find the place phenomenal.
No comments:
Post a Comment