 20 April 2007From Venice to Dubrovnik As you can see, from the map above, today we make our way from Venice to Dubrovnik. In truth, most of the travelling has occurred overnight while we slept and this morning we are sailing South along the Croatian coastline with Dubrovnik a few hours ahead of us.  I am always interested in what is going on outside and what we are sailing past, so before breakfast I take time to explore around the ship and see what's going on.  Up on the Sky Deck we get a view forward to where we are headed. Up ahead somewhere is Dubrovnik.  Breakfast is always exciting. Today I am having Banana Bread French Toast with strawberries and whipped cream. Plus some Fruit Loops, Danish and some other stuff too, of course. A bit indulgent, perhaps?  Back out on deck again to wander around and watch Croatia glide past.  The weather today seems to be particularly good. Perhaps even a bit too sunny, in fact.     My favourite shipboard pastime: shooting hoops as we sail along. But these pictures make me realise that I really need proper pants.  So far I am not finding the coastline of Croatia to be all that beautiful. Perhaps I am a bit unfair in thinking that, however, since I am from Canada (specifically Western Canada - British Columbia) and the islands and coastline there is particularly spectacular.  The landscape here kind of looks like M*A*S*H somehow. (Which means that it looks a bit like scruffy southern California.)  There's so much blue that it makes the scruffy landscape look blue too.   I am still wandering around the ship, trying to find how to get to various places and decks.  The land up ahead looks fairly interesting as it is still shrouded in mist. I suspect that it's probably more of the same, however.  And so I find my way to the outside of the on-board gymnasium.  Inside the Veendam's gymnasium. It must be pretty cool to run on those treadmills and look out the windows across the front of the ship and watch where we're headed.  Still exploring the ship. Check out this guy. I saw him yesterday too and noticed that he is all decked out in Tilley Endurables clothing. To be honest, quite a few guys around the ship are wearing Tilley hats, but this guy is all out on Tilley with at least two complete outfits. I myself, of course, have a Tilley Hat that I've had for more than ten years (thus making it look a bit less brand new than those I see around me on the ship). I even have the same vest as this guy as wearing (but in a different colour) which I bought for going to Sierra Leone and to replace my previous Tilley vest (the VOMP - Vest Of Many Pockets) which was stolen by the evil French who broke into our car and absconded it.  A lighthouse out on a small island drifts past us.  I think what makes the terrain look so scruffy is the brush and trees growing on the pale rock underneath. I am reminded that this is where the stone for the Canadian World War One Memorial at Vimy comes from.  And finally, up ahead, the harbour of Gruz at Dubrovnik comes into view.  The pilot boat races off after dropping the harbour pilot off at the side of the ship. The pilot is familiar with the local conditions and climbs aboard alongside to guide the ship in to dock.  Somewhere over there in the distance on the other side of those small hills in the foreground is Dubrovnik's Old Town, which I unfortunately know well despite having never been here before due to its having been shelled by the Serbs during the war.  A view back toward the bridge and the few people who have gathered to watch the ship pull into the harbour.  The obligatory photo of the ship's bell with the coastline of Dubrovnik in the background.  As we get closer to land it becomes possible to make out individual houses a little better.  A view back along the Dalmatian coastline. Is this where the black and white spotted dogs come from?   I wonder if this is the Barjak Lighthouse that the ship's navigator mentioned that we'd be sailing past?   I am not really sure what my goal was in taking all these pictures. I am sure I had a good reason at the time.  Everything here seems to be growing on top of solid rock.   I remember why I took this particular photo. Way up at the top some trees are sticking out from the rest of the green canopy. This reminds me so much of Sierra Leone where I discovered that the jungle canopy is not as smooth as it looks from the air as you fly overhead. There are always some trees that are taller than the rest and stick out.  That looks like a fairly nice beach over there with a waterslide and everything. It even looks like nice sand, which I didn't expect to find here.   I have to admit that my first impressions of Dubrovnik, as we approach from this side of the city, is not what I'd expected. I've seen more pictures of this place and the surrounding hills than I can possibly count, and yet I find it surprising. I think it's this bridge that I really didn't expect. It looks pretty new. I wonder if there was a bridge here before the war?  Still slowly making our way into Gruz Harbour. The air is very still up here at the front of the ship. It's almost hot and one has to lean a bit over the edge to get a cooling breeze.  Some palm trees growing around the houses down by the water.   The ship is really taking its time to approach the dock.  Another shot of the trees sticking out of the canopy in the distance.  FINALLY we pull alongside the dock after turning backwards and facing back out toward the North where we just sailed in.  One of the crewpeople tosses a rope to the people on the dock down below.  The dockhands down below reel in the thin rope that was just thrown is then. That thin rope, in turn, is tied to a really big rope which will be used to tie the ship up. In thousands of years of mankind sailing the oceans the old simple ways are always the best, I suppose.  Docking procedures always take a while to complete so I wander around the ship a bit more before getting ready to disembark.  Croatia continues to look and feel different than I'd expected. Maybe I expected more destruction and fighting based on the only pictures I've really ever seen of it.  Sitting in a deck chair on the promenade deck waiting for the docking procedures to be complete so we can get off the ship.  While we're waiting, how about a quick satellite image orientation? On this map you can see the purple line showing how we sailed into Dubrovnik this morning, as well as the locations of Gruz Harbour (where we are now) and the Old Town (where we'll be heading shortly). Also marked is the island of Lokrum, which we'll see later today (although probably not visit). It's strange to think that the way we sailed in today was the same area where the Serbian Navy once sat off of Dubrovnik and shelled the city for no particular reason.  And finally we are free. The Croatian authorities have decided that everything is in order and passengers are allowed to disembark. Here we are walking alongside the ship heading for the other end of the dock where the taxis are lined up.   Racing through the town of Dubrovnik in a taxi, I try to snap a few pictures out the window.  The taxi climbs a hill and we get our first glimpses of the coastline below.  In no time at all the taxi drops us by the Pile Gate leading into the Old Town of Dubrovnik.  I don't expect that the weather could be any better today by most standards, but the first plan of the day is to walk around on top of the city walls. It might be a bit sunny for that, for my tastes.  Before passing through the gate into the Old Town we have a glimpse of the ocean down below us.  Just through the gate we have our first view of the main street of Placa Stradun that runs from one end of Dubrovnik's Old Town to the other. As you can see it's not very far at all.  Perhaps we'd better have a quick map orientation? This is a map of Dubrovnik's Old Town that I glued together from some images I found on the Internet (from the official tourist site for Dubrovnik, I think). As mentioned we are at the Pile Gate (blue circle) at the far left of the picture. The plan now is to climb up onto the city walls and walk along the water side to the other end of town.  And so we pay the admission fee to climb the walls and head for the top.  The view from the top of the walls gives a wonderful view across the pottery coloured rooftops of Dubrovnik.  Here we see the elevated view down the Placa Stradun main street.  Down below is the so-called Big Onofrio's Fountain which is a rather weird fountain, if you ask me, since it's like a big lump. What's inside? My concept of fountains is based on those found in the rest of Europe whereby water comes out of some sculptures or something and fills basins or goes squirting all over the place. This is just like a big ugly thing with a few taps stuck in the sides. And seriously... what is inside?!?? It can't all be empty inside.  The dazzling pottery tiles are almost blindingly orange-brown in this sunlight.  Walking along the city walls we get some tantalising glimpses of the beautiful clear water below.  Looking back over the Pile Gate and to the mountaintop in the distance with crosses at the summit.  Some fortress in the distance. I forget what it's called. Sorry.  Something about this landscape with the amazing water and rocks and fortresses reminds me of the computer game Riven.  A view over the courtyard of the Convent of St Clare (damaged by the Serb shelling during the war, if I remember my video footage from the Milosevic case correctly) across toward the opposite end of the Old Town.  Newly restored houses stand right alongside overgrown ruins. I am not sure if this destruction was caused by the Serbs or not, but probably it was. They at least damaged the ruins with their indiscriminate shelling.  The water is so incredible, don't you think? And check out the cannon. If that's all the Croats had to fight the Serbs with then it's no wonder that they wrecked so much of the city.  I love the contrasts in this photo: the blue water, the green foliage clinging to the ancient stones, the medieval fortresses, and the terracotta houses.  It seems to me that building these city walls was very much an extension of the already existing walls of rock surrounding and defending the town. Not that any of that helped when the Serbs showed up in the early 1990s.  A view back along the way we came toward the Pile Gate. You can also see the top of the Franciscan Monastery which, of course, was wrecked by the Serbs during their shelling campaign. I remember footage of that quite well from the Milosevic trial.  Don't worry, eventually we'll walk far enough that I'll stop taking pictures of this fortress on the other side of the water.  Some more ruins and the Franciscan Monastery in the distance.  Everyone seems very fond of pointing out that Dubrovnik's Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Monument. We even mentioned it frequently during the Milosevic trial. But what does that mean exactly? Clearly it does not mean that if some aggressor army and navy shows up to wreck the place for no reason that the United Nations will do anything about it. It's a beautiful historically important place that deserves preservation. I get it.  You've just got to love that view, don't you?  And the water is so clear! Amazing. It makes you want to go swimming.  Normally I might think twice about including a picture of me looking like a doofus, but since I'd mentioned earlier about how my own Tilley Hat was considerably more worn in than the many others that I see around me on the ship, I figured that it was worth including a picture of it. This is my sun protection today, Tilley Hat and UV coated Tilley Vest.  Dubrovnik seems to be a city of cats. Plenty of them around without any dogs in sight.  There is something very Riven-ish about this fortification post thing.  A view out one of the cannon ports toward the island of Lokrum in the distance.  The island of Lokrum in the distance as seen from the Dubrovnik city walls.  Some kind of old-fashioned sailing vessel seems to be coming toward us. It's making pretty good time considering that none of its sails are set and they didn't have engines in the old days when this boat style was in use.  The fact that tourists are swarming around the city walls doesn't stop the locals from hanging their underwear outside to dry. In this sun it must take all of five minutes for clothes to dry.  In the distance the sailing ship continues toward the Old Town.  The walkway atop the city walls is narrow in places and my fear of heights kicks in to remind me that I might plummet to my death on the rocks down below.  These city walls are not very secure if there are all these secret openings in them that lead to cafés and restaurants down below.  A neat row of UN blue towels drying in the sun.  The sailing ship continues toward the Old Harbour at the Eastern end of the town.  Down below are many more cats congregating in the shade.  A view back along the city walls along the path that we've just walked on.  I think this might be part of the Jesuit monastery that I also think was damaged by the Serbs. But I am not sure, so don't worry I won't go on about that again.  One of the many narrow back streets of Dubrovnik's Old Town.  The narrow walkway widens out into a nice big open space that allows me to put aside my fears of falling to my death for a while.  High above a couple of crosses look down on Dubrovnik.  I've never understood the practise of placing statues in places where no one will ever be able to properly see them. A prime example is the gargoyles of Notre Dame in Paris. People love to go there and see them, except that the problem is that most of them are way up where NO ONE can see them. What's the point of going to all that trouble?  Some more ruins. Shall we blame the Serbs?  The top of Dubrovnik's city walls is a pretty good place to stop for a drink and a snack.  I hate to repeat myself, but the water here is really truly amazing.  Oh! A glass-bottomed-boat! That's cool. And it really makes sense in waters like this.  Having reached the Eastern end of the town we get our first glimpses of the Old Harbour.  I know the Old Harbour well as I spent many hours watching video footage Serb shelling of the city that was filmed from the Eastern side of Dubrovnik.  I like the bell tower of this church. It reminds me of Spanish churches in the "New World" somehow.  Another view of the Old Harbour through a viewing port.  Finally an unobstructed view of the Old Harbour. And there's that sailing ship again.  Walking around the Old Harbour the sailing ship sets out again with another load of tourist types.  The side streets of the Old Town hold many surprises, such as the Star Wars café.  The clock tower of the Dubrovnik Sponza Palace.  A view from the Old Harbour to the hotels across the water. This is the exact reverse angle as the video footage I spent hours watching during the Milosevic trial. Some journalists way over there turned their cameras toward the Old Town and filmed the Serbs firing rockets from ships at the Old Town all day. While we're on the topic, and now that we've seen a bit of Dubrovnik's Old Town, might I suggest some further light reading regarding the destruction of the city? I believe Prosecution Exhibit 408 in the Milosevic trial contains a number of tabs on this topic, including the report linked below from UNESCO.  Having reached the opposite end of the town we now look back down the Place Stradun toward the Pile Gate where we first started.  The Place Stradun main street seems perfectly straight, but it actually widens out gradually along its length to the Town Hall at the Eastern end.  Down here at street level it's easier to find some relief from the blazing sun.  I love this picture of this wide open expanse of wall with the green door. I wish the streets were a bit less narrow so I could have got a level shot of it.  And so, a significantly shorter walk down the Placa Stradun brings us back to the Big Onofrio Fountain where we started.  The Old Town is very small in dimensions, but there are plenty of little side streets to be explored.  The narrow side streets open up into Gundalic Square. (Sorry, no diacritics on any of these Croatian words. I am too lazy to look up the key codes.)  In front of the Rector's Palace an orange cat lies in the sun.  The sun is really killer so we take a break in the shaded portico of the Rector's Palace. The cat has no problem with the sun, however.  And this is my Tilley Hat. But the reason I took this picture was because of my Silhouette sunglasses (made in Austria!) that are lying on top. They cost almost 700 Euros and the only reason I am able to afford such ridiculous extravagances and wear them around Dubrovnik to protect me from the killer sun is thanks to the war that once brought destruction to the buildings I am not sitting amongst. And that is the circle of life.  The orange cat is apparently quite a tourist attraction. He should put out a tiny little hat for change.   Using the cat as a subject I test out my camera's zooming abilities.  Through the columns is Dubrovnik's cathedral and city treasury. Apparently the cathedral was built by King Richard the Lionheart who once took shelter in Dubrovnik during a storm and built the cathedral in gratitude.  The orange cat stretches out from its nap. Maybe he'll go busk somewhere else now.  Apparently the stretching took all of the cat's energy because it's now stuck in stretched out mode.  Way up in the clock tower there are some interesting figures for striking the bell. Of course, you can't really see them from ground level very well, thus begging the question of what the point was in making the effort to build them in the first place.  Some pigeons congregate on what I believe is the so-called Small Onofrio's Fountain. I am not sure who Onofrio was or why he has fountains.  Off in the distance outside of the city walls there are some beaches so we decide to walk over and check them out.  Some stone clutter in an ancient courtyard.  Passing through the Ploce Gate takes us outside of the Old Town at the Eastern end and gives us a view over the Old Harbour.  Perhaps another map orientation will help? So, after walking along the water side of the city walls we wandered a bit through the Old Town and are now heading off toward the East in search of a beach.  How about a satellite map to augment the map orientation? Here we see Dubrovnik's Old Town as seen from space.  Another view looking up toward the crosses at the summit.  So much work once went into creating statues like this. And nowadays not many people even know what the significance is. We don't really put statues like this on buildings anymore. Occasionally we put weird modern art things in buildings. I guess that's so people in the future will have a good reason to not understand the significance of them.  The three-belled church tower we saw earlier off in the distance.  A view of the unbelievably clear waters of the Old Harbour with the island of Lokrum in the distance.  The water is so clear that you can easily see all the crap that people and boats have dumped into it.  A view back toward Dubrovnik's Old Town from the Eastern end.  In today's sun it's easy to understand why there are Palm Trees here.  So back into some more modern surroundings. Out on the streets of Dubrovnik.  A view back across the Old Harbour to the Old Town beyond.  A path leads down through the trees to the water below.  These waters are definitely made for swimming, so it's not surprising that swimming ladders have been permanently attached to the rock.   Climbing over the rough stones we get a nice view back toward Dubrovnik's Old Town.  After some fancy climbing we finally reach the beach that we saw from the top of the city walls.  Today is a perfect day for swimming. But apparently most people have not planned for it as most of them are swimming in their underwear and bras. The small children, of course, don't need that thanks to the weird European habit of letting children run around naked at the beach.  Risking dropping my camera I take it out into the water to get a cool shot of the shimmering surface.  In the hot sun it's nice to take one's shoes off and cool down in the water. This beach sucks though. Not only do I hate pebble beaches in general, but these Croatians seem to have no problem with strewing garbage all over the beach. I've never seen so much broken glass on a beach in my life. Fortunately for people with bare feet, however, the action of the waves polishes the glass to a smooth finish.  Just to keep oriented, here's another satellite image showing the beach where we're now sitting.  I took this picture to check out before/after whether I got terribly sunburned today or not. I think I did all right though.  Some kayakers paddle in to shore. I can imagine that kayaking around would be a pretty cool thing to do. Although nasty in this sun with sunburn cancer beams coming from above AND below you (reflected off the water).  For the first time since I bought my new camera I am actually constantly using the "hood" ("cowl", whatever you call it) over the end of the lens to reduce glare. I find myself leaving it on all the time, although it doesn't help much in all this sunlight though, when you're shooting directly into the sun.  This is a pretty cool view of Dubrovnik as seen from the rough stone beaches outside of the Old Town.  Walking back up to street level again we start to think about returning to the ship.  We take a stroll through some market stalls and find nothing interesting.  A flock of dark birds alight from the tower above, silhouetted against the blinding blue sky.  Before heading back to the ship I want to walk out onto the breakwater and see what the view is like from there.  Another shot directly into the sun.  I think I took this picture on the assumption that some BCS speaker would later tell me what it says. But then again, it's a compass so one doesn't really need a linguistic decoding.  Lens flare can be cool sometimes. At other times it is just annoying.  A view directly across the Old Harbour to the hills beyond.  And so we head back toward the streets of the Old Town.    Back to the Eastern end of the Placa Stradun once again.  One last look back at King Richard Lionheart's cathedral before we head back to the ship.  Instead of taking the main street we walk down the side streets again past Gundalic Square.   More cats. Dubrovnik is definitely a city of cats.  But the cats are lazy cats, I think. Lying around even when birds are nearby.   The European habit of restaurants putting tables outside wherever they feel like it is a bit strange in the narrow streets of Dubrovnik's Old Town.  I took this picture for future travellers to Dubrovnik to remember the name of the Hotel Pucic Palace as a very well located place to stay.  Back to the Big Onofrio Fountain for the last time as we pass through the Pile Gate one last time and catch a taxi back to the ship.     The taxi races through the streets of Dubrovnik and proves that taxi drivers are a bit crazy no matter where you go.  The Veendam comes into view as we approach Gruz Harbour.  Walking back along the dock to re-board the ship once again.  Back on board the Veendam once again we head for the Lido Restaurant for a snack. Here you can see one of the carved watermelons that adorn the buffet line every day.  A view out over the Western end of Dubrovnik from our table in the Lido restaurant.  Which brings us to today's sunset, which hopefully will be nice because the ship is pointed almost directly toward it.  See what I mean about lens flare being annoying? I'll try to eliminate that from this point onward by cleverly angling the shots so the lens is directly even with the incoming sun beams.  One of the crew members lowers the Dutch flag at the front of the ship. I am not sure if this is because it's sunset, or because we're about to sail out of the harbour in a short while. Both are reasons to take the flag down.  I actually took a lot of photos of the sunset, so I'll just shut up with my comments and let you look at the pictures.    Once again some trees are sticking out from the canopy and remind me of the beautiful sunsets in West Africa.         There is a lot of haze in this part of the world, I am noticing. Not pollution, but more like mist or something like that. At any rate, it makes for incredibly red sunsets.  Some other people are up on the Sky Deck to watch the sunset. I prefer it here on the bow of the ship though.     The last sliver of sun disappears behind the distance islands.   And the Veendam sets sail once again, sailing out to open waters.  With the sun below the horizon the sky takes on an otherworldly glow.  I'd say that that was a pretty good sunset, wouldn't you?  And so we turn out to open water and leave Dubrovnik behind us. New adventures lie ahead.  Walking around the promenade deck brings us to the back of the ship and the wake glowing behind the ship. You can even see a sliver of the moon and stars in this photo.  And so the day comes to an end. I love strolling around the Promenade Deck with the wind and waves nearby. There's something very comforting and exciting about it. But before we go to sleep let's check in with the cruise log for the distance travelled and fact of the day. Fact of the day: Dubrovnik was the only major European port that did not recognise slavery or allow slave ships to dock there. Distance travelled (The Hague to Venice) = 1550 km + Distance travelled (Venice to Dubrovnik) = 310 Nautical Miles (573,5 km) Total distance travelled = 2073,5 km |
