In the distance a Costa cruise line ship is making for the port of Dubrovnik.
As we get closer we can see that it is Costa Serena now moored amongst the smaller islands towards Dubrovnik. Her tender boats are already in the water and ferrying people to shore. In fact the entire week we seemed to be almost in a convoy of three with Ocean Village Two, MSC Musica and Costa Serena. Not as funny a name as her stable mate, Costa Fortuna, but there you go...
Dubrovnik comes into sight and we are told that we will skirt the wall in order that we can drop off any passengers who want a quick look round the city at Pile Square (pronounced "peel"). Typical of my luck, just as I take the photograph, the coach overtakes a woman on a scooter with no helmet but bright red hair! By the time we are past her, we are also past the viewpoint.
We drive around part of the city wall which towers above the roadway, looking as formidably unscalable as it was originally designed to be. I snap a couple of photos through the coach window.
Pile Square and Pile Gate is an ancient part of Dubrovnik and has been the main landward entrance to the city for a good few hundred years. Entrance through the gate was guarded by a still impressive gatehouse, overlooked by towers on the walls and no doubt by a drawbridge over the moat, though from the coach I couldn't see whether the modern stone bridge still incorporated a drawbridge portion.
Pile Square itself is bustling with people. Most of them, in fact the queue that you can see to the right of the photo and which 5 minutes later extended right round to behind the tree and the statue, were waiting for the shuttle buses to take them back to the ship and, having dropped off a few of our passengers, we took on some of them. Not until the courier had asked our permission, I have to say, which was a nice touch.
The statue, by the way, was a touch strange as it featured a naked woman berating a naked man who seemed reluctant to hand over a strangely attractive sheep... Best not to enquire too deeply, I thought... The passengers who got on were not particularly effusive in their praise of the organisation of traffic. The place was obviously a well used bus terminal as buses filled the road - three abreast, and all stopped to let off and pick up passengers. There were no pedestrian bits, those getting off one bus alighted in the middle of the road and in a fog of exhaust fumes, had to dodge other buses that were trying to squeeze through the gaps. Buses left the square as soon as they could worm their way through from the back of the collection of buses to the front.
But anyway they were now safe and sound on the coach. It only took a few minutes to get from Dubrovnik back to the port, once we had got from the back of the queue of buses to the front in a series of stops and starts as the driver alternately gunned it, then slammed on anchors, as another queue of people got off another bus straight into the road in front of us.
We got back to the ship and had something to eat, then I went up on deck to lean on the ship's rail and do this sketch of the hillside at Gruz. Not a photographically accurate one as there were some high-rise flats in the middle distance and I left those out with an uncharacteristic shudder of artistic licence.
With one cruise ship moored and another two ships having to anchor and tender their passengers into the port, the local authorities are busy extending the dock to cope with more ships. Hey up! We're moving! Time to have a last look at this part of Croatia as we thread our way through the small islands offshore and look forward to our day tomorrow which will be in Venice.
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