Nearly Dubrovnik - Again!

Saturday 24 August 2024. The ship is moored against the dockside in Gruz as we leap (slither slowly) out of bed. This is the port for Dubrovnik and almost every time we have been there so far, we have wandered down along the port to the far end of the basin rather than go into Dubrovnik itself.

There's a lot to be said for it. You get a nice peaceful walk down a long street lined with cafes, bars and grocery outlets on one side and ships, boats, yachts both large and small and a sailing ship on the other. In Dubrovnik itself you get a chaotic square-cum-bus station where buses, coaches and pedestrians all compete for the same bit of road and crowds of Game of Thrones fans all craning their necks to spot a recogniseable bit of King's Landing from the show.

Now I'm as enthusiastic about the show as the next person - actually considerably more so, as Miss Franny was the next person and she hated it... What I'm not enthusiastic about are massive crowds and people who seem to treat anyone walking with a stick as an opportunity to see how close they can get, dodging from one side to the other across your path after approaching silently from behind. So we walked down the length of the port again and very nice too. Buying drinks on the way back I learned my first word in Croatian - "vala" means "thank you" The conversation went like this:

"How do you say thank you in Croatian?" "Vala!" said with a smile of appreciation that I should take the trouble to learn. "Vala?" I said, trying it out. She nodded. "Oh thank you! Er... I mean vala!" I stuttered. Old habits die hard and all that...

We had a few other cruise ships travelling along pretty much the same route during the week. Sometimes there were four of us, sometimes three, occasionally five. A regular was Cunard's Queen Victoria. Actually owned by Carnival Corporation, she is operated by Cunard and was built 2006-2007 with delivery to Cunard in December 2007, when on the same day it was named by Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall. The champagne bottle did not break on hitting the side of the ship, a bad omen traditionally, but a second bottle duly smashed immediately. None-the-less much was made of the incident later that month when over 130 people contracted the winter vomiting disease norovirus aboard her. Moral of the tale is to never try to lick old champagne off the side of a ship...

Then the Franjo Tuđman bridge takes the road to and from Split over the River Dubrovnik. The brave - or foolhardy - can bungee jump from it... I was going to have a go - but the Norwegian Pearl was already sailing away. I settled for a jump down into the shower tray instead... It was perhaps just a little safer, there being a handle on the wall to hold onto. But - and readers might like to draw an admiring inward breath at this point - I did it without the aid of any harness or elastic band!

The Rose Garden Restaurant was a buffet style dining area and our usual go-to place to eat. The food was mostly ok, but Norwegian Cruise Lines, depite the name, are an American-based company and the food reflected North and South American tastes primarily. We did expect this and the majority of passengers were indeed from the countries of those continents. Some items were very sweet to our taste. Surprisingly, steaks which Americans are famous for were sometimes so fatty that we just left most of them on the plate. I've never experienced that in America.

Our main reason for choosing this cruise was the chance to see these two wonderful people again. Tomas and Maris, singing as "2 Intense". It was a joy for us to see them again and we had a meal together one night with a chance to sit and talk and catch up on all the things happening at home and with families etc. "He's itching to get up here!" grinned Tomas one night. Yes I was but I'm still not in any fit enough state to try it yet! Hopefully someday.

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Gateways & Gondolas Cruise Index, 30 April - 7 May 2009

A series of articles describing our cruise on the Ocean Village Two. The itinerary for this cruise was Heraklion, Crete > Day at Sea > Dubrovnik, Croatia > Venice, Italy > Korčula, Croatia > Corfu, Greece > Zakinthos, Greece > Heraklion, Crete.

Join us in our adventures, trials and mishaps. Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.

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Adriatic Explorer Cruise Index, 13-20 October 2017

Join us for the Adriatic Explorer cruise on the Thomson Dream cruise ship from Corfu heading up the Adriatic Sea to Koper, Slovenia; Venice, Italy; Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia and a final stop in Kotor, Montenegro before heading back to Corfu where we leave at the end of a brilliant week.

We will not be taking any excursions this time, but we will leave the ship each day under our own steam for a look at each of the cities we stop at. Click each of the small pictures below to view the articles that describe our adventures and the features and history of the places we visit.

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Lazy Day in the Port of Dubrovnik

We've spent a few days racing (leisurely) through various places and today we're going for a slow walk and a relaxing time!

Today we are at the Port of Dubrovnik. Gruz to give it its proper name. Never ones for lazing on sunbeds and burning to a crisp, but wanting a more gently paced day than the previous two, we decide to take the sketchbook for a walk to the bottom of the harbour and see whether the view is - or can be made - simple enough to draw.

It's a respectable walk by the time we reach the far end of the harbour and here the road carries straight on and a path leads to the right along the harbour wall and off up a dirty great hill which would eventually bring you to the coast with a turn to the left and still a long walk to the walled city of Dubrovnik. But given that there's a massive map and a very clear signpost pointing along the road that says "Centrum" (not that hard to translate into "Centre" I would have thought...) it turns out to be a bit amazing how many people look at the sign and then the map and then walk past us along the harbour wall and then return saying the hill is massive and they weren't sure if they were going the right way. If you want to walk to Dubrovnik, by the time you have reached the map you are roughly one third of the way to the walled city.

Some take half an hour to come back and then look at the map again and then come back past us to retrace their climb... Now that's dedication! As for me, I'm quite happy sitting here with an empty mind (yes I know - that's its usual state...) and happily doodling away. A boat owner comes along and drags a tiny dingy out to paddle out to his motor boat that is moored in the harbour somewhere. He takes a look at what I'm doing. "Very nice!" he says and we fall into a conversation. He is going fishing for the day as he does most days, bringing home the family meal.

The Croatians are lovely, friendly people I have always found. Several stop to look at what I am doing and make comments in perfect English which makes me stop to count how many words I can speak in Croat. I don't finish all the fingers on just one hand...

We spent a couple of hours sitting there whilst I ignored most of the ships and boats but included Thomson Dream and the Karaka a wooden broad-hulled sailing ship which we have admired on previous visits. Just beyond the Dream the River Ombla enters the Adriatic via a ria, a 5 kilometre (3.1 miles) long estuary which flows under a suspension bridge whose support cables can be seen over the Thomson Dream.

We walked back towards the ship, looking in one or two shops, including a shop dedicated to Game of Thrones. Dubrovnik is the location for the show's King's Landing.

Gruz is a pleasant place to visit even without the more well-known attraction of Dubrovnik. Buses run from just outside the cruise terminal entrance into the city, stopping just outside the main entrance, Pile Gate.

Tomorrow will be our final day and port before we leave the ship for home on Friday. Join us next time in the city of Kotor, in Montenegro.

Adriatic Explorer Cruise Index Page

Last Day of the Adriatic Explorer

Thursday, 18 August 2011. The Thomson Spirit arrives into Gruz, the port for the Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

As it's our last day we'll have a last look at the ship itself! Once again we have decided not to go on an arranged excursion. This means for the first time ever we have done an entire cruise without paying for excursions! Dubrovnik is an hour's walk apparently. We'll set off and see where we get to!

The last time we were in this port, there was a lot of building work going on to extend the wharf. We are docked on a bit that didn't exist the last time and we have to walk the length of the harbour.

Halfway down we come to this excellent replica galleon, the Karaka. Well, it's not a galleon apparently, but a replica of a 16th century carrack. I suspect they weren't fitted with the same sort of luxuries in the 1500s somehow, but it certainly looked wonderful and you can find out more on the Karaka website complete with some beautiful photos of her under sail.

We walked all the way to the end of the harbour and there found that the street signs for Dubrovnik were a little open to interpretation... Our map that we had picked up didn't help as the harbour was too far away from Dubrovnik to be shown.

There was a peninsular heading back on the other side of the harbour for as far as we had walked already and more and I suspected Dubrovnik was probably on the other side of it. Taking the short cut over the peninsular instead of round it looked as though it involved one hell of a climb! Besides... it was very nice on the harbourside! We sat on a bench and watched what there was to watch for half an hour and then ambled back up to the ship. (Maybe as well - I was wrong about Dubrovnik being over the hill - it was along the road in the same direction we had been walking.)

That's twice I've been to Gruz and not been into Dubrovnik... Ah well! Third time may prove to be lucky! We sail out at 5:00pm, heading out through the channels and islands and past the suspension bridge over the river.

The large ferries were nowhere to be seen here. Just an older small steamer heading across to one of the islands. We ate once more in the Compass Rose restaurant where Thomas and Fred were watching out for us, to wave us into our chairs.

Then we headed for the Horizons Bar where the harmony group New Dimension were playing their usual ballads. "Is it rock and roll night tonight?" I asked as I walked in. I'd asked this about three nights running and it had become a standing joke. However tonight they went into a conflab for a while and then - Blue Suede Shoes!!! Who would have guessed! They all laughed as I got up and salaamed them.

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We Almost Visit Dubrovnik again...

Saturday, 2 May 2009. The coach leaves Cavtat and we climb the hillside for another set of spectacular views on the way back towards Gruz and the Ocean Village Two cruise ship.

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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