Day 67.

Today we split from Split (if Leanne can make corny split jokes, so can I) for a long drive to Dubrovnik. The drive is largely uneventful.  The coolest part by far is that there is a 12 mile stretch of coastline along on the Adriatic Sea that is in Bosnia which is the 2ndshortest coastline in the world (Monaco is the shortest).  We later learn that the Republic of Dubrovnik (when it was an independent republic) gave away this piece of land to the Ottoman Empire as a buffer zone against Venice so that anyone who wanted to invade Dubrovnik would have to go through the Ottomans which was something people only did if they want to get conquered and executed.  Unfortunately, when the Ottoman Empire fell, Croatia permanently lost this land.  

The Bosnian stretch of land is the town of Neum along the Dalmatia coast on the Adriatic.  There are home after home and hotel after hotel build into the rock cliff on the water and people everywhere in the water swimming, sailing, boating, etc.  I guess when you only have 12km of coastline, you make sure you take advantage of it. Had I known about Neum, would have stayed there for a night of two.’

As we approach Dubrovnik, all the highway / road signs tell me I need to go right where the road splits (I can hear the groans from the audience) but my Google Maps says our Airbnb is to the left and still 30 mins away.  Hmmm.  Generally not a good sign.  Further examination of our Airbnb reservation reveals that it is in the city of Cavtat in the province of Dubrovnik and the city of Dubrovnik is 30 min away. Apparently, I thought Cavtat was the street and Dubrovnik was the city. The hazards of booking a city in 10 mins from your phone from another country.  

All is not lost though as the Airbnb has a lot of space and incredible views of the Cavtat Harbor, sea and sunsets and is a short walk down to the water.  The Airbnb owner is very cool and tells us that the house has been in his family for 500 years.  I do a double take but yes, he confirms we heard it right – 500 years.  We’d love to stay and chat but we are booked on a 4pm Game of Thrones tour in Dubrovnik and have to contend with getting to the city.

We haul over and make it at 3:59pm.  Our tour guide looks disappointed that we arrived on time as he had the GOT shame bell out and ready to go on us if we were 1 minute late.  There are only 7 people on our tour as it seems like there are 20 tour guides doing GOT tours at any given moment.  Our guide is a fast talking, bundle of energy, all-things GOT guy who has watched all 8 seasons 8 times through. He whips out a GOT map and asks us to point to Kings Landing (which is Dubrovnik in real life). Everyone looks hesitantly at each other and says nothing so Leanne confidently points to the map.  Our guide looks relieved that at least one person knew it (go Leanne!) but at the same time looks displeased that only one person knew it. I think he is used to his tour groups being full of people similar to him. 

“Everyone here has watched GOT, right?” he prompts us.  “Well, I’m only on season 2 and I’m only watching it because my boyfriend here is a fan.”  Ut oh – not the answer Mr. GOT tour guide wants to here, especially given there are only 7 of us.  She looks so uninterested in anything GOT related that I’m thinking she might break up with him just so she doesn’t have to watch the next 7 seasons.  The guide decides he is not going to be deterred by the groups lackluster showing on the GOT map quiz so he keeps firing out questions and if no one answers after five seconds, he cold calls someone in the group.

Leanne and I have flashbacks to business school cold calls where learned that if there are any easy questions, you pounce with your chip shot answer and that helps prevent getting cold called on the hard questions. We employee that strategy and Leanne is lighting quick on the ones she knows while the others in the group flounder on the harder questions.

Our guide takes us to all the places in Kings Landing that GOT was filmed.  He was a location scout for GOT and explained how HBO transformed the original Dubrovnik location into the GOT film location. When we get to the stairs from Cerci’s shame seen, he explains how there are only 3 policemen in Old Dubrovnik and they spend most of their time now arresting intoxicated tourists for public indecency when they get nude and try to re-enact the shame scene. All-in-all a fun and informative tour.  I name Leanne Queen of the seven kingdoms for her stellar performance answering the guides questions.

Did I mention that Croatia is hot?  Like serious sweating hot.  Like dehydration within the first 30 mins followed by completely melting into a puddle within 60 minutes.  After the tour,  Leanne and I decide to pro-actively fend off the melting into a puddle fate by getting a beer at Buza Bar which has self-proclaimed itself the bar with the most beautiful views in the world.  Of course, there is no way to validate such a purely subjective claim but the bar is way too crowded for me to track down the manager and ask his basis for such a grandiose claim.

Buza Bar is unique, I’ll give them that.  It is carved into the rocks under the wall that surrounds the city and you can sit and watch the sea melt into the horizon.  From there, you can go down several flights of stairs to water where a multitude of people are cliff jumping, diving, flipping and maiming themselves from a ~12-14 meter cliff.  A simple jump of the cliff merits no reaction from the bar patrons above but when some poor guy attempts a back flip and over-rotates and slams his back on the water, the crowd erupts in cheers, whoops and hollers.  It seems a little reminiscent of barbaric Roman times and I’m wondering if someone should be calling an ambulance for the poor dude.

When we arrive back at the Airbnb, I’m retelling the cliff diving to the kids and several of their eyes light up and they say “that’s sooo cool, we have to do that tomorrow!”  “We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings,” I respond.