Dubrovnik

This is why I like Dubrovnik.

And this.

And this (And yes, that´s Mehmet jumping off that cliff like a young god there :) )

Unlike other metropoles we´ve visited, Dubrovnik has one big advantage: The stunningly clear, adriatic sea, in direct reach. Whether we visited Amsterdam or Paris or Prague or London, it was always this dance around keeping the kids happy and entertained, not stretching their patience for too long, and then quickly leaving the city center for a park or the campsite or some place the kids would like. Well.

This is pretty much the city center of Dubrovnik´s gorgeous old town.

There´s a little bay, right along the city walls, that looks like open arms hugging the sea, and we spent the last days with intervals of swimming - walking through the town-swimming - repeat. Worked perfectly. I´ve never seen water so clear, so swimable, in such proximity to a big city, I still can hardly believe it, and I´ve got no idea how they keep it so clean, but there you are. You can see swarms of hundreds of little fish swimming around you, sometimes feel them, too. And Miro and Ronja found crabs, and mussles - it´s so cool!

Of course, Dubrovnik is not only swimming.

There´s the new town, where regular people go to buy cheap shoes for kids who lost theirs at the beach but that otherwise looks like just any other town, and there´s the old town, a fully restored medieval fairy tale city.

In fact, it is King´s Landing. And as much as I´d like to state that´s a pure coincidence we only discovered here, I´ve got to admit that, yes, that was part of the reason we came here. We wanted to see King´s Landing.



You can walk around the city walls and see all the orange roofs - a walk around the city walks is considered something like a must for tourists here  -it´s like going to La tour Eiffel when you´re in Paris. Though you best do it on a clouded day, because the sun is bright here and there´s no shade at all, but many stairs :)

There´s the Onophrian fountain...

 

...where you can not only refill your water bottle, but that also offers yet another place to splash around with water -  it´s Mehmet and Miro´s favourite place in the city, also because of the money some tourists throw in for luck - and I know that the twins, despite me telling them not to, plucked the sum of 3 kuna (around 40 cents) out of the water, giggling and then investing it secretly in sweets from the pirate candy store right next to the fountain.

Speaking of pirates...

...the guys who place parrots on random tourist´s shoulders are in Dubrovnik, as well.

And the world´s best frozen yogurt is sold in Dubrovnik, and on the market, you get lavendar oil for almost nothing. And when Tim and the kids went for their... I guess fourth round of swimming, I got a whole hour off just for myself, during which I found two bookstores (so we can read some Zoran Feric now), and a war memorial museum, and two churches, and some really cute designer stores.

I´m one happy woman :)

More tomorrow, I´m going to soak in the sunshine now, so I´m closing this post with some fun music:

Courtesy of Eva :)