Tuesday, 13 April.
We had breakfast at the hotel and drove southeast out of Split, going right by the Split
Hotel we hadn't been able to find when we arrived in town. The Igrane Coast
below Split was breathtaking. When we reached Omis,
ringed by mountains and once infamous for its pirates, we stopped at the market for fresh fruit.
As we continued southeast, there were many olive and orange
groves.
We made a brief rest stop at Neum, where a tiny wedge of Bosnia-Herzegovina slices through Croatia to the Adriatic. (Technically, this area is the Herzegovina portion of Bosnia-Herzegovina.) Then we continued southeast again, leaving Bosnia, until we reached the base of the Peljesac Peninsula. There we turned west off the coast road and onto the peninsula. There were oyster beds all along the shore of the peninsula and many small islands, making it a fabulous drive.
We drove back off the peninsula to the coast road and continued on toward
Dubrovnik (formerly Ragusa). We were disappointed that we couldn't find the 1300
foot high waterfall on the Ombla River near Komolac, just north of the city.
Once in Dubrovnik, we easily found the address where the Bellevue Hotel was supposed to be, but it looked like a vacant lot. Closer examination revealed a stairway going down through a concrete slab. It led to the "underground" lobby. We discovered that the hotel was built into the side of the cliff on an inlet just north of the old walled city. It was entirely below the level of the road. After the hotel tacked a 20% surcharge on our rooms because we were staying less than three days, the cost was $6.00 a day for each double room (with breakfast). The boys couldn't wait to rush down to the beach below the hotel. To get there,
we had to take a very small elevator (three persons if they squeezed together)
that descended though a shaft hewn through solid rock. It was a bit scary
because, if the elevator got stuck, there was no way to get at it. There was no
sand on the beach, only gravel that became smaller and finer the nearer it was
to the water. At the waterline, the stones were so tiny they were almost the
size of
grains of sand. Since it was only 15:30, we left the boys on the beach and went to take a quick look at the old city. We parked right outside the Pile Gate, walked down the Stradun (or Placa), the main street, to the other end of town, and out to the harbor. (The Stradun was once a channel separating two separate towns.) The town was absolutely fantastic, easily fulfilling our high expectations.
It was relatively empty, but otherwise bore a strong resemblance to Venetian towns we'd seen in Italy, except for the massive walls. We browsed through several shops, then headed back to the hotel. That turned out to be quite a drive. Although the hotel was only a few blocks from the old city, we had to detour all the way back to the port of Gruz, then back again, to reach it.
On arriving at the hotel, we discovered the boys climbing the
face of the cliff above the beach. Larry had reached a point, halfway between the top of the cave
and the hotel above, where he couldn't go any higher. But neither
could he find how to come down. Eventually Darrell
talked him down, repeatedly directing Larry's foot to the next toehold. But that
was the end of the cliff scaling. In the meantime, the boys had spotted several
starfish in the water and were eager to go into the water to catch a few. By now
the air was cooling rapidly, though, so we told them they'd have to wait until
tomorrow.
We ate dinner at the hotel, played cards with the boys for a while, then went to bed. A strong wind had come up and, since our rooms hung over the beach, we had the sound of breaking waves to lull us to sleep.
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