Dubrovnik

Some of the group walked up to the Fort on the mountain very early this morning. We did not go. 

A photo taken by one of the group this morning.

Our 10AM mini-bus pickup didn’t happen until 10:30 due to horrible traffic. Not only do big tour buses come in early, there are also two cruise ships in today. 

We purposely stayed until we were last on the bus in case other people wished to have seats where we usually sit. Our regular seats were waiting for us so obviously everyone else was happy with seating arrangements!

This is the first day of our trip in which there is 100% cloud cover and on/off heavy rain/downpours. 

After a pit stop at a mall we started towards the main border. When we drove up to the huge line up waiting for border crossing the driver knew we were still a long ways away from the actual border control so he turned us around and we went to a second, smaller border crossing not used by tourists. 

The crossing was super easy. Leaving Montenegro required just a list with our groups names etc. while entering the EU required only the driver to take our passports in to the little border office to get stamped. 

We made it to our dormitory hotel in mid afternoon. We had enough time to have a quick bite before we all went out to the local bus stop and caught bus #4 to the downtown. 

We had a fascinating tour of the city with a local guide. He was really funny and told many stories as we listened under our umbrellas with the rain coming down. We are going back to the walled  city tomorrow so no worries on our part about photos. 

The guide told one super interesting story that interests me. His great grandfather had a fancy car and it was “he” who was supposed to drive Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (when Ferdinand was killed). The great grandfather got sick about a week before and had to bow out of driving the ArchDuke. The Great grandpa told the family that he knew all the streets of Sarajevo and would not have made the wrong turn that allowed Gavrilo Princi to shot the ArchDuke ( and precipitate the start of World War One). The photo below shows the official invitation to the great grandpa from  the Archduke. 

Tonight we went out for supper. We walked from here to a local restaurant and had really wonderful food and GREAT conversations. Everybody on this trip has interesting backgrounds and has had wonderful interesting trips.

In particular one of the German ladies was fascinating. She used to be a 400 and 800 meter running specialist before injuries caught up to her. She went into coaching and she coached the gold medal winner of the 2016 Rio Olympic discus. She has since moved on to event planning and helps (all over the world) in various major events (such as the recent Euro Cup tournament. 

Our CEO (Chief Excitement Officer) Karolina (easy for me to remember!) paid for the UBER so  six of us hopped in the taxi (even though it was ordered on UBER) and went back tot he hotel. Some of the others were staying longer.