By Brandon
September 12, 2020 • 6 min read
Our first stop after Split was Dubrovnik.
But first, a quick Croatian geography lesson.
The Neum Corridor is a 9 km long stretch of Bosnia-Herzegovina territory that stands between Central and South Dalmatia. Thanks to the Neum Agreement of 1998, travelers are guaranteed free passage from the city of Ploce, Croatia through the Neum corridor and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). We knew none of this at the time and didn't realize that we would be able to cross the border since they had travel restrictions on Americans entering BiH but it turns out that at those border crossings they issue "transit visas" which give you an hour to get through and it generally only take 20 minutes when driving non-stop.
So we ended up taking a more circuitous route taking a car ferry from Ploce to Trpanj on the Peljesac peninsula. The ferry takes about an hour and, thanks to our timing, was more like a pleasant sunset cruise. Sure in total this added about 3 unnecessary hours to our trip but we ended up having a tasty lunch in Ploce while waiting for the ferry and in general driving throughout Croatia was a gorgeously scenic experience. This route in particular takes you along the beautiful Adriatic while winding through high limestone mountains. And we still managed to get into Dubrovnik just after dark.
Our airbnb was located just a short distance up the hill from old town which was fortunate since driving near there and finding parking was crazy and a huge hassle. So we would walk down and have dinner or wander the streets of old town.
Old town Dubrovnik is an incredibly charming place steeped in history. It constantly felt like we stepped into a different era. So much so that more and more movies are being filmed there including, Robin Hood, The Last Jedi, and of course Game of Thrones. The city felt busy but not crowded — apparently when the cruise ships are running they dump thousands of people into old town in the middle of the day.
As in Split, we took a Game of Thrones tour that was super interesting. Our tour guide was a wealth of knowledge, stemming from the fact that she's a Dubrovnik native and was Cersei's stand-in during the production. We'll probably write a separate post just on the Tour.
We also had some really amazing food in old town from restaurants like Trattoria Carmen and Restaurant 360 that we wrote about previously. Not to mention plenty (one could maybe argue an unhealthy amount) of gelato.
Our first order of business was to check out the best nearby beaches. After extensive research, Chris determined that Sveti Jakov would be the best one to visit and we were not disappointed. This was our first exposure to the beautiful pebble beaches of the Adriatic sea and we just couldn't get over how clear the water was. The beach is located in the side of a cliff so you have to take some long steep stairs down which is fine except for the nagging thought of having to climb up them later. While the beach was surprisingly crowded with European tourists, we were still able to keep a healthy distance from people.
We decided to hit up one of the lesser-known tourist attractions in the city, the Red Museum. It's a unique little historical museum that gives a fascinating interactive look at everyday life in communist Yugoslavia. It's filled with genuine memorabilia from the period and they even had an augmented reality app with some supplemental info. It was a fun way to learn about one of the more recent periods of Croatia's history.
We do still try to eat some of our meals at home in order to save some money and not put on too many extra pounds. Fortunately Chris is extremely resourceful when it comes to finding things to cook in airbnbs. Plus we had a view better than most restaurants.
Croatia has lots of beautiful islands and caves near its shores so it's quite popular to take a boat of the surrounding islands while in Dubrovnik. The are plenty of large group tours you can take but since we're trying to avoid crowds, we opted for a private tour on a small speedboat. We found a reasonably priced option through Airbnb experiences and we had a great time with our incredibly nice and experienced skipper. We stopped and hiked across one of the smaller islands with some beautiful hidden bays, and got to snorkel in some breathtaking caves. He even had a speaker I could pair my phone to so we listened to bachata as we sped across the sea.
Dubrovnik is a beautifully unique city and we were so lucky to experience it. We highly recommend visiting if you're ever in Croatia.
January 25th to February 20th After our brief stay in Singapore, we more or less spent the next month (from January 25th to February 20th) on various Thai islands. It was a blast and a really unique experience. Looking back on it I'm probably struck the most by how different the experience was on each of the islands. We also had some interesting experiences getting to and from the different…