A man of my word, we hit the town hard last night and went to one of the top-rated restaurants on Tripadvistor (shout out to all my Tripadvisor reviewers out there -- you're doing the lord's work). After Lokrum I quickly showered, put on my finest Banana Republic t-shirt, and made my way to Restaurant Dubrovnik. I committed a serious travel foul by not taking pictures of the meal, but we ordered a bottle of local wine and had beef carpaccio, tuna tartare, black ravioli, tuna steak and turbot. I basically blacked out from fullness after the starters, but Marisa tells me I enjoyed the full meal.
After dinner, we had drinks on the main thoroughfare of Old Town and people-watched. A table of Irishmen behind us provided the soundtrack to the night as they serenaded an outdoor bar of ~100 people with drinking anthems for 90 minutes. The highlight was spotting a couple from our plane walking the streets of Old Town. During the flight, and after they had both bombed two glasses of wine in 10 minutes, the man spilled a full glass on light wash jeans. He was wearing shorts last night but appeared to be having a good time despite losing his favorite pair of pants.
If you ever need the Wi-Fi code to Cele, it's 12345678. They take cyber security very seriously.
Who has two thumbs and got cocky about conquering jet lag? This guy. After returning to our apartment at a decent hour, Marisa fell into a deep slumber and I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching YouTube videos and waiting for the Ambien to kick in. Unfortunately, when both of us awoke, we were both experiencing the lethargy that infamously hits on the second day of any international vacation.
So, we decided started our day with a light lunch, pictured below:
Papardelle with beef steak.
(It's really dope that calories don't count on vacation, or else I would be in serious trouble.) Still feeling groggy, we washed down our pasta with two Americanos each and made our way over to the Dominican monastery, where Marisa pretended not to be embarrassed by my lack of art history knowledge. My favorite part was learning about the patrons who commissioned massive, religious paintings and inserted themselves in the bottom left hand corner as these little gnome-like figures. If I ever pay for a major piece of art, I want to have a dominant presence and occupy no less than a third of the work.
It then began raining, and we used this as a valid excuse to come home and take a two-hour nap. We also began searching for alternate destinations since Albania was beginning to look like less of a possibility. The revised itinerary is below, but we will be heading north instead to Bosnia and Herzegovina for four days. The con is that we really wanted to go to Albania. The pro is that most people I know haven't been to Bosnia and Herzegovina, so I'll still have something to brag about.
There was a torrential downpour at dinner, but we braved the rain and made it to (another) Italian restaurant. In order to stay warm and forget about our saturated pants and shoes, we had a "few" of the local drinks. We're both carboloading to maintain our endurance for the remainder of the trip.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Dubrovnik and the weather is supposed to rebound a bit. We're hoping to get some more sun before heading up to Mostar, where we will be spending four nights in a museum/hotel.
9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik
9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
9/7 - 9/11: Day trips from Mostar to other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro
9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.
9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX.