Sailed most of the night. Midmorning we pulled into Dubrovnic better known as Kings Landing in the Game of Thrones HBO series. When we heard we were going on this cruise we thought we should give the show a look see. We liked it. Some violence and without any historical relevance but it's still entertaining and we cram watched several seasons so that when we got here it might add some interest.
It's a beautiful city and the morning sun shining on the walls of the old city was a great way to start the day. We had an excursion planned - island hopping with some swimming. The sea was very rough and I suffered some from the pounding in the little boat. Our first stop was swimming into a grotto carved out into the cliffs along the sea. Although I'm rarely one to shy away from an adventure I was intimidated by the thought of swimming to a small opening at sea level into this cave. Of course by the time we swam to the opening it wasn't nearly as intimidating and we made it in and out without risk to life or limb.
We visited 2 other islands and enjoyed a leisure lunch and heard stories of the recent war in this part of the world from our guide as we went from place to place. The Croatians have restored the old city but you can still see shrapnel markings on the limestone. I read a bit on the subject trying to figure out what happened here for 5 years in the 90's but it is way too complicated. The story changes depending on who you talk to and which country they are from. It's like so many wars where religious intolerance and property grabbing are motivating forces.
We headed back to the old city and found it absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful lime stone paved streets and walls with narrow alleys, lots of restaurants and small shops.
Today really made up for yesterday and one of the surprises was that we were the only ship in the port. The cruise director told us that in 8 years she has never been the only cruise ship in port. You can imagine 12 to 15 thousand people being dumped into a small sea port town. We were lucky.
Dinner was on board and we set sail for Hvar at 11:00.
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