Eric’s 2024 Athens to Zagreb Trip

Our group started with a bus trip past town to a spot to take photos from, then back to town for a tour. After the tour, we had plenty of time to explore independently.

Early on, the temperature was 48 ºF, and it was windy, but it was nice later. Two cruise ships chose not to dock because of high wind. One sailed away, and the other anchored and tendered people to port. Our ship was smaller and docked. Because of that and because it was the end of the tourist season, the old town was not crowded.

The old town within the walls is largely converted for tourist trade although about a thousand residents still live there. Much of the town is shops and restaurants. But it is kept nice. Signs are limited, and the facades are mostly historic.

After the tour, I found a bakery and got a burek with cheese. It is nice: soft, fluffy philo pastry. Dubrovnik also has a Hard Rock Cafe, so I picked up the obligatory shot glass for Cathleen.

The Ethnographic Museum had an exhibit of embroidered kitchen towels. Many of them had platitudes like cooking saves you money to go to the cinema, cooking makes a good meal, cats and dogs will eat the scraps, and the husband cleans out the pots because there is good food there too. Quite a few were about cooking makes your husband happy, cooking well makes a good wife, and so on. Then there were a few about the wife kissing the chimney sweep and not letting the neighbor lady see.

And then, reminiscent of other foreign trips I have made, there was a rubber duck store (like in Spain) and arrows pointing in odd directions (like in Japan). I explored outside the old town a bit and then returned to walk around the top of the of the city wall. Some people live just inside the wall. There were some multiple-residence courtyards visible from the wall. Some of the buildings abutting the wall have cafes with seating on the wall path, overlooking the ocean.

After finishing with old town for the day, I took a bus to a Kraš outlet store, then walked back to our ship. For dinner, our bus took us to Gromača for a home-hosted dinner. That involved the bus crawling up some very narrow twisty roads, which I could have done without. We were split up into smaller groups for the dinners, which are basically meals with a local family the tour company has made arrangements with. I think that can be a hit-or-miss experience, but it is at least an attempt to get a real connection.