Dubrovnik II--new photos
We leave back to Germany tomorrow morning.
We finally found a great restaurant. On a hunch, we stopped at what looked to be a new restaurant, but it was still under construction by a bunch of friendly 30 somethings. We asked when they were open, and they said they hoped to be open Saturday night. We asked to reserve a table, and they said we were their first reservation ever. It is called Sesame (www.sesame.hr) and it was worth the wait.
Today, we took the cable car up to the fort above the city, built by Napoleon around 1805. There was a small museum there with, for once, not the history of 600 years ago but 26 years ago. The vicious savagery of the Yugoslav civil war was shown with TV reports taken during the shelling of Dubrovnik. Croatia separating from Yugoslavia meant that the immense source of revenue from the tourist destinations up and down the Croatian Dalmatian Coast would be lost to Serbia. Serbia decided to deprive Croatia and the world of a cultural jewel and started shooting artillery shells at a city built to withstand arrows and spears. It has been built up again, but the pictures reminded everyone of the savagery that took place here just 26 years ago. All basically for a battle of "if we can't have it, then neither can you." All their savagery got them a small museum for their troubles, and a young generation of people that vaguely know what happened 26 years ago, but want no part of hating people 60 miles up the road who look like them, talk like them, dress like them, and listen to the same music.
The weather FINALLY turned and became what all the posters tell you the Adriatic coast looks like. From the fort, if you turn around from the spectacular view of the city and the coast, you see the sere Balkans, bare and brutal.
Some pics of our last day----
Some houses of "suburban" Dubrovnik from the cable car on the way up:
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An island in the bay:
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The Balkans behind the fort:
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My wife looks over the old town:
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The old town seen from the fort:
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A museum poster:
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A few mementos of Serbian shelling in the fort wall:
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Our hotel visible from the fort (just to the left of the bend in the bay):
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Back from the cable car to a narrow "street," really a steep stairway down into the old town:
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At the just opened restaurant "Sesame:"
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Finally got someone to take a pic of us both:
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The old town's main street, in flames 26 years ago, restored and full of life, as if it had never happened:
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The old town's main street looking in the other direction:
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The number of local young people here is amazing, and if they held a show "Croatia's Top Model," they'd have to allow 50% of the under-30 population as finalists. We met several people from our own countries, i.e. Germany and the USA, but also ran into people from Japan, Korea, China, Latin America, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Holland, England, France, Austria, and I-Forget-Where-Else. For a relatively small place, it certainly seems to attract the world.
The ice cream is so amazing here, my wife and I had so much of it at one vendor, their staff gave us our orders for free tonight as a send-off (unheard-of). I guess it didn't hurt that what little Croatian I knew came back to me quickly, and I got BIG smiles for using it--something precious few tourists bother to do.
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Ah, these are wonderful photos! I'm so glad the weather improved just in time. I can nearly feel the spring softness in the air.
The views from the fort are breathtaking. What a height it has!
And the stairs! They truly scared me. I have to be careful these days.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful vacation with us!
Safe travels tomorrow!
When I've visited other countries, I've been overwhelmed by the age of the buildings. I once visited a 6th-century church - or what was left of it. It boggles the mind, the history that is hard to imagine here in the US. And Mrs. DFW is lovely as always, great to see you both looking well and relaxed. Thanks so much for sharing these with us... 
Here in Germany, we have lots of history right in front of our noses. There is a 1000 year old castle practically in our back yard, one of the biggest Roman colonies north of Paris 50 KM to the south (the "Colonia" of 2000 years ago, today's Köln), and one of the biggest finds of prehistoric hominids a 20 minute drive south of our house in the Neander Valley (German: "Neandertal"
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But the architectural splendor of Dubrovnik is that the whole city is practically as it was 600 years ago. They have re-done the buildings' interiors with electricity and running water, and had to do some serious restoration after the Serbs shelled it in 1991, but you still get the idea that in the year 1400, this place was a BIG DEAL.
My wife had a great time, too, and it showed. She waited for me to go into the Adriatic first, but she did follow me in. A friend of ours who has known us for over 15 years saw the pics and told me to "say hi to my Bond Girl for him." I reminded him that I had it far better than James Bond. Bond only gets to keep his Bond Girls for the length of a movie. I have gotten to keep mine for the last 43 years, and we're still counting.
We just landed back in Düsseldorf, and while we were away, our "garden," if something as unkempt as the vegetation on our property can be called that, has exploded into jungle-like growth--just the way I like it. My wife prefers more order to the place (she remains a German, after all), and she will probably do something about it. She warned me to enjoy it while I could 
