12 Dunworth Mews

We arrived Monday afternoon, 2 July, to sunny skies and warm temperatures. Our first activity after checking in was to go poolside and have a local beer (Ozujsko – good!). We knew we were in the right spot when we didn’t have enough cash for our beers and our server told us to come by the next day and finish paying her (which we of course did!) Our first night’s dinner was at Levanat – a short 10 minute walk along the bay from our hotel. We feasted on local Croatian wine, which was quite good, a caper mayo spread amuse bouche and bread, black seafood salad (cuttlefish ink), black risotto, mussels Bouzarra (spicy tomato sauce), stuffed squid (aka, Squid Cordon Bleu) and a seasonal salad. Service was wonky – our order was taken and we were quickly served our amuse, then we managed to almost finish our bottle of wine before our starters arrived, and we were not drinking quickly. Then the courses came out fast and furious. (We went back to Levanant Thursday night and again, this is how we (and everyone around us were served.)

Tuesday was all about sitting at the beach, soaking up the sun. We rented a couple of lounge chairs and an umbrella and read and dozed and swam and read (then repeated the same process)… We mixed it up a bit after a late lunch and hit the poolside again. After hours of lounging, we found the energy to bus into Old Town and have drinks and dinner. SP had picked out Buza 2 as our aperitif spot, a tiny bar situated outside the city walls on the rocky shores of the Adriatic Sea. It is a well known bar, with only a ‘Cold Drinks’ sign depicting its existence through an opening in the city wall, but it was not too crowded that evening. We sat at a table perched on a rock above the crashing waves, gazing out on the sea and Lokrum Island and enjoyed a few rounds of Ozujskos before dinner. We had made a dinner booking at Dubrovacki Kantun, a lovely little Croatian bistro, where we were served by the owner. Here we ordered a Dubrovnik platter (olives, tomatoes, smoked ham, bacon, anchovies (both marinated and salted), and Pag cheese), tomato soup, caprese salad and black cuttlefish gnocchi.

After seeing a bit of Old Town on Tuesday night, we knew we needed to go back and explore the narrow alleys and high walls. The town is absolutely stunning in its beauty, both the architecture within the town and the views from the walls. It is hard to believe that the city was under siege in the early ‘90’s and that many of the buildings within the city walls sustained direct hits from the missile attacks. We walked the 2km of city walls, completely intact (despite the recent war and being 600 years old. Those who know us, know that sightseeing with us can be brisk but we took our time here. The colours of Dubrovnik and Croatia are intense – the bright blue sky, the red terracotta tiles, the purple Bouganvilla growing in every garden and the deep, deep blue-greens of the sea. Everywhere we looked we were taken in by beautiful vistas of the sea, houses and flowers. We likely took 200 images in 1.5 hours on the walls.

Of course, all this activity made us hungry so we lunched on salads and pizza at Poklisar on the harbor before heading back for some quality pool-time.

While in the Old town, we had made a booking at Wanda for Thursday’s dinner, but we decided to go there Wednesday night instead. But not without a stop at Buza 1 beforehand. Buza 1 is less marked than Buza 2, with just a doorway leading through the city wall. It is slightly south of Buza 2 but also outside the wall, hugging the rocky shore. There was no Ozujsko on the menu here so we branched out to Lasko, another Croatian pivo. The winds had kicked up that day and we watched a man row (backwards) his boat along the shore, struggling a bit through the chop and swell. We also watched an enormous yacht, Ecstasea, enter the channel between Lokrum and the mainland. We later found out that this was Roman Abromovich’s yacht, the smallest of his three. Abromovich is the Russian billionaire who owns Chelsea Football Club.

When we finally tore ourselves away from the view and made it to Wanda, we were seated by a gentleman who turned out to be the owner (we found this out later when he brought us complimentary dessert wines and sat with us for awhile). We had a private table outside and we soaked up the atmosphere. We enjoyed the food too. Wanda’s menu is more Mediterranean than Dalmation and we found many items on the menu that sounded wonderful. SP started with a salad, me with mussels. Then we both moved on to pasta – linguine Vongole and spaghetti de la mer. Dessert was port, which we might not have ordered had we known that Goran would be bringing us pudding wine while we chatted with him. Turns out, Goran spent 15 years living and working in L.A. and we chatted about CA, his restaurants and life in Dubrovnik. He was pleased with our choice to stay in Lapad, a beachy resort area 10 minutes away from Old Town. We had a nice conversation which was cut short when he was called down to his other restaurant. He had asked us to wait for his return but we headed back to the hotel as we had a sea kayaking date the next morning.

When we booked our sea kayak tour, we were warned that the tour could be cancelled if the winds or weather were not cooperative. It was fairly breezy in Lapad as we left on the bus for Sveti Jakov beach meeting point south of the city so we were not confident that we’d be paddling that day. Our guide arrived at the beach and warned us that it may be rough out there but we headed out regardless. It turns out the roughest part was the entry for SP and our guide, whom were both soaked by the waves; SB managed to get in with nary a drop of water on her ? Paddling on the sea, in a single kayak, with fairly large swells and some breeze, is definitely more work than paddling a dopey double on Lake Union, but infinitely more beautiful and rewarding. We headed to the northern point of Lokrum, where we (read SB) decided it was getting a bit too rough; we turned around and headed south along the eastern shore of the island. We ended up in the Lokrum harbor, where we beached the kayaks and went off to explore the island. Our guide walked us to a beach on the west side where the snorkeling is good but the surf was too rough that day. This beach is also in the process of being set-up as the ‘stage’ for Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream, to be performed during the upcoming annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival. It would be a stunning venue for the play.
After exploring the rocks here, we headed up to the fort on the high point of the island for a beautiful view of Old Town and its walls. Back down for a quick swim near the harbor and then we were ready to paddle again. We hugged the island’s eastern shore again then crossed the channel to paddle the mainland shore. Here our guide gave us some history on the houses and caves along the shore. One house, which we thought was a hotel, was a house built in the 1960’s by a wealthy man for his mistress. Now the Croatian PM stays there when he is in Dubrovnik. SP’s favourite house was a small white cottage that was actually perched on top a tall but narrow cave. We asked about a hotel that was situated in the hillside & shore of a nearby point. Our guide told us that it was a hotel that was popular before the war but had been so extensively damaged that the owners cannot or will not spend the money to repair it. They apparently also cannot decide on a selling price so it sits there empty. We cannot imagine that this could last much longer as the location is marvelous and someone will soon want to develop the property. And we would stay there. Tired from the day’s activity we headed back to the hotel for a quick dip in the pool (SP only) and then a nap for the both us.

We didn’t feel like heading back into Old Town for dinner, it was nearing the weekend and getting crowded with cruise ship tourists, so we went back to Levanat. We made two stops along the way, – at a beachside bar for a beer and at a promenade-side bar for a drink on a swing. (The promenade from Lapad’s public beach to the main street is lined with restaurants and cafes, many of which have swings as chairs; we felt that we had to sit in a swing, enjoy a drink and watch the world go by.) At Levanat, SB made the decision to order all new dishes while SP was jonsing for the Squid Cordon Bleu. We again choose a bottle of Croatian wine and received our amuse, although this time it tasted more like caper butter. Again we almost finished our bottle of wine before our starters arrived – and we had paced ourselves knowing that the service would be slow. We had a fried rocket and mozzarella salad – amazing, if not artery clogging! Our mains were mixed shells Bouzzara and Squid Cordon Bleu, accompanied by a seasonal salad. The mixed shells Bouzzara was somewhat disappointing – it had less of the fabulous spicy tomato sauce and was served lukewarm. Additionally, it was 85% mussels yet more than twice the price of the mussels Bouzzara. I tried one of the ‘white mussels’, which SP renamed ‘Brazil nuts of the sea’ because that is exactly what they looked like, and didn’t find it tasty. SP was again quite pleased with his Cordon Bleu. Even with the slow service, it was a super meal to end our fabulous holiday in Dubrovnik!