Dobra Dan (Good day) from Dubrovnik, Croatia!
So you might not have guessed, but Steph and I are still having the time of our lives! The adventure has taken us from the French Rivierra to the Southern Dalmation Coast of Croatia. Every place we go we swear it's going to be the most beautiful, but it just keeps getting better!

Our last few days in France were spent exploring the all the small towns on the coast. A friend we met in Spain flew up to hang out with us for a few days. The 3 of us rented a convertible Mini Cooper and drove from Cannes to Monaco and stopped in every town along the way. We had lunch in Antibes, got some rays in Nice (we had to do it French style;)), had coffee in Ville Franche, hiked to an ancient castle in the town of Eze, and enjoyed some yummy French wine while we watched all types of people outside the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco (now that was interesting)! Check out the pics to see each of these brilliant towns and us having some fun in the mini! (Mica, now we see why you love yours so much!)

On one of our last nights in Cannes, we sat down at a local pub to have a cocktail and of course Rach started talking to some of the locals! Next thing you know we found ourselves out a dance club in Nice until 6 am... the French really know how to party! Needless to say.. we needed some downtime after that so coming to Croatia worked out perfectly.

We expected Dubrovnik to be a cool old ancient city, but we could have never imagined it to be what it is! This is no third world country. Dubrovnik is a charming, clean, upbeat city with part of it (the old town) set within a huge fortress on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Steph and I both agree that we've never been anywhere as stunningly beautiful as here.

We arrived on Tuesday night and took a bus to the center of town where the locals greet you and show you pictures of apartments for rent near town. I know this sounds scary, but we were told by several travelers that this is the best way to find accomodations here. Hotels are few and far between and very expensive. We are staying at an apartment just a few steps above the old city and we love it. We have a kitchen, washing maching (no dryers here), and a private entrance. We've already met our neighbor Marco and he's the nicest kid.

The night we arrived we were pretty tired so we just walked around the old city and had dinner on the pier... steph had "peel if you dare shrimp" and I had seafood risotto... both were very yummy. The next day we had breakfast and laid by the pool at the nicest hotel in Dubrovnik. The restaurant was outdoors with a view of old town and the pool. The pool (see pic) sat right on the water... our chairs were so close that we could stand up and jump right in the sea. It was really hot so this was a huge treat and the water was the clearest, bluest water you could imagine. Later that day we rented scooters and went to explore around Dubrovnik and neighboring towns. During one of our stops, we met some locals who directed us to a neighborhood dinner spot for that evening. This restaurant was unbelievable. You had to walk down a ton of stairs past people's houses to find it. The place sat out over the sea and had a view of the Dubrovnik and the Elfitti Islands. The food was really good, but there was a bit of language barier so we ended up with a HUGE platter of food.. oops! We had everything from hard to peel shrimp, to steak, to rocket & mozerella salad and french fries. This all arrived after we had our started salads and the house treat.. bread with fish pate. It's amazing our scooters could hold us after dinner. It's also amazing we even had scooters after dinner... Steph accidentally left her key in the bike and was very relieved to find it still there hours later :) It was dark by the time we were headed back and we were a little unclear on how to get home... we quickly figured it out when the cop stopped us for going the wrong way down a one way street! YIKES. If we could only read the street signs ;)

Today we were going to take a ferry out to the islands, but the wind was blowing pretty hard so we decided to chill here in the city. We walked the wall of the old town and discovered an incredible bar hidden outside the wall of city along the sea called "Cold Drinks with the Most Beautiful View in the World". You have to check out the pics of this place. Locals were jumping from the high cliffs bordering the bar ... it was like nothing we've ever seen. We didn't jump in today, but we did enjoy a glass of wine and watched the sunset. I really wish we could find the words to describe this place... it really is one of a kind.

Right now we are here writing to you... after this we are headed to dinner and to an outdoor jazz cafe within the fortress walls. Tomorrow morning we are taking our scooters over to an island called Mljet where there is supposed to be great sandy beaches and a beautiful national park. We are planning to head out of Dubrovnik on Saturday for the islands of Korcula and Hvar. Wé'll spend one or two nights on each and then head for Split. This is where we'll catch a ferry back to Italy.

Hvala (thank you) all for checking our blog... we look forward to sharing our stories with you and will update again as soon as we can.
xoxoxo
Rach and Steph