So we joined them...eventually.
We awoke very early. We had fallen asleep fairly early last night and moved clocks back an hour overnight. We were in the Panorama Buffet for breakfast well before 7am. Captain D had told us last night that we would have a brief shower upon our arrival in Dubrovnik and then the day would improve considerately, and although we looked skeptically out the windows at the falling rain while we ate, Captain D was spot on today.
As soon as the rain slowed, we went to the grocery store/WalMart type store located right at the port (in fact, the front of the store was the view out of our porthole today) and stocked up on shower gel and more moisturizer and 9 bottles of fuzzy water (though I've learned to call it water with gas in public, it's still fuzzy to us) called Jamnica, not to be confused with Jamaica. And we returned all of our purchases to the ship and then went back out to the main street in front of the port and bought two bus tickets (12 kuna each, I think. Maybe 14.) and caught a #3 bus down to the Pile (PEE-lay) Gate. The #1a, 1b or 3 buses all go directly to the Pile Gate and they run every few minutes.
Just outside and to the right of the port's security gate, Euros can be exchanged for Kunas and bus tickets bought here.
The bus stop is just beyond the currency exchange I decided today that it takes three visits to a city for us to really feel comfortable. We walked through the Gate and down the familiar steps to the Stradun (the Old Town's main east west street) and felt instantly at home. We had never before seen Dubrovnik in the bright sunlight and it is a gorgeous place. We did some window shopping but didn't get far into the Old Town when we ran into Paul and Marlene and asked them to join us at D'Vino's for a glass of wine (though G and Paul had craft beers from across the alley). We talked and used high speed WiFi and I even was able to have a great phone conversation with Mom using Vonage (For free! Get the app!!) and G installed Vonage on Marlene's phone and she called her daughter (and gave Thanksgiving dinner prep tips from Croatia...what a mom!). We didn't linger though; our all on board time was 3:30pm today. We left there and continued to walk down the Stradun to view the Christmas stalls that had been set up with handmade local goods.
Minčeta Tower from outside the Old Town walls
The Holy Savior Church
The Church of St. Blaise (St. Vlaho)
The Orlando Column, dressed for the holidays
Note the small door in the large door
We walked across Old Town to the harbor taking photos of all the Christmas decorations along the way and then backtracked to the Pile Gate. We four were going to share a taxi back to the port (13€) but we convinced Paul and Marlene to join us on the local bus for less than half the price. We showed them (as we had been shown on a previous visit) how to buy a ticket at a local newsstand and how to insert it in the machine on the bus to validate it. They are staying on back to Fort Lauderdale and so will be able to navigate themselves on our visit to Dubrovnik next week.
We were back on the ship about 3pm and quickly showered and changed for the evening so we could watch our stunning sailaway from Dubrovnik from the Pacific Lounge.
We were hungry by the time the PES Lounge hors doerves were set up and ate too many of them and then weren't hungry at all for dinner at 5:30pm. Still, we went to the Club Restaurant and had just an entree and dessert (G had headwaiter Antonio's cherries jubilee and I had sorbet) and made it to the 6:45pm performance of piano entertainer Chris Hamilton, accompanied by the Pacific Princess show band. He was so good that G has returned to watch his second show while I am attending to nighttime ablutions and preparing this blog post. Toward the end of the show he takes about eight to ten song ideas from the audience and weaves them together with flourishes and chord changes into one long piano concerto. It's quite fun.
We are in Rijeka, Croatia tomorrow, and I fear our love affair with these Croatian ports may come to an abrupt end. Like Koper, Slovenia, Rijeka is another freight port city and not even Rick Steves can find a lot of good things to say about it. Most excursions are taking cruise passengers to other surrounding cities and we do have the option of taking a public bus to an aging seaside town about 30 minutes away (one about which Rick Steves does have a few good things things to say, at least for summer visitors). But we will see how we feel and what the weather is before settling on a plan. Today was Day 1 of 8 port days in a row. The two days after Rijeka will be spent in Venice, the first one involving a partial pack up and cabin move. We need to pace ourselves!