The travels of Tim and Megan: Dubrovnik, Croatia

On Wednesday morning, we made our way (rather slowly in Tim's case) from our hotel down to the main train station in Zurich. We stopped to marvel at the enormous (and very life-like) statues of several of the big stars taking part on Euro 2008. A short train ride later we were at Zurich airport to fly to Dubrovnik, Croatia, via the capital Zagreb.

Dubrovnik is Croatia's third largest city and sits on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, near the southern tip of Croatia. The area was first inhabited around the 7th century by refugees who had fled from Epidaurum. They chose the location due to its natural defences - it is surrounded by a steep cliff on one side and the sea on the other side. The early inhabitants began building defence walls from limestone and by the 14th century, the city had been completely enclosed with thick stone walls, with just one entrance from the side of Pile. Those stone walls have been preserved until today and enclose the Old Town.

The city of Dubrovnik has spread beyond the walls of the Old Town out to the Lapad Peninsula to the west, where our hotel, the Hotel Dubrovnik, was situated. The street our hotel was on was full of new hotels, restaurants and shops and led directly to the beach at Lapad Bay. Luckily our hotel was wedged between a very nice restaurant, where we had lunch and drinks, and an ice cream parlour, which we tried out later in the afternoon. Both were superb. It was hot in Dubrovnik, so plenty of drinks and ice creams were required!

After exploring the area, we sat on the beach at Lapad Bay and watched the sun sink down behind the islands off in the distance. Later that night we had dinner at a pizza restaurant, also on our street. The food in Croatia was generally very good and cheap too. Actually, most things were cheap - a half litre of beer cost around £1.30 in most bars!

On Thursday morning we got up early and caught a bus into the Old Town. For a small fee, we walked around the Old Town on top of the fortress walls, which allowed us spectacular views down to the Old Town in the middle and out to the sea on the other side. Once down from the wall-tops, we explored the Old Town, weaving our way through the tiny streets of marble cobble stones. By late morning, it was super hot, so we stopped for an ice cream down by the harbour and then made our way out of the Old Town and caught a bus back to the Lapad Peninsula. We grabbed our beach gear and walked 15 minutes to the northern side of the peninsula to Copacabana Beach.

The beach was great. The water at the Croatian beaches is amazingly clear - you can easily see the sea floor as well as the tiny fish swimming in the shallow water. We had lunch at the beach-side cafe and lay on the beach for the rest of the day, getting some well overdue sun. Megan had a swim, although the water still a tad cold for Tim!

In the evening we sat by the beach at Lapad Bay near our hotel and had a couple of drinks while the sun set on another stunning day. One oddity about Dubrovnik was that it was swarming with little kids. There were literally 3-4 kids for every adult and we were possibly the only people there who didn't have kids...although nobody could tell, as we were surrounded by them everywhere we went. After dinner we had an early-ish night, as we had a 5am bus to catch the following day!