Dubrovnik, at last

Charlotte’s Blackberry serenaded us at about 8am and a few minutes later Dragos called down to say he had left some pastries hanging on our door. Such a sweetheart.

We made our way back to the Hotel Slavija where a shuttle departed for the airport every hour. Just before we left, Eric wandered on. He was hoping to get an earlier flight back to Germany, his layover on the interminable flight to Indonesia. He looked pretty darn together considering he was operating on about three hours sleep. He also had the skinny on further Chip insanity: they had arrived back at their hotel room at about 5am, Chip got into bed at 5:15 and his alarm went off at 5:20. He had to fly to Rome for a business dinner. Eric warned him that five minutes sleep was worse than none at all but the advice fell on deaf, dumb and blind ears.

At the airport, we found out that our flight was delayed two hours. AGHRRRHG! I was so annoyed to have missed out on the sleep but tried to put it behind me. Eric was able to get on an earlier flight and we all settled into the café we had come to consider our own. Then we made the monumental mistake of going through security with Eric. Life on the other side was not pleasant. The duty-free shopping stank and the place was so damned crowded the only spot we could find to sit ourselves down was in some Romper Room chairs. The life-size Leggo Harry Potter was definitely a bonus, however.

Let’s please jump to Montenegro. We landed at the Tivat airport in northern Montenegro. We took a shuttle bus across the bay and then a private taxi across the border because we had just missed the one afternoon bus, which would have been far less expensive.

No one tells you just how complicated it is to cross between Montenegro and Croatia. It’s like, yeah, we know you guys hate each other and yes, Montenegro bombed Dubrovnik less than 10 years ago, and sure, the Croats did some ethnic cleansing in the 90s, but that’s all ancient history to us Americans. Hear this: it’s time to move on because you’re making it a royal pain for tourists to experience both of these wonderful countries.

First off, even though the Tivat airport is only about 30 kilometers from Dubrovnik, there is no direct way of making the journey by public transportion. You can take a shuttle from the airport to a dumpy bus terminal in a town called Herceg Novi, but buses to Dubrovnik from there are sporadic. In fact, we missed the bus by only a few minutes and the next one wasn’t for a couple of hours so we ended up taking a taxi into Dubrovnik for around $60.

Dubrovnik. Where to begin? It’s a glorious walled city on the Adriatic in southern Croatia directly across the sea from Italy’s mid-calf, the Abruzzo region. It was originally built in the 7th century on a nearby Island and was called Ragusa. It was later moved to its current location and was its own citystate for a few hundred years. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage city and it’s freaking awesome. There are fortresses protecting the city from marauders at see, but in the 1990s the city was attacked and a reported 80% of its buildings were damaged. The history is long and complicated. I won’t attempt to explain it here.

We stayed in an apartment located above the old city outside the walls. I think there’s only one place to stay inside. Here we are within a few minutes of our arrival.

We were so tired but it wasn’t hard to hoist ourselves up and wander down to the old city. Cars aren’t allowed inside the city walls and we meandered along the narrow and extremely clean streets and alleyways for a while. The city plan is built like a funnel so when you walk towards the outside walls that sit on the sea, sometimes you’re several stories up.

Not quite in time for sunset we stumbled on a bar that had seating embedded in the rocks on the city’s outer wall. It’s called Busza 2 and it’s the best spot in Dubrovnik for salty service and the sunset.

Photo by Cat Fitzgerald

Photo by Cat Fitzgerald

It was the first time in days we were completely relaxed and the white Croatian wine went down real smooth. After taking in the airs, we made our way back down to the main drag along steep and narrow paths, past stone houses and churches. After much cross-referencing of restaurant reviews, we settled on Kamenice, where we actually had to wait on line, something I’m adamantly opposed to doing in New York because it’s never worth the frustration and humiliation. Not so at Kamenice, where all the seating is outdoors on a square where the farmer’s market is during the day.

We started with oysters and thank the lord we did because these briny and juicy blobs of the sea were unbelievably fresh and delicious. Cat thinks they were the culinary highlight of the trip. They reminded me of how denuded and tasteless oysters often are in the States because of preposterous regulations that sometimes require restaurants to wash the oysters. Unconscionable. Kamenice’s oysters were heaven in a shell.

Next we split three dishes: a squid ink risotto, mussels in wine and langoustine bouzara. The risotto was unexceptional but the mussels and langoustine were stellar. I had never heard of bouzara before but it was on the menu in all the coastal towns we visited. The primary ingredients are tomato, onion and oodles of garlic. The mussels were small but sweet and the langoustines quickly made it to one of my top five meals. Also called scampi, Norway lobster and Dublin Bay scampi, langoustines look like baby lobsters and some say crayfish but apparently the two are not related and you can’t even compare the taste. The taste of langoustine lies somewhere between lobster and shrimp and the texture is like crab. At Kamenice, they were SUBLIME. Sweet, fragrant and they stood up to the strong sauce – although they would have been equally as dreamy just grilled with a little lemon.

Photo by Cat Fitzgerald

I haven’t eaten many langoustines in my day, and the only time in recent memory was at the very up-market L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in New York City, where they were wrapped in a filo-like pastry called brick. Those were very good. Kamince’s were exceptional.

Full and sleepy, we wended our way out of the old town (after stopping off for some gelato), up the half mile of stairs to the apartment.