A large contingent from London and the Electric Elephant festival were as good an excuse as any for some much needed break from a wet and dreary NY summer. We’d booked some cheapish flights in and out of Dublin and connections to Zadar and from Dubrovnik. Our flight to Dublin made sweeter by an upgrade to business class, though with an 8 hour wait it wasn’t really enough time to hit Dublin and check out some sights.
We met Karl and Scott in Zadar and taxied to our apartment in Punta Skala, Petrcane where the festival was a leisurely 20-30 minute stroll along the sea front. Having arrived late we woke up pleasantly surprised in the morning to find our sea view uninterrupted and our balcony metres from the water. Petrcane is a tiny sleepy little village along the water with a handful of Konoba’s (bistro/restaurants) and that’s about it. If you’re in the area and after a good meal skip the numerous pizza restaurants and head for Konoba Pjero which is along the bay set back a little ways from the street, super fresh seafood.
The lineup was good and with most people playing a couple times we figured we’d be able to catch everyone we wanted to see. We found the call of the sea was too great though and ended up missing most of the day time sets, i.e. we were really crap festival goers and missed most of it. The festival was just a thinly veiled excuse to catch up with friends. We had a lot of fun at the Baldelli boat party. What we caught of the Unabombers and Idjut Boys was great. The atmosphere on the outside stages was great though things were a bit mentalist inside the night club though lacking in the vibe department. Anthem of the festival was without a doubt Chris Rea’s Josephine so wrong but so right!
Spent some time in Zadar which is about 20 min drive from Petrcane. It’s another annoyingly beautiful city lined with stone streets, fortified and littered with Venetian architecture. It’s home to the world’s only Sea Organ it’s an interesting set-up and the music reminiscent of those hippy new wave cd’s i used to see littered around Sydney shops in the mid 90’s. Just add whale mating noises and you’re set. It’s also home to “the best, most beautiful” sunset as pointed out by our ever helpful guide Dr. Bacic and who am I to argue with a doctor? It was quite spectacular. Organisers of the Garden Festival own Zadar’s Garden Bar great location at the top of the old city walls and almost totally outdoor bar with seats, sofas and beds to recline on and pretty decent cocktails.
We departed from our original course to revisit Hvar for a glorious few days, but how could we not? Daytimes as before we spent swimming and sunning ourselves. Evenings were for getting some food in. Here it helps to know some natives so we ate like champions. I can’t recall a bad meal! Konoba Vrisnik in the picturesque village of Vrisnik is worth the drive, fantastic produce simply and tastily prepared some amazing lamb chops and scorpian fish. We did a trek to an abandoned village just outside Hvar town to a restaurant that also abandoned us as they’d run out of food for the day. They were kind enough to provide some rakija and “sweet wine for the ladies” to help with the hungry descent back to the car. We revisited some old friends at Konoba Stari Mlini in Stari Grad (moved from Juri’s Basement on the other side of the harbour) and another fantastic final meal with all the geezers before we sadly had to leave Hvar.
Dubrovnik is a beautiful little city. Again arriving late in the evening the drive south along the coastline was gorgeous and had we our own transport it would have been wonderful to stop wherever we fancied. Plus we also got to drive through the strip of land that is Bosnian territory! It was a sight driving in toward Dubrovnik with it all lit up in the evening. It was much smaller than we’d thought so had ample time to explore the old city, wander around the walls and do a day trip out to an island (Lokrum) for a nice swim. The crowds ebb and flow as the cruise ships dock at the ports or out at sea. There were always a few frantic hours where the place was over run and almost unbearable. We had apartments looking down on the main street and over the weekend it was really noisy late into the night and we’d get a 9am wake up for the changing of the guard.
It’d seem our good travel karma was used up at the start of the trip and our flight home was a bit of a nightmare. Our plane didn’t land because of strong winds and turned back and landed in Split. We were carted off to a hotel for the night so it was looking very unlikely that we’d make our 9:35AM flight out of Dublin back to New York. The following morning we were bused up the coast (teasing us so with the clear blue sea) to Split. We missed our flight by only 10 hours… a few frantic calls to Delta and we were able to get seats on the flight the next day at a hefty price for the reissue of our tickets. Again we didn’t have any time to check out Dublin and spent the night in a hotel near the airport. The flight was choc full so we were lucky to have made it out and we were in the 2nd last row of the plane, it mostly stank of toilet. I’m sure amongst all this there’s some lessons to be had about cheap flights and booking everything on the same ticket so you don’t get stiffed with charges! Oh well i guess that’s what travel insurance is for right?
