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After leaving Rome, we took a short flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia.  We spent 2 nights there which was just enough time.  The highlight was walking the wall of Dubrovnik for spectacular views of the Adriatic Sea and of the Old Town inside the walls.  We got there on Sunday which was lucky for us because there were no cruise ships so we had the wall nearly to ourselves.  Greg and I had an amazing seafood lunch.  Trip had a cheeseburger for the first time since leaving home (apart from the McDonalds at the train station in Florence) and after 2 weeks in Italy, Taylor chose pasta.  Go figure.  We took the cable car up for an amazing panoramic view of the city, the kids got some much needed pool time at the hotel, and Greg got in a museum of what they call the Homeland War.  You can still see a lot of damage to the walls and rooftops here from the war in the 90’s and the Croatian people talk about it a lot.  

We left Dubrovnik for our beach house, about 4 hours north of where we were.  We took the scenic route along the sea which was gorgeous but added a bit of time.  The house is 200+ steps down, a 15 minute walk from any town and absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever seen.  We all fell in love immediately.  The next 5 days were spent swimming in the pristine turquoise water, snorkeling, boating in the little motor boat that comes with the place, swimming in the pool a few meters from the sea [yes I’m now speaking metric], eating, drinking, reading and relaxing. We got to watch Croatia (Hrvastka here) beat Spain and Greg did an amazing job using the grill to make all our dinners.  The owners had plenty of their home grown wine waiting for us – their family has been making wine for 100 years – and brought us fresh fish they caught.   If you know us at all, you will understand how surprised we were to be handed a bag of fish with the heads on them but Greg did a fantastic job cooking them up.   It was the most delicious fish I’ve ever eaten.  The kids are desperately missing our dog, but they adopted a cat here and named it Oscar.  We bought it cat food, but he also got fish and a pork chop bone to nosh on.  

We will miss this place so much and seriously would recommend it to anyone if you are planning a trip to Croatia.  But we have had enough relaxation and are ready for more adventures in other parts of this beautiful country.