We made it safely to Croatia (country #60)! Kelvin, the two boys, aunties Katherine and Theresa, and uncle Eddie, and I flew from LAX to Frankfurt (11 hours) and then Frankfurt-Dubrovnik (1.5 hours), and the boys did better than expected! We lucked out getting a bulkhead bassinet for the long-haul flight, where Niall was able to sleep for about 5-6 hours, and Iver similarly curled up and put himself to sleep in his seat. Our luggage made it, ATM cards worked, there were no poop explosions, and our bags all fit in our rental van. Although we were delayed about 40 minutes getting to Dubrovnik, we were tired from overnight travel with two kids [mainly the spirited toddler], which is relentless damage-control, and our first night included doses of dissolvable melatonin and benadryl to get children to sleep, our trip was off to a pretty good start.
Our AirBnB apartment, a short walk from Old Town Dubrovnik, has great views of the old city (grad) and of the Adriatic Sea!
We spent our first morning in Old Town and walking the old city walls via the Pile Gate, which reminded me a lot of our walk on the Great Wall of China. Sadly, about 2/3 of the historic buildings in Dubrovnik were shelled during the war which gave Croatia independence (from former Yugoslavia) in 1991 (but were restored), and now many residential and building roofs are replaced with the classic orange tiles.
Eddie, as always, gets credit for the vast majority of the phenomenal photos.
Ready for a summer day! (first passport stamp)
Strolling down to Old Town
Iver has now been on four continents before the age of four!
Eddie caught this early morning farmers' market.
Stradun (Placa), the main pedestrian road in old town
Narrow alleyway
Guillotine
The international breastfeeding streak continues...
This is St. Lawrence Fortress ("King's Landing" from Game of Thrones) in the background.
Toddler "jail"
We had a lovely lunch including grilled octopus and squid!
Iver asked, "Hey! Where are the other tentacles? There are only four!"
After lunch, we took the short, 15-minute ferry boat ride to Lokrum Island, a nature preserve and site of a Benedictine abbey. There are free-roaming peacocks amidst the varied vegetation, which included pine, cypress and olive trees, which provided some much-needed shade on a very hot day!
After a siesta in our air-conditioned apartment, we rode the cable car to the top of Mt Srđ for more stunning views of the coastline.
Family pic minus Niall, who was stroller napping at the time.
I'm not sure how much energy/time I'll have to continue to post regularly this trip (traveling with two young children is a whole different ballgame), but currently, they are both asleep (fingers crossed for an improved second night of jet-lag) and thought I'd throw one out there. It's been a good start!
