We arrived in Dubrovnik! Our first stop of beautiful Croatia. Our friends Nadeem and Tania will be joining us for this part of the trip. It has been a lot of planning and logistics so we could meet, so we were really excited to see them and have the opportunity to travel together!!

After an exciting reuniting moment we decided to walk to the old town to get something to eat. From the first moment you get closer to this majestic place, you start to accept that Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful European towns.

It was British week for some reason, and they had a Beatles cover band concert right in the main plaza. They were fantastic and everybody was dancing to these classics.

After dinner, we went straight to bed as everybody was exhausted and we knew the next few days would be busy so we needed to rest!

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After a good breakfast in a coffee shop next to our Airbnb, we headed straight to the cable car to take us to the top of Mount Srdj (These guys hate vowels). The most beautiful view of Dubrovnik and surrounding islands can be enjoyed from the top.

The Dubrovnik Cable car began transporting passengers back in 1969, but was completely destroyed during the Croatian War of Independence. For about $10 you can take a one-way ticket and walk down the mountain. Because we are young, cheap and our legs still work, we opted for that option!

In just three minutes you will find yourself at a height of 405 m above sea level. Here you can enjoy a panoramic view of Dubrovnik’s Old Town and the Adriatic sea.

Dubrovnik was where the show “Game of Thrones” was filmed. Since that show became popular, tourism here has multiplied.

While on Srdj you can also visit the Imperial Fortress built in 1806-1816 during the Napoleonic Wars. This is the symbol of defense of the City of Dubrovnik against Serbian and Montenegrin armies in 1991.

Despite demilitarization of the old town in early 1970s in an attempt to prevent it from ever becoming a casualty of war, following Croatia’s independence in 1991 Yugoslavia’s Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), by then composed primarily of Serbs, attacked the city. Dubrovnik was attacked by JNA with a siege of Dubrovnik that lasted for seven months. The heaviest artillery attack was on December 6 with 19 people killed and 60 wounded.

The fortress houses the Museum of the Croatian War of Independence, currently exhibiting a display called “Dubrovnik in the War of Independence 1991-1995”. It shows a lot of stories, photographs, memorabilia and videos of the siege of Dubrovnik.

After the museum, we walked down to the old town. This hike takes about 1 hour and its full of amazing views of Dubrovnik.

We were starving so we walked around old town to find a good place to eat. In Dubrovnik, all restaurants inside the old town are kind of high end and not cheap. The city has become a huge tourist destination and in order to find a fast food joint or something cheaper to eat, you will have to leave the town.

Anyways, most restaurants serve Italian food,so it was easy for us to find good food!

We walked around town a little bit. The next day we will be taking a tour of the city and walls, so we decided to not do a lot of sightseeing today.

Dubrovnik is absolutely stunning.

The old town is surrounded by defensive walls and lots of canons. The prosperity of the city was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy.

Sarah took the defense of the city very seriously. We tried to leave, but she kept yelling at the boats.

We walked towards Banje beach passing through a lot of historical buildings in the outskirts of the city walls.

This clubby beach is basically owned by this bar-lounge. We found an empty table by miracle so we ordered a few drinks. All people here are beautiful, and the music was excellent.

The beach was packed, maybe a little bit more than what we like. But swimming while having the old city view (not shown in this photo) is breathtaking and super worth it.

We came back to the apartment to relax and have some drinks during sunset from the roof.

Our apartment had amazing views of the city.

Here is Tania and Nadeem making some pretty decent drinks.

We walked back to the old town to walk around and find something to eat.

There is a Game of Thrones store where you can take a photo seated in the famous sword throne, but you have to buy something first. Nothing is free in life!!! Here we can see The queen from the house of Bhattacharyya.

The city at night is completely different and absolutely gorgeous. They did a great job illuminating the historical buildings and is just a pleasure to walk around here. Dubrovnik so far is one of my favorite European cities.

There was a Bar Mitzvah happening here. Everybody was dressed traditionally which is kind of incredible. There are only 2000 jews living in Croatia, 3/4 of those live in the capital city Zagreb.

More walking and we found an amazing cliffside bar hidden outside one of the city small gates. This place is just amazing.

Our last stop of the day was a small wine shop where we enjoyed a cold cuts tray and some glasses of wine. We were excited to see that they served us more wine than the standard measure of .125 ml. Since that day, every good pour will be named “a .125”.

Bonus Pic Of The Day: Croats (and Europeans in general) are very sexually open. Showing a boob on tv is not a big deal here. This sign is at the entrance of the beach, imagine how many instances of people getting caught having sex had to happen until they had to put a sign to ban it!