Dubrovnik

Top picture is approaching Dubrovnik from the south.  At least we were coming from the south -- Dubrovnik itself faces into the Adriatic looking south, so I guess this picture is actually taken looking west.  You can see the tip of Lokrum island, where supposedly Richard Lionheart almost shipwrecked on his way back from the crusades.  No matter where I go I can't seem to get away from this guy.  But the story goes that he promised God that if he survived the storm he would build a church.  In those days one kept one's word in matters such as these, and he left the money for a church.  I remember the church in Vienna, built in honor of a similar promise, this one a victory over Napolean.  Times had changed by Hemingway's time -- I recall his description of the guy in the foxhole being shelled and promising God that if he survived he would lead a better life, a promise, as Hemingway wryly noted, that was forgotten as he went upstairs that night with the girl from the bar.  A Farewell To Arms, I think.  But I digress.

The second picture is closer up of the walled old town.  The site has been inhabited on and off since Greek times, but became a permanent site during the fall of the Roman Empire when the remnants of two Roman cities, one north and one south of Dubrovnik, came together and settled this site, immediately starting construction of the walls, which continued to be built for the next seven or eight centuries.

The third picture is of Stradun, which is the main street and divided the Roman and Slav portion of the city.  It originally was a marshy area, but eventually was filled in and paved, with marble.  The marble is not smooth polished marble, but it makes a pretty street.  A sign is posted at the entrance to old town showing the location of all the damage done to Dubrovnik when it was shelled in 1991 by the "Serbs and their Montenegran allies."  Stradun was repaved, and my understanding is that most of the tile roofs in the photo are new (since '91.)  

Picture four is from the walkway around the top of the city walls.  The walkway is about 1.2 miles, with many steps, up and down.  The walk is definitely not ADA-approved.

Photo No. 5 needs no explanation; two tourists on the sun-drenched Adriatic coast.