August 19 – Lokrum, Dubrovik

This was a sleep-in morning and we didn’t head out until mid-morning.  We headed across town directly to the eastern harbor where we bought tickets for the boat ride to Lokrum Island.  The boat ride was only about 15 minutes.

On the way over Jim spotted the Sea Cloud sitting at anchor.  She is just as lovely as we all remembered.

A lovely stretch of the island shore. 

Once landing we headed off into the island and the first place we saw was the botanical garden.  It is definitely a Mediterranean garden as the plants were all pretty hardy and suitable for the hot dry summers here.

There were lots of small yellow-orange flowers.  Neither Jim nor Mary (the gardeners in the group) knew what it was. 

There were also a lot of peacocks and baby chicks on the grounds.  However, it looks like the males had all had their very fancy long feathers removed. 

The island was also the home of a monastery.  The monastery and basilica was built in the 12/13^th centuries and was also a summer home of Maximillian of Habsburg.  It isn’t in very good shape...

but there was a great café on the grounds and we decided to have drinks and French fries as a snack/light lunch. The fries have a very unusual shape...sort of scooped out.  Probably helps them fry nice and crispy.

We spent about 4 hours on the island before heading back to board the boat that will takes us back to Dubrovnik.  More photos of Dubrovnik.

That evening we went back into the old town to find dinner.  We settled on a sidewalk Italian restaurant.  They had very good food.  Then it was back to the hotel to pack for our move tomorrow to the Sea Cloud.  We all agree that we had a great time in Dubrovnik.