Another slow start to the day. Breakfast around 8:30am. Deb decided she wanted a slow day with her book, yesterday was a pretty big day. We had planned, today was a designated leisure day, or do whatever we wanted sort of day.
Eveready bunny me, decided it was a good day to have a bit more of a look around Dubrovnik and the Old Walled City.
I set out at about 10:15am, I walked along the promenade in front of our hotel, passed a small resort style complex at the end of “our” Bay 
and then across the peninsula we are on the Port of Dubrovnik. There was just one cruise ship in port, a Viking Line ship, thankfully, that meant the town wouldn’t be bursting at its seams. The port was full of boats of all description. From humble runabouts to super yachts.
Port of Dubrovnik
It made for a very attractive scene. They are doing a lot of work expanding the marinas in the sw corner of the port to moor even more boats.
From there I walked up the hill towards the Old Walled City. It’s easy to see that Dubrovnik was a very wealthy city in the past, more so than now. There are many very large residences and a few “plush” olde world grand hotels. These days it look as though many of the large homes have been restyled into holiday rental apartments, and hotels, well, they look like they are showing their age.
I enjoyed taking in all the sights we hadn’t really seen, the real bits of Dubrovnik. My walk to the Walled city finished with a section along the cliff faces on the waterfront. Beautiful views and again, many large old homes.
I entered the Walled City via the same entrance we did with our guide on Thursday. The Small square in front of the entrance was bustling with tour groups, their guides with various coloured and patterned little flags on the end off thin telescopic rods, all spruiking their knowledge to their groups either by loud voices or more commonly now, radio earpieces. I made my way through them and entered the city. I was pleasantly surprised, it wasn’t as busy as I thought it was going to be. The buildings are magnificent, and the views up all the narrow lanes off the main street are enticing. The further I went in the busier it got, so I took myself off the main thoroughfares and explored the quieter backstreets.
Basically the city is divided into two separate occupiers, the tourist businesses that occupy mainly the ground floors of the buildings,
and then residents (either locals or AirBnB types) living on the floors above
. I get the feeling that this grounds the city, gives it a heart/soul.
I managed to find empty lanes full of character, a small private garden
, a local Orthodox Church,
Orthodox Church
and a whole lot of interesting things going on away from the crowds. I passed by a small bar where a man was standing deep inside playing an electric guitar. He wasn’t practicing, he just seemed to be there having fun, playing a random selection of riffs. I stood at the doorway listening for quite some time, it was so good.
Around another corner into a small square to find a feeding frenzy of pigeons. Someone had thrown what I guessed was a large amount of food into a small area. And the frenzy resulted. Initially took a photo, but thought that didn’t capture the chaos so I took a short video.
I finished my exploration of the Walled City by taking in various views of the walls. Such an interesting place.
All done I walked up the road a bit to get an Uber back to our hotel, on the way to find a clear spot for a car to pull over I noticed a beach set up in a typically European way, with sun lounges all over it. The roads were packed so I took a pathway between the houses to the next street up which I hoped would be much quieter. The path was steep, narrow and lots of steps. 
I was glad when I got to the top, there was a clear area for the Uber to stop near me. I was back at our hotel 20 minutes later.
We left for dinner at about 5:15pm by Uber, (the Ubers are so inexpensive here compared to same journeys at home), and headed for the hills and Konoba Dubrava. Our driver explained that the weather in Croatia comes mainly from Italy, mostly from the SW. The road to the restaurant, once we left the main road, was essentially a one way lane, with occasional passing bays. Patience was required on both trips up and down.
Our experience, yes it was an experience rather than simply a meal, began when we were greeted by our host/server Zdravko. 
He was the most charming and entertaining we have had in a very long time. Almost as we sat down he was offering us Cherry Grappa. (everyone gets this), it was very fruity in flavour. We had ordered the Jadranska hobotnica peka (porcija) – or Adriatic octopus baked under the iron bell, for those not fluent in Croatian. We though we had ordered one serve between us, it had to be ordered at least 3 hours in advance, but no our hotel had ordered one serve each, that’s one octopus each! So glad we hadn’t had much for lunch. We were undecided about what wine to have with it, so Zdravko brought out a generous tasting of each of the two wines he said went well with the octopus. We settled on the Chardonnay. Then I was given another Grappa! Next he brought out an appetizer for us, doughnuts and creamed (cows) cheese. They were delicious, the cheese was salty.
Then out came the Octopus, they were enormous. 
One serve with a salad would have been fine for us! Deb took the smallest one and we both dug in. 
They were served, and cooked, on a bed of potatoes. The Octopus was just so tender, truly melt in your mouth and so full of flavour, the potatoes were equal to the octopus, the crunchy ones especially. I guess it took us a hour, but we managed to eat all the Octopus, there were potatoes left!
Zdrazko orchestrated our meal and photos to perfection, we even got him in the photos! After dinner we asked to see the kitchen. Zdrazko took us down and showed us how the bell cooking worked, a very time consuming process over many hours. He was very proud of the way they cook and of the fresh produce they got from their gardens.
It was a meal/experience that will live with us for some time to come!
We were back at our hotel around 8pm, to a beautiful sunset. 
What a great way to bid good bye to Dubrovnik, tomorrow we sail to Korcula.
