We are now on our way home, the two and a half hour flight gives me plenty of time to sort out our photographs and write a boring summary of the holiday.
Covid Rules OK
Having had four holidays abroad since the start of the covid restrictions we are old hands at the hoops that need to be jumped through. It is all fairly straight forward so long as you read, and re-read the rules both entering the country you are visiting and returning to the UK. We always take a laptop with us in order to manage our pictures and do the blog so filling in the forms for our return is fairly easy. Doing them on a smart phone might be a little more challenging and you can only complete them 48 hours before returning to the UK.
A number of times we have taken the tests or filled in the forms only for them to be ignored but you can’t take the chance of course.
The hassle keeps many tourists away which is why we came to Dubrovnik now.
It is a favourite long weekend destination and I can see why, the airport is near the city, if you stayed in or next to the old city you could have two very enjoyable days exploring the alleyways and walls before heading home again.
The covid hassle has probably killed the city break market for the time being.
Jet2 / Hotel / Food
Despite my normal reluctance to go on a package holiday this particular trip was very good. Jet2 continue to impress me, the hotel was excellent and everything was well organised. On longer trips I will still prefer to book everything separately but for a one week city break it was probably the best option.
The only issue was the prices in Cavtat, it seems to be an upmarket resort which means upmarket prices. Dinners averaged £100 for the two of us and everything else was perhaps 30% dearer than at home. As we were only here for a week it did not matter but if you came for a fortnight with 2 or 3 children you might be in for a shock.
Whilst on the subject of food we found two good restaurants both of whom only had outside seating. We only brought one woolly each so there were no problems deciding what to wear each night. The food was good but nowhere had decent bread, perhaps the Croatians don’t bake bread.
Crowds - There weren't any, covid, off season and cool weather kept the numbers down which was great.
Weather - The biggest issue was the wind, there was an awful lot of it first thing most mornings (by 11am it died down). It did stop us having a cycling day which was a shame but otherwise we did everything we wanted to.
War -I have already mentioned the siege of Dubrovnik which in terms of the number of deaths was a side show to the ethnic cleansing which went on just over the border. We did visit a museum dedicated to press photographers which had some stunning (and of course distressing) pictures of recent wars in Myanmar, Iraq, Israel and several African countries. But the Balkan war pictures were, to me, more moving simply because both attackers and victims were Europeans living in towns and villages much like our own. Communities suddenly took sides and were killing their neighbours, this was less than 30 years ago. It only takes a nutcase leader to drum up emotions and could happen anywhere, not good. .
So did we have a good holiday? – Yes
Dubrovnik has always been on our “to do” list and the current restrictions gave us a not to be missed opportunity which we are very pleased we took. We only have two more holidays planned in 2021 so we ought to start dusting down the travel books for 2022.