Despite how insanely expensive Croatia seemed to be, Dubrovnik was one of those destinations that ranked high on my bucket list. The natural beauty and stunning historical architecture of the city were enough of a reason to break the bank for a short visit. We originally intended on staying 3 nights, but after seeing the astronomical prices for accommodation (over 40 euros per person per night for a DORM), we opted to only spend 1 night and 2 full days exploring the city. It turns out Dubrovnik budget travel doesn’t seem to exist when you leave it to the last minute in the busiest time of summer!
We woke up bright and early on our last morning in Tivat to walk to the bus station, about 15 minutes away. Our bus came pretty late, and we yet again hopped on the most cramped, hot, uncomfortable bus. Somehow the buses in the Balkans just kept getting worse, but there were no real other transport options.
The bus was supposed to be around 3 hours, but the line of cars at the border between Montenegro and Croatia was over 2 km long. We sat in standstill traffic for almost 2 hours before our bus finally got through, killing time by reading the horrible Google reviews of this border crossing station. The whole journey took over 5 hours, but we were happy to never have to board a Balkan bus ever again.
We checked into our hostel dorm, dropped our bags, and went out to explore the city! We started in the most iconic part of Dubrovnik: Old Town! Dubrovnik has absolutely exploded in popularity in the past few years, partly due to the Game of Thrones fame, but it was easy to see why. The architecture in the Old Town was absolutely spectacular, with stunning orange roofs contrasted with the most beautiful blue waters. The city walls were towering over us as we tried to imagine what it must’ve been like in ancient times.
As we were wandering through the narrow alleys and stairwells, we actually overheard a tour guide leading a big group that the alley we were in was the exact alley that Game of Thrones filmed Cersei Lannister’s walk of SHAME!
Another common tourist attraction in Dubrovnik is to walk along the city walls, which Saz had done on her trip to Dubrovnik in 2014. We were considering checking it out until we saw the sign with the price: 36 euros per person just to walk on the wall! Not including a tour guide or anything, literally 36 euros to just walk on the wall. Needless to say, we did not fork out 70 bucks to walk on a wall.
We realized we had barely eaten, so we looked up cheap eats and picked one of the restaurants that popped up. Our meal of mediocre chicken tenders and fries still ended up being 24 euros!
After lunch, we did some more exploring of Old Town, as the cobblestone alleys and stairwells seemed to go on forever. We loved stumbling upon gorgeous little courtyards with beautiful flowers and greenery.
As we were walking back towards our hostel trying to decide our next adventure, we could see people swimming in the blue waters below. Wanting to cool off after a long hot morning of exploring, we climbed down the narrow path towards the water.
As we approached the bottom, there was a small clearing for sun bathing and relaxing, so we dropped our stuff, ripped off our clothes and jumped into the waters below. The temperature was absolutely PERFECT – just cool enough to feel amazing in the hot sun. We unfortunately didn’t have our snorkels, but we just floated and relaxed in the water. There were a few other people cliff jumping off a nearby platform, so we acted as judges and scored each jump.
While we were in the water we heard a commotion – a mom was yelling at her son on the platform above in a foreign language. Through body language, we could pick out that the son accidentally dropped something into the waters below.
We swam over to try to help – turns out, the son had accidentally dropped his mom’s snorkel into the water, and they couldn’t swim down deep enough to get it back. We had spent some time in SE Asia practicing free diving and gotten a few tips and tricks from various free diving instructors during our travels, so I decided to give it a shot. I borrowed another person’s goggles and looked down – I saw the mask sitting about 6-7 metres below on the sea floor.
I took a big deep breath, dove down, and kicked with all my might toward the ocean floor. I had a horrible realization halfway down that I didn’t have my fins – when we were free diving in SE Asia, we had our flippers that made it a hell of a lot easier to dive down deep. I managed to snag the mask and kick myself back up to the surface. The mom was super thankful, but then sheepishly asked me if I could also dive back down and get her snorkel, which had disconnected from the mask. I looked down again – the snorkel was even deeper than the mask had been, maybe around 8 metres. I was already gassed from the first dive but took a few huge breaths and dove down again. Halfway down my lungs were already screaming, but I powered on, grabbed the snorkel, and kicked hard off the bottom to shoot up to the surface. At this point, our group had gathered an audience who were all watching through the crystal clear waters, so there was a big cheer when I surfaced again. The family was very grateful, and it was nice to put some of what we learned to good use.
After our big walk and snorkel rescue mission, we were ready to head back to our hostel for a shower and an early night. We had our showers, got cozy, and decided to have a nutritious and delicious bag of popcorn for #GirlDinner.
The next morning, we had to check out of our hostel by 10 am, so we collected our bags and dropped them at reception. We would be taking the overnight ferry from Dubrovnik to Bari, Italy that evening at 8 pm, so we still had the entire day to explore.
We found a nice restaurant close to the ferry terminal to have brunch, and walked over to the ferry office afterward to pick up our tickets. It was an absolute scorcher of a morning, so we were instantly soaked with sweat. We strolled along the harbour, and I sent the drone up for a little aerial tour.
I wanted to get some drone shots of the Old Town as well, so we found a perfect private little spot right near Old Town to fly. Drone laws are very confusing and ever-changing, so I generally prefer to launch and land in private areas so as to not draw attention. I absolutely love the unique perspective of drone shots – it’s like getting a free heli tour over every place we go! I flew the drone for almost 40 minutes over the surrounding areas, blown away by this stunning city.
We went for another walk through Old Town, strolling along the streets trying to stay out of the sun as much as possible.
After running out of water, we were able to refill at one of the public water fountains. I love this feature we’ve found in so many European cities! And it was an absolute necessity on such a scorching day.
It seemed to be getting hotter and hotter by the minute, so we walked back to our swimming spot from the day before and floated in the ocean to cool off. After an hour or so of swimming, we headed back to our hostel to shower and get ready for our overnight ferry!
Pro tip: you can still use hostel showers after you check out so if you know you have an overnight flight/ferry/bus to catch, try to book a hostel for the night before.
Fresh & clean, we collected all of our bags from reception and walked towards the ferry terminal. The shower we had just taken was instantly rendered useless because it was still a billion degrees outside and this time we were carrying 30kg backpacks. We walked to a dinner spot close to the ferry port (where I had the worst burger of my life – Bon appetit it was not).
After dinner, we crossed the street to line up at the ferry port. We saw an absolute monster of a ship docked in the harbour and realized that must be our boat. It actually looked exactly like a BC Ferry – the ships that take you to and from Vancouver Island to the mainland. There was a gorgeous sunset that lit up the sky with orange and pink hues as we waited in line to board.
We had just purchased the cheapest tickets for the ferry, which meant no guaranteed seating. We didn’t realize what a free-for-all it would be – people showed up fully stocked for the overnight journey with air mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, blankets etc. We quickly boarded the ferry, trying to find a good spot on the boat to be as comfy as possible for the evening. We managed to snag a really cozy spot in the back corner of the bar area. It was carpeted (way more comfy!), had an outlet to charge devices, and was tucked away in a back corner with little foot traffic. We set up our little nest for the night, using our backpacks as pillows, our travel blankets as padding, and our little sleep cocoons for warmth.
As we had experienced around most parts of Europe, many people weren’t very considerate in public spaces when it came to noise. They would play videos or music out loud on their phones, take calls very loudly on speakerphone, and just generally be annoying. There was a group of incredibly irritating men nearby who kept watching loud videos and yelling across the room at each other. Around midnight, they all started singing and chanting Happy Birthday obnoxiously to their friend. Eventually, the commotion quieted down and we finally drifted asleep.
We would wake up in our final European destination: Italy!