Greetings from Croatia!

Greetings from Croatia!

Dubrovnik: July 7th - 10th, 2024

Hello friends, family, and fellow travelers!

In this first edition of our newsletter sent from overseas, we recount our flight out to Croatia, arriving in and exploring the city of Dubrovnik, several delicious Croatian meals, and a great number of insights from our local guides.

Thoughts from Sara:

We took a red eye to Dubrovnik from Newark airport, arriving the morning of July 7th. Naturally, the moment we cleared security in Newark, Calla complained that her ear was hurting, so we quickly called our pediatrician back home for some advice. Fortunately, after conking out before dinner was even served, Calla woke up feeling refreshed and pain-free. We quickly located our rental car, and successfully fit our luggage into the trunk. We are staying at a hotel in Lapad, which is about one mile outside of Dubrovnik. We were too early to check into our hotel room, so we picked up a couple of iced coffees at The Piano Bar and wandered around the lobby. We’d hoped the kids would nap, but no such luck, so Justin and I took turns taking speed naps until we decided to walk around Lapad. It was hot and the kids were tired, so we opted for an early dinner at a spontaneously chosen restaurant without even reading reviews first! Look at me embracing my flexible side. Dinner was delicious — grilled octopus, fried calamari, and black seafood tagliatelle with cheese. I was excited to try posip, which is a Croatian white wine. After walking back to our hotel, we all conked out early in the hopes of getting un-jet lagged and onto a reasonable sleep schedule. We slept late the following morning, and after a hotel breakfast buffet, met our guide, Petar, for a visit to the top of Mount Srd and an overview of Dubrovnik history. The views were absolutely stunning.

Next, we went on a tour of the Old City with a different guide, Tonka. Tonka’s claim to fame is that she once played a peasant in an episode of Game of Thrones, and showed us a picture of herself in costume. Of course, a new tour required gelato to steal us for two hours of walking in the heat. We visited “Peppino’s” and tried mango sorbet (Jonah), lemon sorbet (Simon), chocolate gelato (Calla, who was incapable of walking and eating at the same time), and goat milk caramel (Sara & Justin, who unprecedentedly wanted the same flavor). Everyone gave their gelato an A+, and thus our gelato hunt is off to an auspicious start! One of the small things I’m loving about Dubrovnik is that there are large fountains everywhere. The water is cold, and you can use it to fill water bottles. As it’s been so hot (high 80’s/low 90’s) we’ve also been using the water to cool ourselves off. Tonka showed us around the city, sharing more about the history of the area. The kids occasionally paid attention, with Simon taking the lead on asking all the questions. After a late lunch of pasta and more posip, we came back to our hotel for a lazy evening. 

Yesterday morning, we woke up early (6am) to walk the City Walls before the throngs of cruise tourists. The walls surround the old city of Dubrovnik, which is pedestrian-only. We were treated to spectacular views of the city and the Adriatic Sea. As I’d purchased a Dubrovnik Pass, we also visited the Natural History Museum and the Maritime Museum, and still made it back to our hotel by noon. The kids were such troopers, especially Jonah, who is very heat sensitive and had forgotten to bring his neck fan. We had a food tour scheduled for 6pm, so we came back to the hotel to swim and nap. The food tour - through Dubrovnik Food Tours - exceeded our expectations. We were unexpectedly treated to a private tour by the owner, Hamo, as they split the larger group into two and decided to give everyone else a reprieve from the people with three children. We tried several Croatian delicacies, including prosciutto, cheeses, tuna pate, truffle pasta, and "dirty" macaroni, which we'd also had the day before, though we agreed this version was better. Dirty macaroni is a rigatoni-style pasta with beef stewed in a variety of spices, including cinnamon. Apparently it is only served once a year in February, to coincide with the Festival of Saint Blaise. Then we visited a wine shop and had samples of two local wines. While the food was delicious, the real treat was that Hamo brought us to the residential section of the town. The Old Town is heavily touristy, with only ~800 Croatian residents living within the walls (including Hamo and his family). He took us to his in-laws' house, where we tried homemade peach liqueur care of his mother-in-law! He also brought us to two secret "bars," small holes in the wall that overlook the water. As we walked around, he shared stories of his youth. As a native of Dubrovnik, Hamo was in the city when it was bombed in 1991 and 1992. He showed us the war memorial, and shared that he knew many people who died in The Homeland War, including classmates. Our boys listened intently, and asked respectful questions. I was curious about the psychological impact of the war, including to what extent treatment for PTSD was available for Croatians. Hamo told us that when he lived in Orlando, he struggled due to the thunderstorms, which were reminiscent of the sounds heard during the siege of Dubrovnik. He eventually relocated to California, and said that only then did the association begin to fade. We were appreciative of his candor. We were about Simon's age during the war, and admittedly my knowledge was limited to what I could remember as a young child. It'll be interesting to visit Bosnia in a couple of weeks and learn more about the war from that perspective. 

Our tour continued, including a visit to the Dubrovnik Maskeron, a gargoyle head that supposedly brings good luck. According to Hamo, only about 1 in 10 people is successfully able to balance on the maskeron. Guess who was the one? 

After gelato and an aperitif, we headed back to our hotel, where we continued the futile task of trying to get all three of our children to share a bedroom. (3/3 nights, we have been unsuccessful. Should we call it?) Everyone slept so late (10:15am) that I ventured down to breakfast alone and brought food back upstairs. 

After finally rallying around noon, we took the ferry over to Lokrum Island, inhabited primarily by tourists and peacocks. We swam in Mrtvo More, "The Dead Sea" of Croatia, and then wandered the island's botanical gardens and Benedictine monastery, the latter of which was featured in Game of Thrones. We picked up popsicles for the kids, swam a bit more, and headed back to the Old Town for take out pizza and more Peppino's gelato (for me). Now we are back at the hotel, blogging and relaxing, with no set plans tomorrow until dinner time. 

It's been hard to switch my brain from "vacation mode" to "travel mode," though I recognize that it's early days still. I imagine as the days pass and we have longer stays in various areas, reality will start to kick in. Close quarters are certainly a challenge, but we should have more space in subsequent accommodations. 

Justin’s thoughts:

I’m the only one in my family who has watched Game Of Thrones. Jonah and Simon have asked if they can watch it and I’ve told them I’ll allow to when they’re 26. Anyone who knows Sara knows that’s not her thing. So I felt just a little sad but also as a bit of an insider when it came to the tourist marketing for the amazing city of Dubrovnik, which has frequently highlighted that many iconic locations from the show were filmed here. I don’t need to go into a whole rundown of how Dubrovnik clearly inspired and set the mold for the look of “King’s Landing” so instead here’s a wholesome family picture of us on the “Shame” steps.

The city is beautiful, but has a long past checkered with conflict. Our guide who showed us some of the incredible views of the old city seen below told us about how he and his family were refugees in 1991 when the Serbian army shelled the city - one of the first shocking events that turned world attention to the breakup of Yugoslavia. As someone who tends to be interested in world affairs, that has always been a conflict that remained murky to me even as I have numerous clear memories of seeing it in the news as a kid. So to have your guide point down to the seaside hotel his family took refuge in, while we stood from the hilltop position that the artillery was fired from, certainly makes an impression. 

But the mood here is upbeat and friendly, as Croatia has had a bit of a modern renaissance in the past two decades. As other Schmidts here will report, the food experiences have been off to a strong start with seafood, pasta, and gelato, and I’m looking forward to more. 

Walking the walls of the city was a truly stunning experience, as it allows you to walk a full circuit around the old city with ever-changing views that are uniformly stunning. It was hot and it was a bit of a trek, but every step was worth it even if the boys were somewhat less inspired than myself (see Jonah's thoughts).

Earlier today we took a short ferry to the nearby island of Lokrum, which exists as a sort of self-contained park right off the coast. It was good to finally get some swimming time in the sea with all the heat. The water was beautifully clear and refreshing, just what I needed after a few days of walking around in the summer heat.

Dubrovnik has undoubtedly transformed itself into an extremely tourist-oriented city in the past decade, and we were among crowds of people from all over the world the entire time. But, as Sara and discussed several times, this somehow didn't feel like it was detracting from the experience even though neither of us tend to overly "touristy" places. It's hard to describe why, but it seems like the tourism industry here hasn't eroded the authenticity and heart of the city just yet. Hopefully this will remain the case for many years to come!

Jonah’s Thoughts:

Day 1:

On July the 7th we landed in Croatia, it was a very different town then we are used to. The houses in my opinion weren't my style as they were white houses with orange roofs. Although orange is my favorite color this type of orange wasn't my type and it looked kind of odd. The town was also located in a dry desert - like area with lots of shrubbery. We settled down in a nice hotel before taking a walk around. We went to a seafood place for dinner, it was definitely 8.5 or 9 out of 10 for me. I got a fish burger and some lemonade, I loved the burger but the lemonade was really sour. They did give me a sugar packet but after dumping it all in it still didn't taste very different. I even stirred it around alot but there was no difference in the taste. We then walked back to the hotel and settled down and went to bed.

Day 2:

We woke up and went to the breakfast buffet and got lots of really good food. I got some fruit, sausages, orange juice, and some chocolate pudding, after I got the pudding all my siblings wanted one and it got chaotic. After the ordeal we went outside and met up with a tour guide who was going to drive us around and drop us off for our second tour. After being driven around and taking pictures we went to our second tour and ended up finding out that the lady giving us the tour was actually in a small scene from game of thrones... not that my parents let me watch it. We learned about how Serbia had attacked in 1991 and destroyed lots of buildings and killed many people. The reason Serbia did that was because they wanted to control the area. I am interested in learning how the rest of the war played out. I also learned that the houses were rebuilt in the white and orange style to repair after the war. We then got gelato and said goodbye to the tour guide and went to lunch at an Italian restaurant. We then waited for our previous tour guide to return and then went back to the hotel.

Day 3:

Today we woke up early and went walking on walls that surrounded the city. although it was a nice view it was very hot out and I didn't really like the experience. I did see a big cricket about 4 inches long, which was kind of cool. We then went to a natural history museum which was mostly about animals which I really liked. But when we were about to head out we saw a playroom with some 3 -  4 year old girls making drawings on blackboards. My 4 year old sister tried to come in to play as well but because they were Croatian, and we spoke English they didn't really get along. They ended up erasing her drawing and although she was disappointed she worked on a drawing on paper... Unfortunately these little girls seemed to really not like us and they ended up spraying my sister's drawing with water. We quickly left and went to our next museum which was kind of boring, just a bunch of boat replicas. We then went home and took a nap to prepare for staying up late for a food tour we were doing. We met our guide for our food tour and went to lots of restaurants. The food was very good. my favorite was these fried shrimp. We then got ice cream and said goodbye to our guide. 

Day 4: 

Today we were allowed to sleep in because we had stayed up quite late last night because of the food tour we were on. I got up at 10:15 in the morning and by that time my mom had brought back breakfast. After eating we caught a bus that brought us to a boat dock. The boat brought us to an island where no one lived and people could visit. On the island were a couple restaurants, and snack bars. With ponds, playgrounds, and lots of peacocks which got really annoying.

When my sister was playing on the playground and I was using these work out machines they started trying to take our food. We also swam in a pond that was actually really nice. After all this we went to an area where game of thrones was made. In his area there was a throne where we all took turns sitting in it and taking pictures. We then saw a peacock with its feathers spread out making that cool design that they do. We then went to the dock, took the next boat and went back to Dubrovnik. We then took a bus back to the hotel and that was the end of day 4. 

Simon’s Thoughts

I think the food so far has been an “A” rating. On our first day, I wanted octopus and we found a restaurant with it and it was delicious! And the next day, we had gelato, but I got lemon sorbet and it was scrumptious. When we get gelato again, I’ll probably get the same flavor. It has been very warm outside but I felt pretty good walking around Dubrovnik. The walls of the city looked cool.

Today was really fun. We went to Lokrum, it is an island. We had a popsicle, and we went into the sea. We sat on the Game of Thrones throne. It had swords on it. I wanted to take one out but it wouldn't budge. 

Calla’s Thoughts:

Interview with Calla, July 8th: Calla: I learned bouncing and flying. Today we bought gummies, got on a tour, and I still used car seats forever. Mommy: What d vid we go on a tour of? Calla: Walking. Tour of walking. Mommy: What city did we visit? Calla: Croatia. Mommy: What city in Croatia? What was the name of the city? Calla: I don't know. Mommy: What else did we do? What did we eat? Calla: gelato. Mommy: Who ate more of the gelato, Calla or Calla's clothing? Calla: Me! Calla. Mommy: What kind of gelato did you have? Calla: regular chocolate. Mommy: Anything else you want to say about the first day of our world trip? Calla: Um, I love my family and this is the best world trip ever.

Interview with Calla, July 10th:

"I love you, trip. We had a nice day, we did the walls, we went to the fort, but we still had ice cream, and we had a little walk."

~

We will continue to experiment with the format of these newsletters as we travel, likely with less daily play by plays as our trip unfolds and we have fewer pre-scheduled activities. 

xo,

Sara, Justin, Jonah, Simon, & Calla