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Thursday
8th. July 2010
We woke up in Pomena on the island of Mljet. It was a bright sunny day with the
temperature in the mid 20's and a nice cool breeze. After breakfast
began our bicycle ride. It began with two hill climbs of about 39 metres
vertical climb, but after that it was either flat or gently downhill. We
rode around the shore of the Big Lake (Veliko Jezero) and saw the
sights, then walked
the last few hundred metres through the tiny village of Spilja, and on
to where it widens out into the Adriatic Sea. We then back tracked to
where the Big Lake and the Small Lake (Malo Jezero) join and left our
bikes, and took to the water in two person canoes and paddled about 1,500 metres across the Big Lake to a tiny island on which stands the 12th.
Century Benedictine Monastery of St Mary. We moored the canoes and
enjoyed lunch beneath the walls of the monastery. After lunch we
explored the island and the Monastery then paddled back against a head
wind to where we had left our bicycles; rode back to our hotel in Pomena,
arriving at about 3:30pm for a well earned rest.
Friday 9th. July 2010
We left the hotel early and caught the ferry back to the mainland. Then
took a bus south along the coast road into Dubrovnik.
We dropped our
luggage off at the Hotel Ivkr and then went to visit the old part of the
city. Lunch was included in the tour price and afterwards we went on a 2
hour tour of the walled city. Our guide took us past the Cathedral
dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption, through the Rector's Palace
(the Rector was like the President of the area in times gone by), past
the Church of St Blaze and the Customs Building which is now a memorial
to those who died during the bombing by the Serbs and Montenegrans from
October 1991 until well into 1992. We also received an insight into what
the Homeland War was all about
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