Dubrovnik, Croatia, Day 3

Day 3, May 14, 2014

Last night, we had a thunderstorm and heavy rain, off and on most of the night. I slept for 11 ½ hours and we both had a lazy morning waiting for the rain to stop. It gave me time to go through all the pictures Jill and I took – over 200! We made breakfast at home with soft boiled orange-yoke eggs on fried bread (that Jill handily scrounged from the bread basket at our dinner last night). These eggs are just called eggs, or as Jeannette calls them, happy eggs. 

 

The rain stopped by 11:30am and we ventured out to take the cable car up to the top of Mount Srd (412 metres).  We wanted to visit the War Museum on the summit to better understand the homeland war of 1991-1995. The cable cars do not run when the winds are too strong.  Once we came out of the museum, the wind was cold and strong.  When we opened the door to the main building there was a long lineup, which meant the cable cars had stopped running and everyone was waiting for vans to take us back down the mountain.  It was a hairy ride with single lane hairpin turns, an added adventure.  Surprisingly it was not windy at the bottom. We headed home to put on socks and warm up with some wine before venturing out for some pasta.     

On the way up

The old city

Looking south

Looking south

Windblown and cold Jill

Joker

The mountains south

Mountains north east

New town Dubrovnik looking north west

Hallway in museum in Fort Imperial at the top of Mount Srd built by in 1806-1816 during the Napoleonic Wars.

Destruction during the war of 1901-1905

The many stairs taking us back home

Dubrovnik, Croatia, Day 2

Day 2, May 13, 2014

We slept well and after a double espresso headed out for breakfast.  The city was already packed with tourists following their guides, not one speaking English.  We started exploring this beautiful walled city that had risen from the ashes after the shelling during the 1991 war which almost destroyed it.   With rain and thunderstorms in the forecast for the next few days we decided to walk the walls of the city.  A $20 cost per was well worth the experience where we got a first hand look at the destruction.  Most of the clay roofs had new tiles and we saw several ruins from the shelling.  The two hour walk on the wall included tons of stairs leading to different elevations for breathtaking views of the Dubrovnik and the surrounding scenery.

                                          The main street from the wall

                                                   Stairs up to the wall

                                                   A tourist on a side street

                                          The Pile Gate

 Hot babe

                                         The killer stairs up to the wall

                                         The wall

                                         The main street, Stradun

                                         Destruction from the 1991 war

                                          On the wall

                                          More destruction

               A hole in the wall from the war created access to a great spot for a bar

                                          A few of the roofs not damaged during the war

                                                   Church steps

                                         Old and new clay tiles

                                          A map of he destruction from the 1991 war

                                                    Lots of stairs

We did a bit of grocery shopping to stock up on the essentials - beer, wine, cheese, crackers, eggs, and borek, a traditional snack of minced meat wrapped in phyllo dough. Add a cold beer and that was our lunch – delicious! Dinner took us to one of the many streets lined with endless outdoor restaurants.  I had grilled squid, which came with six of the tenderest squids I have ever eaten. Jill had a craving for cevapcci, which are tradional skinless sausages made from a mixture of seasoned beef and lamb and was surprised when ten were presented on her plate with fries, salad, and a mound of ajvar, a red pepper relish with garlic.  A bottle of house white topped off an absolutely delicious meal and an ice cream as we strolled the main street gazing at the hundred of swallows that came out for their evening meal.   

                                          Hungry man

                                          Grilled squid, so good

                                          Jill's cevapcici

                                          Incredibly delicious ice cream

                                         The main street with a few remaining swallows

Dubrovnik, Croatia, Day 1

Day 1, May 12, 2014

Our 6:30pm flight to Frankfurt on Lufthansa was good.  Unfortunately, our flight to Vienna was delayed by an hour so by the time we got to Vienna we missed our connection to Dubrovnik. The only flight available was through Zagreb, which meant we had to kill 6 hours at the airport.  With just three hours sleep and snoozes in the lounge we took a flight on a Croatian Air Bombardier Q400 prop-job to Zagreb and then an Airbus A320 to Dubrovnik. We got in at 10pm instead of 2pm .  We had to go through a total of six security checks from start to finish. With a total travel time of 22hours, it was equivalent to flying to Australia. Our host was not able to meet us due to the delay but arranged for a taxi to meet us at the airport and get us to our apartment in Old Town Dubrovnik.  Not an easy feat since cars are not permitted in Old Town so we humped our bags from the Pile Gate for six blocks and up a gazillion steps to our home for the next 5 days.  It was 11pm when we went out to check the town and picked up some water for our morning coffee.  Sleep came easy.

The Calgary 2013 Flood was 11 Years Late

I get riled when eco-activists like David Suzuki use climate change and the 2013 Calgary flood  in the same sentence. Haven’t we been taught that history repeats itself?  Do eco-activists think that no one checks back on history?  Just go back to the Calgary flood of 1935 to understand what happened in 2013.  Surprisingly or not, this year’s flood covered the same areas as in 1935.   If you build a city around water, you better have things figured out.  After the flood of 1935, a map was drawn up, along with many recommendations, one of which was to advise people buying in the area that they were moving onto a flood plain. Unfortunately, these recommendations were abandoned largely due to lobbying efforts by the land owners. Back then there were NO eco-activists blaming climate change as it was considered a natural occurrence which happened every seventy years or so.

Interestingly, Toronto created the Toronto Conservation Authority after the floods that accompanied Hurricane Hazel in 1954 which left four thousand people homeless.  The Conservation Authority took control of the flooded land and did not allow houses to be built where there was a chance of flooding.

Why was Calgary not prepared for the inevitable?

Why with all of our know-how did they not build spillways and dams to prevent the estimated 3 to 5 billion dollars in damage, much of which is not covered by insurance?  My sense of eco-activists is that they believe that natural disasters can be avoided by reducing carbon emissions. Snake oil anyone?  

In 2012, Alberta announced that $327 million would be spent on six projects to reduce carbon emissions.  Lots of tax dollars eh?  Canada represents a mere 6% of the world’s carbon emissions and the evil oil sands represent 2% of this 6%.

Should Albertans be proactive and spend money on projects that would protect them from future devastation or should they continue praying to the Gods of climate change, dressed as eco-activists?  Maybe it's just me.