Dubrovnik and return to Venice

Croatian waterfront, viewed from our docked ship 

After a full day at sea, we arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia on Sunday morning.  Knowing that its fortress walls around the old town are famous as one of the great fortifications of the middle ages, we were determined to walk the wall despite intermittent rain showers.  And we did--all two kilometers of it.  Here are a few scenes along the wall and in the old town inside:

Legend has it that the guardpost in the picture below is haunted by the ghost of Garozdan Ivancic, a fifteenth century soldier who met an untimely end late one night.  He had invited his girlfriend, a Bulgarian dancer, to join him, and distracted by her, he failed to notice the approach of a massive Turkish fleet.  His ghost is invisible to humans but sometimes shows up in photos of the guardpost.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view...

                         more bougainvillea!

We shared our dinner table every night with Mr. and Mrs. Liu and son Peter, and got into great discussions with them, to the point that one night the waiter had to ask us to leave so they could prepare the next seating.  We were totally blown away when we found out that Mrs. Liu and Peter were in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 when the tanks and troops moved in.  Peter was 11 at the time; his dad was studying in the U.S. and we could imagine how worried he was.

We arrived back in Venice early Monday morning and disembarked at 9:30.  As when we came, we gave ourselves plenty of time to roam and have lunch.  It was threatening rain when we first set out, and we ducked into a cafe just in time before a downpour.  The rain abated after our cappuccino and espresso, and we resumed our walkabout.  Here is a montage from the end of the journey: