Our hire car was again booked with Budget and after Tatty (our Chevrolet Spark in Malta) our expectations were zero so you can imagine my delight (and trepidation) when we were given a brand new Ford Fiesta - just 6 kms on the clock !!!
It was a lovely vehicle to drive, I'd recently driven a Fiesta in Scotland (didn't have time to blog) but this one was even nicer and a complete joy to drive. Not so good on the parking - but that's just me.
As we were early for the hotel check-in, we stopped off at Cavtat, a fishing village near the airport and en route to Dubrovnik. It was rather a pretty little town, but with heavy overcast skies we only managed a brief walk around before the heavens opened and we had to sit it out in a bar - our umbrellas being still in the suitcase, in the car.
A few photos
All the flowering plants are very advanced compared with home, as this Antirrhinum shows.
The weather certainly didn't look promising as we headed up the coast.
But marginally better in the other direction - at least a tourist boat is running.
We'd downloaded directions to the hotel from Google and we knew a U-Turn was involved but we assumed it would be an obvious one - it wasn't and consequently we spent a long time driving around the Lapad district of Dubrovnik (away from the Old Town which is pedestrian only) trying to find our hotel. Having got ourselves all the way back to the road we drove in on, we were able to stop at a viewing point above the old town.
The whole coastline is very dramatic with towering slopes all around.
Eventually we found the Rixos Libertas which we knew would be a huge, concrete monstrosity, but the only one I could find which met Ian's needs of a full buffet breakfast.
Check-in was horribly slow but we were eventually offered a glass of Champagne and shown our room which was in the annex. We presume the carpet is meant to look like a mosaic but in reality it just looked like it had been worn or bleached by the sun.