CROATIA
From the Grecian isles we spent one day at sea aboard the Marco Polo as the liner cruised north. The star attractions were the Adriatic islands and coast — which have the cleanest waters in the Mediterranean
Croatia probably has more miles of pristine seashore than anywhere else in the Mediterranean. Much of Croatia is a long narrow strip of coast, having emerged from the bust-up of old Yugoslavia with the lion’s share of the shore. There lies almost 1,000 miles of seaside, reaching all the way from the Slovenian border to the Montenegrin one. We strolled along the vertiginous walls of Dubrovnik and explored the Roman emperor Diocletian’s palace at Split – both Unesco- protected cities, founded by the Venetians in the Middle Ages to show off their maritime supremacy
DUBROVNIK
We arrived at the quayside in the old harbour taken ashore aboard one of the lifeboats. Dubrovnik is a fairytale city every bit as magical as Venice or Florence.
The old town looks like a giant castle, surrounded by ramparts 2km long and up to 25m high. There is no motorised transport beyond the main entrance, the Pile gate, just a warren of baroque churches and stone houses with honey-coloured roofs.
It was slightly jarring to read a map legend at one of the city gates: "City map of dangers caused by the aggression to Dubrovnik by the Yugoslav army, Serbs and Montenegrans, 1991-92", and to find shrapnel in the baroque facade of St Saviour's Church.
After being smacked by 2,000 shells in the Balkan war Dubrovnik is once again the loveliest medieval city under the sun. Unesco restoration has turned the white-walled, green-shuttered Old Town into a place with gorgeous courts and cloisters of baroque palaces. Big hoses swoosh down the streets every morning to keep it looking maximum shiny.
The overwhelming sight is the city walls. The 2km stroll can be vertiginous, but it's wonderfully picturesque. As the sea walls give out to the glittering Adriatic on one side and Dubrovnik's backgardens on the other, your hand reaches automatically for your camera.
Cars are banned inside the city walls, and just as well: It’s essentially an outdoor place where we frittered away the day sliding from cobble stoned cafe to a bar, patrolling the ramparts to check for glorious rooftop views
The way we got your bearings is to amble along a circuit of the stupendous city battlements: We enjoyed scrambling around the Escher-like collection of helter-skelter stairways and crumbling catwalks, all poised on high cliffs against the very bluest bit of the Adriatic.
After the walk we did some shady shopping in the thin alleyways off Stradun, Dubrovnik’s marble-lined main drag. The Placa, the broad main boulevard leading to the square and the famous Onofrio fountain, is criss-crossed by thin alleyways. There are no hotels in the old town, but plenty of al-fresco cafés where you can sit and watch the locals and tourists down the one street that acts as the entrance and exit to the citadel. The best view of the lot is from the top of the walls.
I went for a quick swim at the town beach, Banje, very refreshing in the cool waters in the Spring sunshine - just five minutes’ walk east of Ploce Gate, with a decent beach bar. Sand fights a losing battle with stones, but that’s true everywhere along the Dalmatian coast — it’s what makes the sea so famously limpid there.
Meanwhile the boat remained at anchor. Passengers continued to be ferried to and from the vessel.
