A Peacock Sanctuary

Day 7 of my european Journey (8/26/11)

We tried to get up early but ended up staying in bed until about 10. Julia had gone for a run but then gotten back into bed. Finally we put on our suits and headed to the Old City to catch a ferry. We were going to Lokrum, an uninhabited island visible from Dubrovnik that has rocky beaches, an old monastery, and a fortress. The monks used to burn fires and ring bells to warn the citizens of Dubrovnik when enemies were heading towards the city. We bought food for lunch, got a map of the island and took the short ferry with many other tourists to Lokrum.

On the ferry we got a great view of the Old City of Dubrovnik and took some great pictures. When we arrived on Lokrum a short while later we were surprised to see three large and strange colored peacocks walking behind a building! As we walked further into the forest we saw more and more of them! The ones in the forest were mostly males and I wish one had had it's tail spread out! They were siting on the ground and in the small trees; it was strange that they weren't bothered by the many humans all around them.

As we walked toward the monastery we kept our eyes peeled for peacock feathers to take home with us. The monastery had a strange feeling because part of it had been turned into a hopping restaurant and other parts were being restored still. The courtyard was peaceful, but the all-too-peppy music floating in from the cafe disturbed that peace. We continued through to the steps down to the rocks on the other side of the island.

Loggia in the Monastery on Lukrum

There was an old pier that must have been a ferry stop at some point in time. We felt the nice breeze at the end of it and scoped out our flat spot on the rocks before we trekked over the sharp boulders. We laid down our towels, striped down and climbed the ladder into the cool and salty water. We floated around pretending we were doing water aerobics and avoided getting our hair wet. I looked around with my goggles and passed them to Julia every once in a while. Again, the pale grey blues of sand 20 feet below me giving way to unknown depths of dark blue sucked the air out of my lungs! I was so afraid and here there was a more abrupt change in depth than the beaches we'd been to before. Julia went to check it out and said, if she dove down a little, that she could still see the bottom. I was still to scared to try that.

We came to a nice big rock and so I climbed up onto it and explored the little pools it had on top of it. Then I decided I was going to conquer my fear and jump into the dark, indigo blue water. I had Julia check to make sure there were no rocks for me to hit and I took the plunge into the cold, deep water. It felt great for an instant, then the crushing fear hit me again and I was swimming like mad to get to where I could see the bottom again. I don't know when this fear became so prevalent, but I will not go into deep water where I can't see the bottom again!!!

We spent the day exploring the rocky coves in the water and laying on the hot rocks. We munched on nuts, gouda, and bread while sipping diet coke and peach iced tea. At one point we both fell asleep and when we awoke we decided we should go back to Dubrovnik pretty soon. We packed up our things, hiked back across the island, and hopped on a ferry back. We had seen a water polo arena/fan store on the bus ride to the Old City and decided to walk to it and check it out. We walked backwards along the bus route using landmarks as our guide. There was a large bridge that we walked across with a beautiful light orange sunset beginning.

Down we went towards the cruise ship port and we found the store! We went in and it was closed and no one was there, but it was some sort of entranceway to the water polo arena! I have never seen such a glorified water polo court in my life! There was enough stadium seating to hold a big ten basketball game and in the middle was a beautiful, 50 meter pool. There was a group of 9 and 10 year old boys practicing while we were there. We watched them and soon observed that they were better than some of the players we had on our high school team! They were passing with full sized women's balls and shooting hard, it was amazing. I wish we could have youth water polo programs like that in Illinois! Also, I wish more people would watch water polo!!

View of a peninsula from the Ferry back to Dubrovnik

We continued to walk back to the guesthouse and had a million stairs to go up to get there. It took us at least 30 minutes to climb the stairs to the main road that the bus went on and another 10 or 15 to walk along that to our place. We were exhausted and covered in sweat by the time we arrived! We got ready for dinner, tried to contact Paul, rested for a bit, and took the bus back down for dinner in the Old City. We walked back to the coral store by the gelato shop we liked and looked for our souvenirs. I picked out a beautiful pearl necklace with four coral beads and one gold bead in the center. I had been looking at the earrings the whole time but this necklace just stood out to me. Julia found a bracelet of black onyx with a naturally shaped chunk of red coral in the middle. There were small gold beads between every piece of onyx and a pretty, gold clasp. We grabbed gelato while the jeweler took off one of the beads on her bracelet so it would fit better. Then we took the bus back early and went to sleep so we could have one more morning in town before leaving Croatia in the afternoon the next day.