Alan's Croatian Holiday

Mrs A very attractive Alan. 

They make the tables of chipboard just in case you feel peckish. 

Enjoy  x  :;smile:

Goldie wrote:

a) Mrs A very attractive Alan. 

b) They make the tables of chipboard just in case you feel peckish. 

Enjoy  x  :;smile:

a) I think so too  - she scrubs up well for a soon to be 75 year old

b) That response is a classic.....

Wow she is amazing Alan. Much love to you both. Have a great time  :;smile:

We went for a walk early this morning in the hotel grounds along the path in the woods. The bird song was amazing there. This was to kill time before we went caught the Dubrovnik water taxi today which berths a 10 minute walk from the hotel in Mlini. The return trip costing 12 each.

Dubrovnik is awesome and we will be going back again before we leave. Friends told us to check the Cruise Ship docking to choose the best day when there would be fewer visitors. We went today because there was only once cruise ship due with 1780 passengers. Tomorrow there are three ships due with more than 8000 and it gets packed in the old town. The next time there is only one ship due is next Monday - so that is the day for a repeat trip. 

Between us we took dozens of photos and it is difficult to chose which to show.

Here are a few anyway - some being for the benefit of friends and family back home who will be tuning into this thread.

The sad looking buildings pictured from the boat are an old 5 star hotel complex that were blitzed during the 1991 war. You can see the pock marks of shelling from naval vessels

Great photos, Alan!

who's that young chick ya keep takin photos of Alan?

That's no young chicken - that's my wife.

I don't post photos of my mistresses...............

The damaged hotel I posted a picture of.  We were toying with going there to have a nose around when I came up this article which is interesting.

http://www.pausethemoment.com/kupari/

I also found a story via Google that Marriot bought the site last year and are going to rebuild it as a luxury resort. They are in the process of fencing it off - so we will not bother.

Lovely pictures Alan  :;smile:

Enjoyed looking at your pictures Alan

The Kupari seaside resort was built in the 1960’s and consisted of four separate hotels known as the Goričine, the Goričine II, the Pelegrin and the the Kupari.

They were built in the vast grounds which surrounded the Grand Hotel that was built in about 1920 and was a superior place for its time. The military commandeered the Grand Hotel and added the 4 modern hotels to create a  posh military resort which served as a holiday location for the Yugoslav military elite and their families.

Each of the hotels were blessed with fabulous views and manicured gardens that you can imagine as you walk through the place.

In 1991 when the Croatian War of Independence started, the Serb element of the Yugoslav Army attacked the resort and systematically destroyed it.  It has been looted of everything of value and is now a grim shell of its former splendour.

We didn’t intend visiting the place – but curiosity overtook us on our way back from Lidl to our hotel and I turned off the main road and drove there.

 

It is awesome - but too big an area to cover in one day, and rather dangerous too -  so I concentrated on the old Grand Hotel which must have been palatial in its heyday.   

Well I suppose it's better that lying on a sun bed on the beach with a large gin and tonic in one hand and a warm woman in the other, but if I had the choice I know which one I'd choose

Shame to see such beautiful buildings left ruin

I found a newspaper story dated Aug 2016 saying that Marriot had bought the site and would be developing it. However the authorities will not let them touch the Grand Hotel ruin - they wish it to be a war monument.

When I stood inside those ruins it gave me an slight insight into what the Syrians are enduring. Their situation is a thousand times worse however.

Wherever you looked at the buildings they were pockmarked with bullet strikes and it made you wonder how many military died there in a lost cause. Some of the rooms were clearly wrecked by a mighty internal explosion - others by the phosphorous bombs the Serbs planted to burn the place out.

It is clear, 25 years later, that some of the locals we have talked two have a burning hatred for the Muslims who they blame for starting the war by declaring independence.

I am keen to do some research when I get home into the history of the war. Hitler started it in a way by over-running the Andriatic countries and forcibly uniting them under the German flag. Then WW2 ended and Tito was installed as a USSR puppet to run the new state. When he died there was a yearning to go back to the old days when they were separate countries - which sponsored the war when the Muslim states declared independence.

I have yet to check the veracity of this story - this was the opinion of a Croatian we got chatting to who hated the Montenegros with a passion.

He was very miffed to be told we plan on visiting Montenegro next Tuesday.

Nichola Sturgeon needs to make a note.

The weather was rather dull and cloudy today and rain was threatened but did not happen. So we went for drive and dropped into various villages in this very mountainous land. Libby saw the best of it - I was concentrating on keeping the car on the road and looking out for maniacs coming the other way.
On the way back we decided to take a drive around the Dubrovnik peninsular which took us south alng the docks where the cruise ships tie up. There were two huge ships in the dock - the Royal Princess which is 330 metres long and carries 3060 passengers and the Rapsody of the Seas which is a mere 280 metres long and carries 2070 passengers. Libby tried to take a photo while we stopped in traffic but we were too close and the picture looked like a block of flats with some lifeboats dangling down.  

We then drove around the coast road he north of Dubrovnik and dropped into the President Palace Hotel, as Malcolm recommended, for a browse and a coffee. It is a very impressive place.

On the way back I stopped at a vantage point on the highway and took this photo of Dubrovnik from an altitude of 520 feet according to my Garmin satnav. 

One of my mum's favourite places Dubrovnik.

Fab pictures Alan  :;smile: