Transition to Croatia

Ugh - this was one of our have to get up early days!  We were supposed to fly out of Budapest mid-morning but since we had to drive to the airport during the morning rush we wanted to make sure we got there earlier rather than later. The check-in system for our airline was ridiculous - you have to be there 2 hours in advance but they don`t post what check-in stalls are associated with your flight until 40 minutes before your departure time.....then all 300 of you rush to check-in only to be told you have to do it yourself at one of three little kiosks.  Chaos and confusion and not one smiling face to assist.  After that part of the process you proceed through security and then find out your flight is delayed. Fortunately for us we decided to use up our extra forints to get some real food for our flights as the `refreshments`on our first consisted of a minuscule bottle of water and the 'snack` on the second one was either an apple or little chocolate wafer bar.  Since that flight was delayed as well our real food was most welcome. Probably could have sold my salad more than once to those around me.

We were happy to see that this time our luggage arrived with us and that the shuttle was still out in front of the airport to take us into Dubrovnik old town. It was a scenic drive in and we could tell when we were getting closer as traffic came to a complete stand still. Fortunately at this point we had some interesting vistas around us to observe while we waited.  Our connecting bus to Hotel Lapad was also sitting there once we got off our shuttle.  I don't think they take "maximum capacity" very seriously here as we were packed tighter than sardines in that bus (and a lot of us also had luggage). One thing we immediately noticed when arriving was how narrow the roads are; and how big the buses are when they are barrelling towards you.


Fortunately the hotel is all of 20 feet away from the bus stop so once we extracted ourselves from the rest of our bus mates we made short time in getting into our room and putting down our luggage. The hotel itself is very nice, clean and with a sense of history even though they have modernized.

Our room even had a nice little patio with two chairs and table looking out into a private garden.  When you walked out the hotel's front door you are literally 15 from the water's edge and all along the road are boats parked like we would have cars....however over there they have both.  Handy for ducking in between when vehicles come down the tiny one-way roads. 

Across the bay we had 4 cruise ships in our first night.  They looked beautiful all lit up in the evening.

We could have made our way back into town for the evening but decided instead to just walk around Lapad Bay and find ourselves somewhere to eat in the neighbourhood.  Once we left the hotel we walked the whole bay, checked out a bunch of huge yachts and the cruise ships before heading half way back and relaxing in a park for a while while waiting for the restaurant (Otto) to open for their usual 7pm dinner start time. Otto's was in a carved out cave near the water and the food itself was very good. 

From there we were quite tired so headed back to the hotel to get an early night.  The sky was very dark and the air humid and we wondered if we would get rain, but we didn't.