With every trip I take, I try so hard to live in the moment. To really relish in the sheer joy, peace, and happiness that I feel of being in a new place. To commit that feeling to memory so when I return home, I can remember exactly how it felt to be in that very place for the weeks to come.
This trip was no different. There were so many parts to it that were memorable for so many reasons. The places I saw, the people I met, the connections I made, and the sheer beauty of a new country to be explored. The difference was that all the stress and anxiety of spending six months wondering if this trip would happen made every aspect even sweeter than any other trip I'd taken. In a way it felt like I conquered this amazing feat of returning to something that I love, that has become ingrained in my heart and soul, that of traveling solo.
Before I get into the things I learned from this trip, it's time for me to tell the stories of what happened during. Because, of course there are stories to tell.... first stop, Dubrovnik.
It was September 11th, 2020....
My flight from Dulles to Munich was seamless. I had an entire row to myself on a Dreamliner that looked like it was brand new it was so clean. I counted over 130 empty seats on the seat map. The flight attendants were happy and relaxed. Everyone was wearing a mask and the food/drink service was consolidated so everything went quickly and smoothly. I landed in Munich and settled into their quiet lounge area which had been my layover standby the many times I've flown through Munich to wait out my 4 1/2 hours until my final flight to Dubrovnik. Looking back, I remember thinking, you've made it this far, nothing can go wrong now.
The short flight from Munich to Dubrovnik was full. It was the first time I'd been next to any other human for any length of time in over six months. My seatmate was also an American, flying to Croatia to tour around for several months. We chatted about the trials of travel during the pandemic and he was stressed that his COVID test results would not be in his email box by the time we landed. Fortunately, I had received the test results from the first of the two tests I took the night before I departed so I was fully prepared with my three printed copies (yes, overkill) and access to my online medical record just in case. He and I were in line next to each other at border control. Yes, I was nervous. I'd gotten this far. They had to let me in. And they did. My seatmate, however, didn't get his test results in time. So, while he was allowed in the country he had to isolate until he received them or get retested. I wished him good luck and bid farewell then set off to find my driver to get to the hotel. While I waited for my driver to pull the car around, I was glad I had bid my seatmate farewell when I did as when I checked my email the test results from my second test arrived mere minutes before I landed in Croatia. I didn't end up needing them but was glad I didn't have to share that with someone who was still waiting for their results to arrive!
My driver, Ivan, was the first Croatian I met and as he drove me to the hotel, I learned that he used to work on Carnival cruise line for years before returning to his home country of Croatia. He asked about my plans and shared a little about what life was like in Croatia. And of course, somehow wine came up. I then learned that he was also a lover of wine and had completed his Level 3 WSET this past winter; I completed Level 2 just a few months before this trip. He offered to take me on a wine tour as it was another thing he did for the hotel but I told him I had a wine tour set up for the following day with Mario Sehic, a WSETdiploma. He knew Mario well and raved about him saying I'd be in great hands for exploring the local Peljesac peninsula and wine region.
Upon arriving at the Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik, I was greeted by the hotel manager who had arranged my transport. Just like Ivan, she was warm and welcoming, and her staff quickly got me checked in. They had upgraded my room to one with a view of the "walls." As advertised, there was Hilton a sticker across the door jamb of my room saying it had been cleaned and sterilized. But, that doesn't mean I didn't dive into my ridiculous stash of wipes and clean all those "high touch" surfaces myself, because well, it was the first hotel I'd stayed in since this pandemic took the world by storm. Yes, my nerves and anxiety of the last six months was still on guard a bit, but now coupled with the high of arriving in a new place.
Later that afternoon I set off to “walk the walls," the one touristy thing I wanted to check off my list in Dubrovnik. The hotel was in a fantastic location, just a mere 5 minute walk from the entrance to the Old Town of Dubrovnik. Severely jet-lagged but riding the high of being somewhere new, I climbed the seemingly-endless first staircase to the top of the walls in the very warm late-afternoon sun. I'd heard stories that the walls could get quite crowded in "normal" tourist times often requiring you to elbow your way between people to maybe get a picture without random strangers. Well, this wasn't normal tourist times. As I heard MANY times during my solo journey around Croatia in the coming days, I learned that about 10% of tourists were in Croatia as compared to other September's pre-COVID. I saw five other people the whole time I walked the walls around Dubrovnik. Five. Needless to say, I had no problem getting pictures without random people. And no problems social distancing, either.
Of those five people, I met a couple, Patty (yep, even spelled the same) and Peter who were also American’s but had been living in Barcelona, Spain for the past three years. Patty was actually from the DMV, having grown up in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was thanks to them that I got several pictures of me on the walls that aren't selfies. Though I think we went through a bottle of hand sanitizer between us cleaning our hands and phones each time we took each other's pictures! They shared with me what they'd done in Dubrovnik so far and low and behold, they'd taken a day long wine tour with Mario, the same guy I was taking a tour with the very next day a few days before. They, just like Ivan my driver, raved about Mario and assured me I'd have a fabulous time. As we neared the end of the walk, they invited me to join them for dinner. While I normally don't have any qualms about sharing a meal with new people I meet while traveling (remember my dinner with the footballers in Zurich?), I thanked them for the offer but said the jetlag was quickly catching up with me and feared I would fall asleep during the meal! They got the information for the winery where I work and promised to look me up and visit when they were in town next. I then found a quiet restaurant tucked inside the many alleyways and enjoyed my first meal and glass of Croatian wine before collapsing back in my hotel room for the night.
September 12th, 2020 My only full day in Dubrovnik was all about the wine. Knowing that one of my goals of this trip was to learn more about Croatian wine, I reached out to Mario of Dubrovnik Wine Tours months before I left for my trip. Like all of my day tours, we'd agreed to touch base closer to when I'd be in town in hopes that I could join a small group tour and of course, to see what the current status of the pandemic and if I would even be able to travel to Croatia. About a week before I left, I got back in touch with Mario only to learn that he did not have a small group tour for that day; that I was the only one. He offered to give me a private tour at a price I quickly agreed upon and that's how I ended up having a completely private wine tour of the Peljasac peninsula about an hour outside of Dubrovnik. Mario shared much information about the history of wine making in Croatia. Until the war, Croatian's were only allowed to make wine for their families, not to sell or distribute. After the war this changed so the wine industry, though growing, is still quite young in Croatia. Our first stop was at an oyster farm where we boarded a boat and sailed into the "farm" where the owner pulled oyster's straight from the sea for us to sample. While I was honest with Mario saying I wasn't the biggest fan of oysters (he laughed and said, "you either love them or hate them!"), like everything I agreed to try them. There we sampled our first wine an Istrian Malvasia (which I'd later have a LOT of when I made my way to Istria the following week). And those, oysters.... they weren't half bad!
Next up was visiting three wineries/vineyards. First was Vukas winery where the winemaker, Dubravko Vukas led us through a tasting of four wines made from Plavic Mali, a grape grown widely throughout Dalmatia and along the Peljesac peninsula, and a relation to the better known Zinfandel. We tasted both a sparkling rose'and a still rose', then their Mato and Plerej in their charming and cozy tasting room.
After bidding Dubravko farewell we headed to the vineyards of Grgurevic Winery where we met winemaker Anto Grgurevic who led us down the hills between the low growing vines with grapes ready for harvest. Picking grapes along the way for me sample, we settled into a covered patio overlooking the vines were we tasted a Grk, Postup Barr Lie, a Cuvee (blend of Grk, Postup and Rukatac) and a Grand Cru (a blend of Plavac Mali and two of his 'parent grapes, Zinfandel (or Crljenak) and Dobricic). A few fun facts I learned as we sat in the vineyard. They have noise canons that periodically sound off to scare away the wild boars. Yup, you read that right, wild boars. And along the Peljesac peninsula the vines grow very low to the rocky ground with the leaves forming an umbrella over the grapes. Some of the slopes are incredibly steep making harvest by machinery impossible and quite honestly a bit back breaking by hand!
Our last winery stop of the day was at Madirazza, one of the largest producers on the peninsula. Here we tasted one of the most famous Croatian red grapes known internationally, Dingac, along with their 2016 Postup, orange wine and their 2009 Grand Cru Madirazza (a bottle of which came home with me!)
After this last tasting, it was time for food. We headed to the small coastal town of Trstenik where I enjoyed a leisurely three-course lunch at restaurant called Konoba Vittceae overlooking the sea.
Our last stop was in the sleepy town Ston, known for the longest walls in all of Europe. My wander through this town was my first taste of what I'd come to experience in many of the smaller towns I visited during my travels that week to come. Cute cobblestone streets and pedestrian walkways lined with cute restaurants (konoba's) or shops with barely a soul around. Cats leisurely laying along the sides of the buildings and shop and restaurant owners chatting with their neighbors to pass time as there were no tourists. In a way it was peaceful yet also sad that there were no tourists around to support these small businesses.
Once Mario dropped me back at my hotel for the evening, I set out to meet up with a girl I'd met through the Viber chat group that had supplied so much information as I planned my trip to Croatia. Anna was also from DC and while we had not flown into Dubrovnik on the same flights (she arrived about 12 hours behind me), we were staying at the same hotel. We met up at D'Vino Wine bar, and commiserated over the planning it took to get to Croatia, our mutual love of travel and yoga, because after all eventually I was ending up on a yoga retreat on my last stop a week later.
So, less than 48 hours after arriving in Croatia, my nerves of traveling during a pandemic began to subside, the anxiety leading up to my trip began to dissipate and things were off to a really good start. The people I had met so far, both the locals and the few fellow American's I conversed with were pleasant and happy to be traveling. I'd heard several times from the locals that they were "so happy I was there" to see their beautiful country. I began to quickly realize that this trip wasn't just going to be about exploring a new place I'd never been, but the connections with the people I met along the way. And that...is priceless.
"It's not the place you travel that makes it worthwhile. It's the people you meet along the way."