During our wall walk we stopped to have a delicious gelato ice cream in a dish. We both had 2 large scoops of icecream, and for someone who doesn't eat a lot of icecream I really enjoyed it. I had lemon sorbet and strawberry yoghurt and Ken had strawberry yoghurt and hazelnut. We rested on stools on the wall and watched others pass by. It was much hotter now and the " people traffic" had increased as we completed our leisurely two and a half hour wall trek. When we headed down the final staircase we decided to visit a couple of churches to rest in their cool interior and to look at the artworks on the ceilings and walls and sculptures on display.
We wandered up and down the narrow streets looking at the different shops and coffee bars and we soon found ourselves in a little open market square with stalls of homemade products in a small cobbled square so we meandered around enjoying the smells of spices, oils, candles, fresh vegetables and cheeses. Ken bought me a tiny bottle of Dubrovnik lavender oil and a lavender potpourri pouch.
As Ken was resting on a stone two of our fellow cruise passengers, Mike and Hazel,from NZ, stopped for a chat. Mike had missed a step and was sporting a grazed arm so I was able to provide him with some anticeptic and paw paw cream which we hope will prevent infection. It is so easy to miss a step when sight seeing - I keep reminding myself to stop before looking around and I tend to watch the steps as I climb but even then I have stumbled once or twice.
We continued to explore the maze of narrow walkways until we found a cute pizza bar in a laneway and we stopped to listen to the sounds of the city, watch the passing parade down our alley and had a great pizza for our late lunch. We had sparkling water which was so refreshing after our trek around this ancient city. We visited one final church building on our way out of the Old City. It had been built in a charming Baroque style and had lovely stained glass windows.
As we headed for the exit gate we noticed some large photographs of a shop burning after a mortar landed on the triple storey residence of the shop owner. The photographs showed a picture of the shop before it was destroyed by fire and a shot of the utter destruction that took place at night, on 6 July, 1991. The shopkeeper also recorded his thoughts of the incident and we read that he was only able to rescue his aged mother and the cat because the fire was so fierce. Australia has never experienced threats like this and it is hard to comprehend just how dreadful it would have been for the people living with the fear of attack everyday and night, over an 18 month period.
We headed to our meeting point and true to his word our driver arrived at 3.15pm to drive us back to the ship. It had been another great day and we were tired but thankful for all that we had seen.
