Beach Day

Sunday rolled around and I woke up with the intention to head to the newer part of Dubrovnik to a beach I heard was more like the beaches I’m used to. I went out to the patio to check the weather and much to my surprise it was raining! I was so disappointed. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, so I hung out around the apartment and tried to wait out the rain. By late morning/early afternoon it had slowed to a drizzle, so I packed my beach bag and headed to the cab stand. I told the cabbie where I wanted to go (the beach had been recommended by a friend of Caitlin’s aunt who had lived in Dubrovnik as a young girl) but the cabbie told me he knew of a better beach, so I took him up on his offer.

The beach was a little bay along the coastline, and had numerous restaurants lining its shores along with a park and a playground. There were beach chairs for rent everywhere, so I picked one of the styles and sat down. The charge for a chair was about 10 euros, so I paid the guy and set up shop. I couldn’t figure out how to open the umbrella, so I waved the guy back over, and he told me usually it’s an additional 5 euros to open the umbrella, but because it was a crappy day and there was hardly anyone at the beach he would open it for me for free. The beach was more like a beach than those of Lorkum Island, but instead of sand it was little pebbles. I actually preferred it to sand, since the pebbles didn’t stick to you like sand does, but I’m not sure how I would have felt had it been a warm day where I was actually in the water with my flip flops off.

I read for a little while until the umbrella man came over and started chatting with me. He was young, probably about 28, and worked as an umbrella man full-time. Usually I would be annoyed by a random person interrupting my beach time, but I had been alone for three days at this point and welcomed the company. We chatted for about a half hour until he started inviting his friends to chat with us, and I was surrounded a gaggle of 30-40 year old creepy Croatian men. That was enough for me so I politely let them know I was ready to get back to my book. I managed to hold out for another hour or so, but then I couldn’t take the drizzle and cloudy day so I had lunch at the beach and headed back to the Old Town via public transportation.