TOULOUSE TO DUBROVNIK VIA LYON
After a bit of researching, we had decided to spend 4 nights in Cavtat in Croatia before our sailing holiday to discover a new area and visit Dubrovnik.
We set off from our home in the Tarn and headed to Toulouse airport and our quick evening flight to Lyon with EasyJet.
We parked the car in Parking 6 at the airport, not within walking distance but serviced by a regular shuttle bus. The parking cost €103,70 for 19 nights booked directly on the airport website
It had rained all the way to the airport and was still raining when we ‘ran’ to catch the bus…it left without us! We were less than 50 metres from the bus stop and he just went. We took a seat and waited 15 minutes until he returned.
Frisky Business!
We progressed quickly to security where once again Janine failed the ‘arch of shame’.
‘This way please’ Janine was instructed. She’s getting used to these rather in depth ‘frisks’ in French airports much to Alisons amusement!
We’re not sure who enjoyed it most to be honest, Janine, Alison, or the security girl!
A quick 1 hour flight to Lyon (€136 for two including bags and seats) and we were heading to Moxy Hotel, Lyon Airport for a few hours. (Cost €124)
Moxy is located within the airport. It’s a bit of a walk from arrivals but perfect for our departure the next morning.
Hard Beds and a Disco Wake Up Call!
Although it was getting quite late, around 21h45 by the time we checked in and dropped our bags off, Alison needed feeding.
Unusually, the hotel bar/restaurant was still open and we were able to order food.
Alison ordered a veggie burger and fries and Janine decided to be very English and just have a plate of fries. Far too late for her delicate self to be eating! The waiter offered us a strange complimentary drink, but we had no idea what it was! Janine had the alcohol-free version. Alison obviously didn’t! It was free!
Blooming hard beds! Why do hotels insist on rock hard beds?
Other than that, it was a great room with everything needed for an overnight stay including a ‘disco’ wakeup call! We had set an alarm on the TV to wake us up at the crack of dawn…and wake us up it did! Music came on…lights started flashing…that TV certainly didnt want us to miss our flight!
Our next flight was pretty early, 07h05 again with EasyJet to Dubrovnik. Flight time was around 1h45mins and cost around €100 each including seats and hold bags. We had vouchers to use from cancelled flights during covid times so at least they got used eventually.
There was nobody at bag drop and security was quiet. They were waiting for Janine and her large underwires…Yep, it happened again!
Eventually, we were off and heading on our holidays. After travelling with Volotea most recently, EasyJet was a bit of a letdown. Where was all the legroom? We safely reached our destination on time despite being quite cramped.
Hello Croatia!
After collecting our luggage, we headed to collect our car which we had booked through Discover Cars.
Our supplier was Avia Cars, Dubrovnik Airport and the cost for 5 days was a HUGE €34.69 for a VW Polo class vehicle!!! We were expecting a knacker but after doing the paperwork and adding a second driver for €32, we were handed the keys to an almost new Jeep Avenger! Alison was a happy little bunny with her new mini trucky!
As it was still early morning, we decided we would head to ACI Marina Dubrovnik and check out the place. We had a nice wander around, a chat with the charter company we were going with later in the week and ate our breakfast, a pastry each we had picked up on the way from Lidl! If you like pastries and bread, Croatia is your place.
Time to Stock Up!
On the way back to Cavtat, we stopped again to pick up some groceries. We discovered a new German store next to Lidl called Kaufland.
Bizarrely Kaufland is owned by the same group that owns Lidl so why they are next to each other, we don’t know?? Kaufland is a much bigger store than Lidl. More higgledy piggledy. Sort of organized chaos, but has everything you need and as usual, great bread! Kaufland became our new favorite store.
Time to head back to Cavtat to find the apartment that we had booked, Villa Nespola. This time we booked through Booking.com (€328 for 4 nights)
Villa Nespola is a lovely newish building housing 2 or 3 apartments and the owner’s holiday home. Our apartment had two bedrooms, 2 showers/WC’s, fully equipped kitchen/diner, and small sofa. We had fantastic views from the large balcony and it was an easy walk to the sea front at Cavtat (compared to many accommodations in the area). There was also private secure parking.
Mihela, the property manager, met us after great correspondence from herself and Kristina, and showed us around.
By now we were shattered.
We decided to carry on regardless and take a walk down to the bay. It really is a beautiful bay with lots of restaurants, bars, and a few little shops. There is also a pharmacy, small supermarket and of course a bakery!
Ferries to Dubrovnik also leave from Cavtat and there are lots of stands to buy tickets on the dockside.
Cavtat is divided into two bays. The second we discovered on our last night!
After a wander around, we decided it was time to head home via the churros stand. Our diet had already crashed and burned and it was only day 2! To be fair, we shared 1 portion…in fact we didn’t share…Alison ate most of them! Ali doesn’t share food!
Both tired after our early start, we decided to cook our pasta and shove a garlic bread in the oven. It’s exciting for us to be able to buy garlic bread! France, the land of garlic and baguettes, just hasn’t worked out garlic bread!
A Visit to Kupari
We awoke the next morning to sunny/cloudy skies and proceeded to enjoy our breakfast on our balcony. As usual, Alison had packed a stash of Yorkshire Tea so a big mug of tea and toast set her up for the morning at least! After a leisurely breakfast, we wandered back to the bay to check out the restaurants and ferry times to Dubrovnik.
Was that a drop of rain? YES! With great haste we marched back up the hill. We’ve no idea where that burst of fitness, energy or agility came from, but we made it home before the downpour.
As quickly as it started to rain, it ceased, and we were able to get out.
Our first stop was Kupari, an abandoned bay of derelict hotels between Cavtat and Dubrovnik.
Once the home of beautiful hotels developed for the Yugoslav Military, it was heavily bombed during the war of independence. Just skeleton buildings remain now, all open to the elements and with little sign of the once opulent lodgings for the military top brass and their families.
It’s definitely worth a visit if exploring bombed buildings is your thing! With no security or ‘out of bounds’ areas, sensible shoes and a torch are needed. The beach and water are beautiful. It’s worth packing a picnic and plenty of drinks to enjoy a few hours in this strange place with free parking and nice sand, which is not easy to find in the area!
A cafe just around the bay looks like it will open at peak times but on our visit, it was closed.
For more information, history and photos on Kupari, please click “HERE” to see our blog dedicated to this bay.
The next bay to Kupari is Srebreno, only around the corner but feels a million miles away! Fully developed with a lovely Sheraton resort, a couple of cafes, bars and restaurants, all shiny and new! What a difference a bay makes…
Rain, Rain and More Rain!
This evening, we had decided to eat out. Our chosen restaurant was in the other bay of Cavtat. As the forecast wasn’t great, we decided to drive.
According to TripAdvisor, our restaurant was an easy walk. Could we find it??? Could we heck! With spots of rain starting to fall, we quickly made our way back towards the hub of restaurants. It wasn’t quick enough! We got soaked.
Luckily, as we were going sailing in a few days, we did have waterproofs with us. Wading through puddles, we made our way to the nearest restaurant Pizzeria Kabalero.
By now it was a full blown storm. Thunder and lightning was lighting up the bay. How long could we stay in this place to keep dry?
We ordered our food and dried off. One of the unfortunate things about Croatia is that they allow smoking in reasonably closed terraces! On this occasion, the terrace was as good as an indoor room and all around us, diners were lighting up.
We can’t say it spoilt our dinner as it was quite spacious, but we’d certainly have rather they didn’t. We were almost the last to eat and the pizza was good.
After eating, we dawdled for a time waiting for the weather to break, it didn’t. Another mad dash to the car and we were on our way home.
Ferry to Dubrovnik
Upon waking the next morning, the sun was shining. After a quick breakfast, we made our way down to the front to buy tickets for our trip to Dubrovnik.
There are a few different ferry operators all vying for business. The fare is fixed at €20 return and worth every penny to avoid trying to find parking. It’s also a nice trip that takes around an hour each way.
We picked our operator and jumped on the ferry waiting to leave. Now, we were told they are all the same company but clearly, they’re not. You only discover this when you are waiting to come home and your particular company seems to have fewer boats than some of the others!
After an enjoyable boat trip, we pulled up to the harbour in the center of Dubrovnik old town. It’s quite a spectacular way to arrive!
With some trepidation, we made our way through the harbour and towards the centre. We had been warned that its almost unbearably packed with tourists, but we deliberately picked a day with fewer cruise ships in port.
It wasn’t so bad and quickly we were heading up the main street and straight towards an ice cream shop! We each chose our ice creams and sitting on the church steps, proceeded to people watch for a good while enjoying the sunshine (and the ice cream). Eventually, we decided we better have a walk.
To walk the walls there is a cost of €35 per person. This buys you a day pass to enter several different areas and access the walls walk. We didn’t buy it! Instead, we enjoyed walking around the town admiring the architecture, the fantastic smells drifting from the restaurants, wandering down the little alleyways and the wide pedestrian roads.
There are lots of squares to discover, churches to visit, shops to buy your souvenirs and history to read. We stayed 2 or 3 hours and it was enough. Our last stop was back to the same ice cream shop for a well deserved second ice cream. How naughty are we?
Was Dubrovnik our favorite place? Probably not! We’re very glad we went but like all hectic tourist spots with crowds of people, its somewhere to go in the off season. Click “HERE” to read our blog on Dubrovnik.
We headed back to the harbour to catch the water taxi. All of the other companies boats came and went except for ours, which seemed to suddenly be running hourly! WARNING… check which companies have the most boats running!
Eventually we were back on board and heading back to Cavtat. It had been a busy day and we were glad to be back on our balcony.
How we love a balcony with a view. Tonight was an exact replica of our first nights dinner…fresh pasta and garlic bread! We are quite simple souls.
With our alarms set, we headed to bed.
A Trip to Split and our Favourite Restaurant
On the last day of our ‘holiday’, we were rudely woken up at 7am for our day trip to Split. Now bearing in mind it’s around a 3h drive, we needed to get up and off.
We love Split and the sailing around this area. Previously, we had visited the area looking for property before deciding on returning to France and just fancied checking out a few things. We had arranged a meeting with a yacht charter company owner to see if our ‘plan’ for a future business would work.
After a lovely drive, including passing over the bridge that has been recently built to bypass Bosnia, the Peljesac Bridge, we arrived in Split.
Split is a working City as well as a tourist destination and we prefer it to Dubrovnik. It’s the starting point for so many lovely islands, National parks, historic towns and villages and our favorite restaurant we discovered on our last trip!
After a 2h meeting (watch this space), we decided we had just enough time to go to our restaurant, Baletna Skola situated right on the seafront in Kastel Kambelovac.
This restaurant got its name from the ballet school that used to exist here. It was the first ballet school established in Dalmatia, over 100 years ago. There is also a hotel bearing the same name.
The last time we stayed in the area, we ate here most nights. It was always packed with locals, dark and dingy, but the food was amazing. What a surprise we were in for. Instead of dark and dated, it was light and modern! We almost felt disappointed. It seems that during lockdown they took the time to completely renovate the place. Somehow it had lost its typical local restaurant charm.
In the spacious dining room, we sat down and received the menus. So much choice! Janine opted for steak and chips and Alison, her usual veggie pizza. The food was fantastic as usual. If we’d have had more time, we’d have probably spent hours deciding but today, we needed to be quick.
If you’re in the area, this local restaurant is very well known. Any taxi driver will know it and if you want to eat at standard times, booking is recommended. We rocked up at 15h00 and it was ok, still busy, but OK.
After thoroughly enjoying our trip down memory lane, we headed back to Cavtat. It was dark by the time we got back to our apartment. Still full from our late lunch, we didn’t bother with dinner. Instead, we got packed and tidied up ready for our sailing holiday the next day.
Summary
We had a great few days. The weather had been mixed, but it was expected for the first week in May.
EasyJet got us there with no delays and no comfort! Can’t really complain, it is what it is (until you fly with Volotea on one of their low capacity 319’s)
Our hire car was fantastic and cheap! Avia Car Hire
The apartment at Villa Nespola was clean and close to the front. If we can get up the hill, most people will! It is right under the flight path and planes pass over very close from early morning until late night. It didn’t bother us too much but did wake us up in the morning the first couple of days.
Pick your water taxi company carefully!
Go to our favorite Restaurant near Split, Baletna Skola.
You can still smoke inside bars and restaurants it seems….
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