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The central building in this picture was our hotel. Actually, not all of it was our hotel - only the middle two floors. The rest was private housing. Hotel More was a great place to stay. The picture was taken from the beach, so you can see how close it is! That cross in front of it, the tall metal pole? It's historically significant. It marks the place where Pope John Paul II celebrated mass a decade ago. The cross was part of the elevated altar and everyone was on the beach. The hotel wasn't built at the time. This place takes care of you - they're always concerned that things are right, ask you what kind of food you want for breakfast, loan you silverware for dinner, and give you a table chairs, -and- chaise longues on the veranda. Can you tell I want to go back?
This picture is from the restauraunt about a mile from the hotel that we had dinner at - twice. Like most places in the Balkans, it has a patio to eat outside. The day was good, so we did. I just like how my companion caught the colors of the sunset in this view. I'll make a post with some dinner pictures on it if my companion ever gets to processing my phone pictures...
Being stopped for road construction is rather normal in Croatia and Montenegro. You have to build it into your transit time when going places. So we thought nothing of it when we were stopped in this rather scenic area (yes, they're all scenic, really) on the way from Dubrovnik to Split and waited for a few minutes. We were about a dozen cars back from the light. Paying more attention to the view down to the sea than the road work going on up the mountain, we were slightly startled to hear a series of booms. Oh! They were blasting a new place to build the road and get another couple of lanes. Great. Then... rumble, rumble, bounce, rumble.... one boulder comes crashing down the mountainside. Sure enough, it landed right on the road. We saw it coming down, but my companion didn't react quickly enough to take pictures on the way.
It was kind of funny to watch the construction workers afterwards. All of them at the top stood in a line with their hands on their hips, looking down and shaking their heads. In unison. You could tell they were cursing, even from that distance. This poor guy was the flagman below, kicking off the pieces of rock to finish tumbling down into the sea.
And this is the boulder in all its glory. Notice the guard rail is -still- intact, and only bent. It gave my companion a lot more confidence in driving on the roads that if something happened, the rail wasn't as flimsy as he thought. On our way back three days later, the boulder had already been removed but the guard rail was still bent.
I got the flame started this week and completely finished the blue. I promise, in a few posts you'll see why I've been so slow stitching!
When we were driving from Dubrovnik to Split, we had plenty of time - we ended up with a whole day to do it and it was a three hour drive. Sooo... we saw a sign for a tourist spot called Ston and decided to explore. It's a teeny tiny town on the peninsula west of the coast road an hour or so north of Dubrovnik. For a small spot, there's a lot to see. This top picture is of the salt pans there. It looks kind of like a rice paddy, but they're evaporating sea water to make salt. You can even buy it.
The first thing you see on entering Ston is the walls, though. This picture was taken from the back side, where most of the town is. These walls go over the hill and all the way down the other side. Not quite as high as Kotor, but still very impressive.
These few pictures are of Split's old town. The place is weird because it's built of the palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian (end of the third century AD). The roads are the palace's corridors, and the buildings, former rooms. This top picture is an example. The columns are part of the old palace and the cathedral was built inside. Kind of neat looking.
While in the old town of Split, which is also Diocletian's palace, I found three! shops. Two were trim shops and one was a fabric shop. I helped the daily receipts of all three. This top shop shows some cute ribbons and a wide piece of lace I found.
More trims here and the only piece of fabric I bought at the fabric shop. Fabric was top quality, but I really don't like paying nearly a hundred euros per meter for stuff I could get in the states for about thirty dollars a yard, especially since I can dye my oen silk. So I bought this piece of linen, which I found really interesting. Now to figure out what to do with it.
The metal trim snaking across this picture is heavy and was expensive, but I really like it. It's made up of basket charms and Swarovski crystals. It'd make a good bracelet with some left over, but I have other plans. The ribbon on netting will do well on some projects, too.
I've got most of the colors done on the plaques. They're coming along, slowly, as everything these days. I'll be putting up more pictures of why things were slow last week in the next couple of days. Anyway, I like the look of these quite a bit.
After reading my previous Dubrovnik post, my companion said I had to do more. I'd mentioned the restaurant on the Gruz harbor and then not shown a picture, so... here is one he took. We were on the balcony terrace of the place and it was a clear night. The lights are across the bay between Babin Kuk (where we were) and Gruz. Boats would sometimes come in to dock. It was very pretty.
This is part of Gruz by daylight, including a spiffy suspension bridge that we went over on our way to Split.
Our hotel had "outside" elevators. They were more like tiny trams, since they went on a grade instead of straight up and down. Here's a picture of the hotel's beach from the elevator. The beach, like all Adriatic ones, is rocky.
There are numerous textile sellers on Dubrovnik's old town streets. All purport to be selling handmade items. Very few of them are actually plying their craft at their stalls. I broke down and bought this lovely cloth from one of them. It's very plain linen with a satin stitch border of flowers with a line of slinge around the inside (really well done) and a hemstitched hem. It cost me twenty euros, a pretty good price, I think. 
I also found a fabric shop! It was tucked away in one of the streets in the lower portion of the old quarter, fairly close to the Poor Claires monastery. She had a small inventory - a couple of needlepoint kits, some fabrics, and more trims. She also stocked a lot of shades of the local perle cotton. I bought these trims for my crazy quilting. The braided ribbons are dark blue and green. She had other colors - buff, red, and orange - but these were the ones I liked best. I've got a bit of a fascination for eyelets these days, so I bought the white. Now to figure out what to do with them. In sum, the cost was less than ten dollars.
I discovered while on the road trip that the canvas is missing some lines on the petals. If I had done it the way it was drawn, I would not have had alternating petals all the way around. When you look at the picture they give with the stitch guide. it's pretty obvious the canvas wasn't completely drawn. Another disappointment in this series. I'm compensating and will finish it, just hate that I have to do so. This is what I accomplished while waiting in traffic jams in Montenegro.
We spent a total of three nights and two days in Dubrovnik and stayed at the Hotel President. It was typical of the big hotels - impersonal and somewhat cold. The service in the restaurant was practically nonexistent. Overall, it was overpriced, but so was the rest of Dubrovnik. On the other hand, this top picture is of the view coming in from Montenegro. The red rooftops and walls are of Dubrovnik's old town, which is about a fifth of the size of the city overall.
We spent two days wandering around old town, visiting everything from the aquarium to an exhibit of war photos. This second picture is of the boat basin, where you can catch a boat to go out to the islands just off the coast. 
Both my husband and my companion say I have a depth perception problem; it's probably why I have a really bad case of acrophobia. Despite that, I climbed the city wall! This picture is of the stairs I had to go up to get there. Both staircases, plus another one not visible in the shot. My heart was racing by the time I got to the top, and several times at the top, but I did it. The views were gorgeous.
We had lunch here on the first day. It was just sandwiches, but they were good and the shade was needed. It's in the main square of the old town and about twenty feet from where most of the walking tours gather. 
