A great way to spend my 29th birthday was in Dubrovnik, Croatia where we met up with my other friend Jake and we explored the ramparts of the great walled city all day and celebrated way too long into the night in the alleyway bars of the old city.

Dubrovnik is beautiful, there is no disputing that. The old city is surrounded by a great wall the encapsulates the city and separates it from the rest of the modern city. Surrounding the walls is the refreshing Adriatic Sea and many cliffs to jump off into the sea. As we walked around the top of the wall we spotted a place where many people were jumping off of different level rocks and cliffs, so we had to join in-obviously. I also tried water polo for the first time with some Croatians practicing for their league. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

After soaking up the sun on the city beach and jumping to our hearts content we headed back to our amazing flat with full terrace and amazing old city views that we scored from a local at the bus station for only 70 Euros a night.

We then hit the twn and took way too many shots of Jameson and whatever else Mike and Jake were buying me. Needless to say we had a blast and then we weren’t too happy to wake up early to catch our car down to Albania.

I will remember Dubrovnik as a place of incredible beauty and I can see why seemingly every tourist in Europe was there, but I will also caution people that secret of Dubrovnik is out. All the tourists have arrived, the tour busses, the tour guides and the of course the Americans have arrived. We saw and met many more than anywhere else which to me is a sign that a place is past its prime. American tourists generally don’t lead the way, they come late to the party and drive up the prices for everyone else. Obviously I am kind of joking but the prices in Dubrovnik are sky high and when a slice of pizza is over $3 in Europe, there is something going on. I would recommend to people to go to Split and stay there for a more authentic Croatian feel and check out Dubrovnik for a day or so but there is much more to Croatia than just overpriced tourist shops.

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