Dubrovnik - Day 1

With the Easter break, Royal Wedding public holiday and the Bank Holiday all within days of each other, it was a most opportune time for Brits to take a holiday.  In fact, an 11 day holiday for the price of only three days of annual leave.  Bargain!  Smee and I weren't planning to do that - I wanted to be around for the Royal Wedding!!  We settled on just a short trip to the coastal, picturesque city of Dubrovnik instead.

We stayed at the Hotel Bellevue, which was located about a 5 minute bus ride (or 10-15 minute stroll) away from the Old Town.  It was indeed a very nice hotel with super helpful staff.

The hotel had it's own private beach!  Smee and I were amazed at the clarity of the Adriatic Sea.  Hard to dump any unwanted goods here without them being spotted. 

(L-R)  At the outskirts of the Old Town.  Smee at the entrance to the Old Town, the Pile/Pila Gate.  Stradun - the main of many marbled paths within the city walls.  

Smee and I often browse food reviews to stop us from roaming the street aimlessly searching for food.  More than a few guides recommended Kamenice as a place that locals frequent (thumbs up) and whose specialty was seafood (another thumbs up).

The menu was quite limited which is never considered to be a negative.  Often it is the case that what a restaurant does cook, they cook it very well (thumbs up again).  Smee and I had high hopes for some honest Croatian fare.

Smee and I ordered the (L-R) mussels buzzara (sautéed in garlic, olive oil, parsley and white wine), fried squid and fried small fish which I've assumed to be sardines.  

I'll start with the good.  The fried squid batter was very light and the squid itself was not overcooked, remaining tender rather than chewy.  The same batter had been used for the sardines and that was nice too but for the weak-hearted, eating little fish heads might a bit challenging after a while.  I call these dishes 'good' but it was still nothing to rave about.  I guess the squid and sardines were 'good' in comparison to the 'train wreck' that was the mussels buzzara.  I've been disappointed by mussels in Europe before, mainly because I had only ever previously eaten the gigantic mussels more commonly served up in Australia and New Zealand.  There was no expectation for these mussels to be large but these were the tiniest mussels I've ever seen.  They were about the size of my fingernail.  The shells weren't very clean.  The buzzara sauce was exactly what it was and nothing to get excited about.  The icing on the cake was that a lot of the mussels hadn't been de-bearded either which meant that a lot of the mussel wasn't edible.

Yet there are so many rave reviews for this place.  Who are these people?  Have they only eaten crappy seafood before?  If anything, Kamenice puts me off seafood... and I'm a seafood lover!!  There were a few bad reviews which reflect my less than favourable thoughts.  

Night dawned on us as we finished of our dinner. 

I had to eat something else.  Gelati will do!