Dubrovnik: Day 1

I really wanted to post more from Dubrovnik, but the computers in the lobby were SO SLOW, and it was hard to type with the silly Croatian keyboard, so I'll share our vacation now instead.  WITH PICTURES! (as promised).

We arrived in Dubrovnik, which, like I said, was stunningly beautiful.

We checked into our über fancy hotel, which had its own awesome little beach.

looking up at our hotel from the beach

the beach (look how BLUE the water is!!)

 We were advised to take the cable car the day we arrived, as the hotel concierge thought the weather might not be as nice the rest of our trip.  

To get to the cable car, we had to climb these stairs:

and some more stairs, but we finally made it!

looking up at where the cable car goes from the base

From the top, we could see the Agean Sea, the small walled city of Dubrovnik (center) with its red-roofed buildings, and the island of Lokrum.

Once we returned to the bottom, we decided to explore the city a bit and find some dinner.  To get into the city we had to climb down these stairs:

There are a lot of stairs in Dubrovnik... 

As we were walking around exploring and keeping our eyes out for an awesome restaurant, we noticed this adorable cat just hanging out in the middle of a busy square.

As it turns out, there are TONS of cats living inside the city walls of Dubrovnik.  They hang around the restaurants and in the alleys eating left-overs.  They were all very friendly and looked well cared for.  I really liked them, and may have taken quite a few cat pictures... 

We found a restaurant to eat at right on the main street.  We enjoyed people-watching while we ate, and then walked back to the hotel to enjoy the view and call it a night (it had been an early morning and a long day of travel!!)

The beautiful main street (the streets are MARBLE!)