25th Anniversary Vacation Starts

The day is finally here and we are ready to start our 25th wedding anniversary celebration vacation to Europe! After a year of planning, our bags are packed and we head to the airport. My brother, Billy, will be house & cat sitting for us while we are away and he drives our car back home after dropping us off.

At the airport, William decides to upgrade our long flight from Seattle to London to comfort class to give us more seat and leg room. We are both in middle seats, but with the extra room, it doesn’t matter too much.

We are pleasantly surprised to see we get real plates, glasses, and silverware, as well as free drinks like wine. On our seat is a little pouch with toothpaste, a toothbrush, lip balm, socks and an eye mask. There are also noise-cancelling headphones on the seat.

We settle in, but are unable to get any sleep. After all, it’s still before 10pm in our own time zone.

A long eight hours plus, we arrive in London at Heathrow Airport at 6:30am where we have a four-hour layover. That gives us time to get something to eat. William gets a traditional English breakfast while I opt for a smoothie and some toast with jam.

To kill time, we window shop but anything that catches our eye even a little bit is too expensive. I did, however, buy some eye drops and nasal saline since airplanes always dry me out badly.

The next leg of our trip flies us to Dubrovnik, Croatia. We collect our bags and go through customs where we get the first of our passport stamps. The ride to our hotel takes about 40 minutes and cost us around €50.

Hotel Adria is really nice. It’s at the top of a cliff next to the highway with the old city of Dubrovnik below. The floors of the hotel go down instead of up with the pool on the -4 floor. The view from our hotel is so pretty.

We opted for the buffet dinner at the hotel, being too tired to go out. Afterall, we have been awake over 24 hours! We nap a bit before going to dinner.

Dubrovnik

We have the entire next day to explore Dubrovnik’s old town which is within the fortress walls.

We stroll the streets, trying to avoid the crowds, many from cruise ships. I even got my photo take on the Iron Throne from HBO’s Game of Thrones!

We decide to take a boat cruise around the Dubrovnik coast and an island. The breeze alone was worth is since it was scorching hot!

We walk around taking in the sights, then have lunch at the Taj Mahal, a Michelin rated restaurant. The name is very misleading since they serve Bosnian cuisine. William had a big salad followed by a lamb shank. I had the same salad and some lamb broth soup. It was very good!

Following lunch, we toured the Rector’s Palace and the monastery. I also bought a few gifts plus a white lace dress for myself.

Back at the hotel, William took a nap while I swam a few laps in the pool. I discovered that the water in Dubrovnik is very hard and I felt like a lizard from my dry, flaking skin!

At dinner time, we first met with our tour guide and other guests who would be riding the bike tour with us. There were a mother and daughter from Vancouver, BC, a woman my age from the Philadelphia area, an army vet who had been living in Germany for the past 11 years, and nine from Brazil (three men and the rest women). We also all got set up on What’s App in a group so we could communicate.

I think we all turned in after dinner, excited for the start of our bike tour the next day.