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Cheapo Drubrovnik
As a BA regular, now disappointed by the recent changes, I have been working my way through a number of other airlines.
Since BA is a 'full service' carrier, I thought it was about time I tried some of the 'low cost' carriers to see how they worked out for me. So this trip is MAN-DBV on EasyJet and DBV-MAN on Ryanair. And since it's 'low cost' I will also include a breakdown of the price of each element. £33.30 TRAIN Off peak anytime return between SOT and MIA booked on Avanti £79.56 HOTEL Tribe at Manchester airport £62.99 FLIGHT MAN-DBV Easyjet, no luggage or seat selection £12.75 COACH Return from DBV to old town and back (15 euros) £106.89 HOTEL 2 nights in Guest house Jeljenic in Dubrovnik £11.45 FLIGHT DBV-MAN Ryanair (wow!) So that's less than £300 all in door to door for a weekend. |
Let us begin...
I travelled up to MAN by train from Stoke on a Friday evening, TRIBE hotel was easy to find from the train station and very easy to walk to T1 in the morning. Walkways obviously not working. https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...98f300f25e.jpg Unfortunately I left before breakfast opened at the hotel (about 05:30) but I had brought some supplies reckoning that there was a good chance I would miss out on the lounge. In the event security was a breeze and I was through to the duty free shop about 20 minutes after leaving my hotel room. That includes getting a secondary on my bag. Two new scanning machines were in operation, so leave everything in. Entered via the fast track queue to find myself walking parallel to everyone else and coming together to the same queue for the scanners. I asked if there was a fast track queue and was greeted by the answer "They are all fast track." to which there is really no reply. Maybe it would have been different if the place was busier. The scanners are new since the last time I was at T1 a few months ago when fast track very much was a thing and was needed. https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0430bd56a1.jpg |
Once through I managed to get into the Aspire lounge in T1. It's been quite a while since I've been in it and it is better than I remember, certainly better than the Escape dungeon. Once I managed to get some pax to move their luggage that was blocking off a whole table they weren't using, I could sit and have my bloody mary and bacon sandwich. The drink was much improved by instructing the lady at the bar to only put the tomato up half way.
Nice view of the stands over here at T1 (the EasyJet terminal) and across to the T3 Ryanair and BA Terminal (for now). https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a99910a7b0.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...52ac85582c.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c1af7b2784.jpg |
Didn't pay for seats or luggage on Easyjet, but I had a window seat in an exit row at time of checkin so was very comfy with plenty of space, although no actual window.
On arrival I had pre-booked a return coach to the old city where I would be staying. Some confusion with it not being obvious which coach would be used, but 30 mins after landing a driver opened one up and scanned us in. If you haven't pre-bought a ticket, you can buy them in the terminal (or just buy them online) but you can't pay the driver. The coach drive is a 30 minute drive along the coast road with views of the sea all the way and some tempting glimpses of what might be ahead. When it arrived, it took us down to a drop off right next to the Old City. This *is not* the same place it departs from. So now I had to find my hotel. |
Great introduction to the city. I had the hotel address. But GPS doesn't work brilliantly in the built up environment with narrow streets.
I took several wrong paths and eventually had to navigate to my place by finding number 11 on the street and back tracking to what must be the door for number 7 but it has nothing posted on it, no number nothing, but there is a push button that looks like it might be a doorbell. Pushed it and a guy opened the door after a while. Turns out this *is* my place (booked through Hotels.com) and I am walked down to number 5 one door down. He reaches through the window and pops the latch opening the door. He's a nice enough fella, but the place is pretty poor. I didn't take any photos of it, but it was a spooky shrine to the favoured son of the family who had a lot of medals for Judo. His medals were there in a frame, so were his baby photos, prom photos and various other memorabelia. The place had a kitchen and loo, but it reminded me of sofa surfing at the house of an unemployed friend rather than staying in a professional rental accomodation. But it was in the heart of the old city in one of the historic buildings in a quant street. So it's all good, let's roll with it. The picture is of the street next to the one I was staying on. Mine had less flowers and less door numbers but was otherwise identical. https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fac4d24889.jpg |
Didn't spend a lot of time settling in. The advantage of the Easyjet flight is that because it leaves so early from Manchester it is barely even lunchtime now. So let's make a start.
First stop the cable car to the top of the hills behind the city. These are seasonal, but they have just started back up after the winter. If you're coming in the shoulder seasons, do check what is and isn't open. I was lucky at the very end of March that everything I wanted to do was open, but sometimes it can be into April before things open. Although busy by my standards Dubrovnik was virtually empty by its normal standards. Cruise ships hadn't started dropping hoards of visitors and very few stag and hen parties were around. But fortune favoured me with great weather and sunshine. T shirt weather for brits even if the locals were still wearing puffer jackets. The views of the city from the top are great but there's not a lot there. There is a nice restaurant which I thought was pretty pricey, but as it turned out was not really any more expensive than the places elsewhere in the main tourist spots below. I had a whisky sour and took in the views. You can also see Lokrum island from here and Fort Lovrijenac. https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...799d258d94.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...76ae66d176.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...025efadfa2.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9cc08b77b9.jpg |
Back down to the city and to the room. You could actually pinpoint where the room was from the hilltop view.
Plan the next step. At this stage I thought the Lokrum ferry wasn't supposed to be running but I thought I would go to the port area anyway. Turns out the ferry has started early due the to the sunny weather bringing some demand, so I lucked out there. This is a photo of the place I actually stayed (far left) the hotel 'reception' is the door above. It was quite noisy with people going past, but it did quieten down ater 9pm. I can imagine that in high season it would be very noisy the whole time and some would prefer to stay in the Hilton just outside the old town instead. https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c5792f2021.jpg |
Found the famous Spanish Steps on the way to the harbour. They are closed at the moment for restoration, but they should be open later in 2025.
The times of the ferry to and from Lokrum island were on a laminated sheet at the ticket booth. Like a yoof I took a photo instead of trying to remember. https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c8afab6499.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...52ce09c3af.jpg |
Lokrum island is really a monestary. Now there is a botanical gardens, some walks and some Game of Thrones themed nonsense.
At one end of the island not too far from the port is a small lagoon that is sometimes connected to the sea through a channel and sometimes not. The water in it is 'half fresh' as a result so tasted only very slightly salty. Photos below show the lake, the cave inlet where it is connected to the sea through a rock passage and the coast on the other side. I love the fact that there are places in the world where they don't nanny you. The cliff was completely open and while I was there someone's five year old child was scrambling over the rocks having fun a few feet from sudden death with no barriers whatsoever. But since they hadn't been brought up to assume everything everywhere was safe, they were probably fine although I can imagine American parents having kittens. https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0af559cbfc.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...27322ec834.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a466da6bbc.jpg |
After getting back from Lokrum I was peckish. It still wasn't late, too early for the dinner crowd really, but most of the restaurants seem to open for lunch and stay open through into the evening. There was *a lot* of choice in where to eat so I took my time looking around. Eventually settled on a seafood place that had an option of a fixed price 50 euro menu that took my fancy. I can't say I regret it, it was pretty good. But the wine was pricey so my late lunch\dinner was over £70 in total.
I was the only person in the whole resteraunt, so it would have been a nice relaxing private dining experience if it hadn't been for the slightly disconcerting aspect of various staff peaking round the corner from time to time as where they had seated me (in this place that must have had 50+ tables) was not in view of the bar section where they were all hanging out and chatting. https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5b41499102.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3997ce6c32.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ed2618211e.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9109e28626.jpg https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9d0252b736.jpg https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...778ca5f0e8.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6074945451.jpg |
Decided to call it quits for the day after this and ready myself for a full day tomorrow.
I had bought the 1 day 'Dubrovnik Pass' for 40 Euros which was a sensible move as a ticket to go up on the city walls is 40 Euros on its own. I didn't use the bus pass that comes with it, but I did visit a couple of the museums that were included, although to be fair you wouldn't have missed anything by skipping the museums included in the pass. The ones that are actually worth visiting are not included. |
I set off in the morning to find Fort Lovrijenac. It's one of the Game of Thrones filming locations and impressive in its own right. Passed a few other places I recognised along the way.
The way to the fort is not exactly signposted with big signs. So I got lost, found a nice place for breakfast with a wild fig tree growing round its entrance, then headed back to Tourist Information and found my way from there. I think you are supposed to pay to enter, but there was no-one in the booth when I got there (still quite early on Sunday) so I got in free. NB There are a lot of steps in Dubrovnik. I did over 20,000 steps a day and mostly they were not horizontal, at least 5000 of them were steps up and 5000 steps down. This fort is no exception. But it has some great views so is worth the trip. https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a28dee2f28.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f6c276fc52.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ad8f1ef26b.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4da42523f9.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...593fa01aca.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...64eca75bc3.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...30bb29034a.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...081f542474.jpg |
After that it's the city walls themselves. Your entrance ticket gets you one circuit only, so make sure you have the time to do the whole thing before you start.
Here's a selection of photos from my transit https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7546c613a0.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fca15b785a.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5a2f867543.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...dd699ac7d9.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...04dc06d100.jpg |
I then visited the Rector's Palace (included in the Dubrovnik Pass) and had an evening meal at a place called Taj Mahal which was Croatian cuisine not Indian as you might expect. That meal wasn't as photogenic as the night before so no photos (although it also cost north of £70)
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So that's it for Dubrovnik. In the morning I found my way to the Platinus office for the coach back to the airport. Got an early coach as I wanted to check out the lounge.
As it happens it was rather good. I was the only one there for quite a while. A few others turned up later. There was a BA flight to London about the same time as my Ryanair flight to Manchester and I would say the denizens of the lounge were split 50:50 between those two flights. I did actually pay for a seat near the front of the Ryanair flight. One thing was to make sure I was near the front to I could exit and get to my train home quickly, but another was to allow me to check in early (before I even left the UK) and avoid any hassle having to make sure I could check in by wifi <24 hours prior to departure. I needn't have bothered really. The flight was about 25% occupied. The arrival in MAN and train back to Stoke were uneventful. So back early afternoon on Monday ready for work in the morning :( Hope you enjoyed the report. Next stop Riga... https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3378a47328.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...acf8ff1b07.jpg |
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