Day 9
Back on the ferry at 10am and goodbye to Hvar. Our trusty driver – Nano met us and drove us to Dubrovnik (wiki ref here) – the destination that most in the party wanted to see. “If you want to take a nap, do it in the first hour the road is rather boring!” Nano warned us. Well it was and it wasn’t. The road was a really good four lane highway that travelled South through many mountain ranges and the tunnels that had been bored through them were impressive. 
But the most impressive sight was the Peljesac Bridge (wiki ref here). Approaching the City we entered the outskirts of a modern Town. Our hotel was situated about 3kms from the Old Town and after cleanup and relaxation we met the guide at the hotel for a two hour guided tour of the Old Town.
Let me say that Dubrovnik is a zoo full of tour groups led by guides wielding guidons that identify each group. In a quote taken from the “Dubrovnik Visitors” website – “Dubrovnik uses a people counting system to monitor the number of visitors within its historic core. This system employs six counters installed at all entrances to the Old Town Core, which update visitor data every 15 minutes. The data is displayed on an interactive map on the official website, using colored circular markers to indicate crowd levels. The upper limit of the acceptable capacity, with a moderate level of tolerance for visitors, according to the “Carrying Capacity Assessment of the UNESCO World Herita ge Site of the Old Town of Dubrovnik,” is 11,275. Today when we left at 1330 hrs, 8369 visitors were in the Old Town. I can’t imagine just how much more crowded it could be with an additional 2800 visitors. The guide left us downtown after explaining how the Dubrovnik Pass worked and how to get a day pass for the bus back to the hotel.
Food was the next order of business and we soon discovered that the cheapest drink by volume was .5 litre of beer compared to water and coke. A bottle of water is anywhere from 3 euro to 4.25 depending where you buy it. One soon learns to use an empty bottle and refill it from the ancient fountain by the Plice Gate.
We managed to navigate the bus by following Google Maps to get off at the nearest stop near the hotel.