It was tipping it down and, as beautiful as Dubrovnik old town is, we were a bit sick of being so wet! We went looking for somewhere to dry off and found two beautiful places. The first was a wine bar, tiny in size and decorated with hundreds of used corks. It was elegant enough to feel special, but not too upmarket that we felt out of place in our rain gear. The atmosphere was really friendly and after a couple of glasses, we felt brave enough to head back out into the rain.
Running across to the Rector’s Palace, we didn’t know quite what to expect, but the beautiful building was a gem, with lots of rooms filled with old furniture, paintings and trinkets. It gave us a real sense of Dubrovnik’s history and it was fascinating to read about the uses for the building and it’s customs (for example, the Rector couldn’t leave the building without permission of the Senate – as big as the building was, I’d have gone a little stir-crazy!). The building even had a dungeon, which was suitably dark and claustrophobic- an interesting contrast to the fancy rooms above.
The main hall’s ornate twisting staircase boasted an open roof over the centre of the square, which meant that the rain poured down through the middle of the building, leaving dry pathways around the edges of the walls. As we started up the stairs, thunder rolled out and we stopped on the landings to take in the scene. It may have been the wine from earlier, but there was something so powerful about the rain cascading down over the edge of the staircase as the lightning flashed above us. It may not have been the most picturesque place we visited on the trip, but it certainly created a memory that will stay with me for a long time.
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