Peaceful, Easy Feeling

We arrived in the quiet seaside village of Cavtat on Tuesday afternoon, after travelling about 16 hours from Chicago via Brussels and Vienna.  Our arrangement with our Innkeeper, Andrusko, was to call him when we left the airport and he would meet us in town and direct us to a free parking space, since his inn was located on a restricted road and there was no parking available there.  It was a good plan, except for the fact that we had no cell phone and there was no public phone available at the airport.  So we took our chances and drove down a winding, scenic road into the center of town, parking right next to a conveniently placed town map.  As we were studying the map and pointing to the location of the inn on the map, a gentleman approached us. “Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt?”  What a nice surprise!  It was Andrusko, who had been awaiting our arrival and spotted us when we began pointing at the location of his inn on the map. 

Andrusko led us the short block to his home, which featured an inviting garden patio in the front, complete with a loquat tree covered in small orange fruit resembling apricots, a fig tree, and several flowering plants including a pink-blooming hydrangea.  The house was made of stone and small rock walls lined the perimeter of the patio, each hand decorated by Andro’s wife with mosaics made from smooth white, beige and gray pebbles gathered from the beach and shaped into dolphins, flowers, and suns. Up another short set of stairs past a second shaded patio, we reached the entrance to guesthouse.  We had a room on the top floor with a great view of the bay and a nice breeze blowing through it.  Although Andro was clearly in his mid-70’s, he refused to allow me to carry my luggage,  and proudly showed us around our bathroom, bedroom, and shared kitchen.  He had been born in this home as had his two children, boys who are now in their 40’s with families of their own.  He had endured the upheaval of the war and was now thoroughly enjoying his role as host and tour guide. 

Once he got us situated, our host left to go scout for a couple of lost Australian women who should have arrived on the same flight as us, but two hours later, were nowhere to be found. It turns out they caught the wrong bus from the airport and travelled to Dubrovnik by mistake.  Weary from their journey, they hit a local bar before hiring a taxi to return them to Cavtat.  Upon arrival at Villa Andro, they partook again with a little homemade brandy on the terrace.   Liking their thought process, we set out to find a bar of our own, and selected a little place on the edge of the bay that served tapas, beer, and wine and offered internet service.   When we asked about connecting to the web, the waiter told us we could pay the small fee, or if we preferred, we could connect for free to another service which happened to be in range.  Hmm.  What to do?  After sending the obligatory emails to friends and family (“we have arrived safely, hope to be drinking soon, sorry you’re not here with us!”), we ordered a couple of glasses of beer on draft and really started to relax for the first time in several days.   The weather was the perfect temperature, maybe in the low 70’s – not too hot or cold, and we slowly nursed our beers before strolling off to see the rest of the tiny village.

Not too far away, we came across a little salon where we both decided to get haircuts.  Why not?  It felt great to be pampered and to get freshened up before dinner.   And what a nice dinner it was!  Just as the sun was setting we ate outside and had an incredibly delicious meal of freshly caught swordfish, mussels steamed in white wine, garden  vegetables, freshly baked bread, and an arugula and tomato salad. With this, we enjoyed a very nice but early bottle of 2006 Grgic red wine full of earthy flavors of the rocky limestone soil about an hour north of us, where it’s produced.  We selected the wine because it was crafted at the winery owned by Mike Grgic of Napa Valley’s Grgich Hills winery, and was reputed to be some of the best in Croatia.  It was not a disappointment!  We chatted with our waiter about our plans to go wine tasting the next day in the reputed Peljesac region and he pulled out a paper and wrote down the names of some of his favorite winemakers with whom he insisted we meet.  Sounds like a good plan!  Full of dinner and wine, we sauntered back to the inn and called an end to a very long day.