Our First Time In CROATIA 🇭🇷 This Country Is Incredibly Beautiful!

How does it look? It's so beautiful. The water is so blue and clear. Wow. Oh my goodness. And you can see the old town from here, which is amazing. The old town of Dubrovnik. Yeah. Should we go down there? We should go down there and test the water. Test the sea, test the sea water. So we are now in Banje beach in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It's our first time here, by the way. Checking another country off our list. It says Banje beach. The place to be. All right. Good. Look at everybody is here having the same idea. I think this is already low season. Yeah. Not as busy. It's not that packed. Yeah. Considering it is like the most popular beach outside the old town. Not a lot of spot left. I'm not used to a rocky beach. Yeah. We live in Samui, in Thailand, so it's like sand beach. But it's so interesting because... It's all like pebbles. Yeah. And they're big. But good thing we wear crocs so we can wear them into the water too. I think it's going to be super cold. What's the name of this ocean again? It's the Adriatic Sea. Oh, it's so cold. It's like an ice bath. Oh my God. How are people in there right now? Oh my God. We're going to do it? We're going to do it. We have people watching now waiting to see. Are these two going to chicken out or are they actually going to do it? Just slowly dip your body in there. It's very misleading actually. The beach, the sunshine, everyone living here. Like it's really warm. That's why they're all on the beach. Only like five people in the water right now. How do you feel? It's really cold. But you did it. Oh, good for you. Not bad, right? It's not that bad. It's not that bad once you're in there. Oh God. But swimming in here is another story. I don't think I can swim in here because of all the distracting jellyfish pieces. Yeah, look at them. They have a brown head. Maybe it's not a jellyfish. Let's try to look it up what these things are. People don't seem to be scared. I think it's jellyfish, babe. Final dip for good luck? Let's do it. Three, two, one. Welcome to Tsim Sha Tsui. After some research here, those like jelly looking fish things are actually harmless. They're not even jellyfish. They're called salt. S-A-L-P-S And we've like never heard of these before. They basically like are barrel shaped. They are a gelatinous sea creature that drift in chains or individually. And they are a type of zoo plankton. And like fish and turtles and stuff eat them. Oh, okay. They don't have any like toxins. They don't sting you. They're harmless. They're just weird looking. It's very common to find it in the Adriatic Sea. I feel better now. I would get back in there. And surprisingly, sitting on rocks, you feel clean. Yeah. You got full of sand. Yeah, sand doesn't go to places where you don't want them to go. Yeah. Overall, I think it's a very nice beach. Easy to get to. And the water is so clear and clean. And when you see people kayaking, you only see the shadow. So it's like they're floating. It's pretty amazing. I checked how much the kayak cost too. I think it was like 35 euros an hour. 35 euros. Yeah. It's quite expensive. But I'm sure it's like beautiful. But this is nice. I enjoyed it. Even the loungers are expensive too. I think it's like 25 euros for a chair. It's like 5 euros for a towel. So make sure to bring everything you need when you go to a beach. That's one thing we noticed about Dubrovnik early on is that prices are a bit more. Like tourist prices. Like double. We got coffee and it was like 4 euros, 5 euros. Yeah. It's definitely more. Pretty expensive. We chose to come to the Old Town on a Tuesday, hoping that it will be less crowded. But how come there's more people? It's so crowded today. By the amount of people, it just shows how popular Dubrovnik is as a tourist attraction. I mean, it makes sense though. You have this crazy Old Town. You have beautiful sea views and apparently really delicious seafood as well. That's what we're gonna go and eat for lunch. We have a place in mind. So we have to go through this gate first. And it's free to enter the Old Town. Yeah. I saw these passes all around, like Dubrovnik Pass for 40 euros. So initially we thought you have to pay to enter the Old Town. So it's good to know that it's actually free to walk in and explore around the Old Town. But for you to enter some of the attractions and also to walk the walls on top that overlook the Old Town, then you have to buy the pass or pay 40 euros. Which we will do later. Yeah. This is so beautiful, isn't it? It doesn't feel real. Like all the buildings, all the people. It's like we're in a movie. Yeah, even the people. It's like, are they paid actors? It just doesn't feel like a real town because it's so beautiful. But you do see around all the shops there are Game of Thrones official stores. Yeah. Because this was a filming location for Game of Thrones. Dubrovnik is like King's Landing. But I think there's still so much to appreciate about Dubrovnik, even if you're not a fan of Game of Thrones. Almost there. This is beautiful. I wonder if a lot of people living here are residents still. Or, like for example, this one. It's an Airbnb. Probably, or apartments or something. Good thing we're living outside of town. Yeah. Imagine having to carry a suitcase up to an apartment like this. Yeah. Yeah, ours is pretty easy. Right in front of a bus stop too. Yeah. I think if you come here, maybe look at places outside of town. It's quite convenient to even walk or hop on the bus. But living here, you do get to enjoy the old town. Probably without the tourists. When everyone leaves, you can walk down and enjoy it all to yourself. Almost there. Real quick. Big thanks to our long-time partner Squarespace for continuing to support our channel and for making it easy to build a website, even if you've never done it before. They have award-winning templates for any purpose, or if you want a little extra help, their Design Intelligence feature uses AI to help with both website design and for content. Things like writing product descriptions and email campaigns. And with the Squarespace app, you can edit your site, check analytics, and make updates on the go right from your phone. Just head over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash floor and note to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Now let's get back to the video. It should be on the left. This one here. Lady Pee Pee or Pie Pie? Lady Pee Pie Pie? Not sure. Oh, that's so beautiful. Wow. Okay, so we'll go with the seafood platter for two. That's the best option. Yeah. You're on the sea, so it makes sense. Yes. Are you grilling them right here? Yeah. Not me, but my friend. Is it okay if I go have a look? Of course. When he brings it out, we can go look. Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much. This is amazing. I think that should be enough food for us. I think that's good. I was thinking, is it going to be small for two? But no, we have four huge prawns. We have fish here, two fillets. We have the octopus. I think that's squid. Tiny squid. And then two pieces of tuna. And then the boiled vegetables. And the thing is, they are famous here for everything that is char-grilled. Whether it's seafood or whether it's meat. Because it's all done on this charcoal grill just on top of us. And we could smell how amazing that was. Smells fresh. There's a friend coming. Over there. What's another thing we really like about Dubrovnik? Oh, hi. He probably smelled the fish and the seafood. You said fresh fish? Well, what about the fresh fish? We did a good job. We destroyed his platter. Way too quickly. It was so good. Last bite. Cheers. That's the wall we're going to go later. Yeah. Looks epic. And look at the lineup here. They're lining up for gelato. Should we get some gelato down here? I think we should. We should. Almost every video, we are having gelato. So, let's keep that streak going and have another one. Pepino's Gelato. Our friend who we spent a couple of days in Dubrovnik with, Ying and Mark, which have their own channel called The Lost Dew, they recommended this gelato place as well. They said it is the best in Dubrovnik. They seem to be very confident. Best gelato in Dubrovnik. There, we said it. This is the best. It's always the price of our day when we have a gelato. But this chocolate, one of the best chocolates I've had. It's really creamy and silky. It has your vegan forest berries. Yeah. It's perfect. It's a mix of berries and gelato. It's perfect to evoke your summer memories. That sounds like probably what they wrote. Yeah, that's what their slogan is. That's what it shows. And these ones were $3.50 each, which is not too bad for a very touristy destination and a big scoop. Oh, so good. I'm not eating too quickly. Wow, look at this harbour. Look at those two. They have the same idea as us. Get an ice cream and walk down to the harbour. Let's go find a spot where we can enjoy these. I think we found it. The perfect spot. If I were to live here, I would get a small boat like that guy, get a fishing rod and just go on fishing every day. Just be out on the sea and look back at all the tourists looking at him. So this is a pretty neat spot. It's just right outside the city walls and you see a lot of people just sitting around, even sunbathing or enjoying their gelato. Just enjoying the views of the sea and also of Lokum Island, which is a very popular day trip from Dubrovnik. You just hop on a ferry and you go there and I think it's about €30. This is Rector's Palace. Looks so beautiful from the outside. It is supposed to be the most beautiful building in all of the Old Town. This opening hallway is so beautiful. Look at this. Look at the railing. It's like stone carved into a hand holding it. So to actually understand a bit more about why this Rector's Palace is so important, you have to go back a little bit in time to the 1300s to the early 1800s when Dubrovnik was actually the Republic of Ragusa. They had their own fleets, military. They were a trading hub. They were wealthy. They were rich. They had their own government. And at the time, this was the Rector's Palace. Rector is almost like a prime minister, like a president. But they only held power for a month at a time to prevent corruption. So a new rector comes in here to the palace. They stay here for a month. They do all the law stuff that they need to do, the management of the place. But they cannot leave until after their term of one month. They can't even see their families or whatever. So they do their job for a month. They leave, another guy comes in here and do their job for a month. It is very interesting. Are they elected? Do they have an election every month? I'm not sure how they are chosen. That's a good question. But this is their home for a month, which is amazing. I don't mind living here for a month. Thank you. We made it in time. It's five. We have about an hour and a half on the wall. And it's two kilometers to walk the whole thing. Let's see if we can do it. My legs are burning. Oh, wow. Yay! We made it. That was a steep climb. But it's beautiful up here. Now we just have to go around it. Two kilometers. I think Dubrovnik is a very walkable place. Except for all the stairs. It's a bit of a challenge. But it's still very walkable. No cars. And actually not that big of an old town. So you can walk on the walls all the way around the city to the top. And above that is where the cable car ends. You can actually take a cable car up there. But it's quite expensive. It was a 27 euros return trip. Quite a short ride. Yeah. It's a short ride. You can hike up too. I think it's about an hour. But we've experienced the steepness of the climbs. It should be a bit challenging. No, this is high enough for the view. No, I think we would just love to enjoy the view with the sunset from here. You know what is surprising? Doesn't it smell like jasmine? Can you smell it? Those are all jasmine trees, babe. It smells so pretty. So beautiful. It's like you're in a fairyland. Jasmine and also orange trees. And the oranges are so bright orange. Yeah. And of course the cats add to the fairyland for us. There's a special reason why there are so many cats around a lot of these port cities. Because when these were old trading hubs lots of ships come in the cats were used to chase away the mice, the rats. So they allowed a lot of cats to stay around these port cities to do their jobs and then they're also part of the community and that's why you still see a lot of cats around Dubrovnik. So cats are very important for the economy. It is. Dubrovnik is Dubrovnik it is today because of the cats. Who did their job. We have traveled to so many cities in the world and Dubrovnik for me is one of the most beautiful cities. I agree. You have a little bit of everything. I mean you even have beaches here. Only if it's a little more affordable I would have loved to stay here for months. Oh the breeze is nice. This part is scary. It's narrow and it's just a huge drop. I don't know how people can cliff jump. It's so scary. Calgary is quite cute isn't it? Yeah. How did you get on the wall? Do you have a pass? Do you buy a day pass or do you have a monthly pass? His ancestors gave him the opportunity to stay here. As we're walking along the walls here we can notice that a lot of the roofs are different colors. You can tell some are really old, some are quite new and even along the wall they're doing minor construction to fix parts of the stones here and I think this is part of the history of Dubrovnik because they've been through a lot. This old town has been through so much. They've been through a huge earthquake at one point that destroyed a lot of the old city but also they had a war of independence back in 1991 to 1995 where they were breaking away from Yugoslavia and that war during that time destroyed over 70% of the old town but they have since rebuilt it stone by stone and it looks like this beautiful town that we see now. Looks new, looks polished. They put a lot of care into this place and it actually was a UNESCO heritage site since 1979 but even though it was a UNESCO heritage site it was still bombed unfortunately during that time. Wow. I love that city. You can spend hours up here. We have spent hours up here. Yeah. This is amazing. What an epic spine. We actually got onto the wall at a good time around 5 o'clock so by the time we kept walking this is about 6.30 now we're at the last stretch so nobody is going to check our tickets anymore. Perfect timing. I think if you come to Dubrovnik you have to do the walls. This is the highlight for sure. You can walk the old town first and enjoy seeing all the streets and all the stalls and all the atmosphere down there but it's extra special to be walking the walls and seeing all of that and seeing the sea view. First impressions of Croatia have been pretty amazing. Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful cities for sure that I've ever visited. As always thank you so much for watching and we will see you in the next one. Bye.