DUBROVNIK, CROATIA - Dubrovnik is called the pearl of the Adriatic Sea. The true highlight is the Dalmatian Coast. With 1200 islands, only 66 inhabited, it boasts the clearest and cleanest waters in the Mediterranean.
Dubrovnik has coastline on 3 sides and mountains on the fourth. It was a part of Yugoslavia until becoming independent in 1990. It is 82% Christian and borders on Bosnia which is 80%+ Muslim.
This area has seen many battles and is enclosed in high stone walls on all 4 sides to protect itself. ALong with military supplies, Dubrovnik stores a year's supply of grain in case of war. It's last war was 1991-92 when Bosnia Bombed them.
The streets are paved with marble because in the plague that took many of the residents in the 1700s. Shops are on the first floor with homes above them on the 2nd and 3rd floors. There are not many cars and most people walk or bike around the city.
The main church is town is St. Blaise. The saint who was able to cure, thru the power of the Holy Spirit, throat diseases. Every year on February 2, people come from all over to have their throats blessed in this Church, and other Catholic churches in the world.
The first necktie originated in Dubrovnik. Girlfriends and wives who often had to see their boyfriends and husbands off to war, gave their chosen partner a kerchief as a sign of mutual fidelity and love. In the first half of the 17th century, during the Thirty Year War, the Croatian light cavalry arrived outside Paris with beautiful kerchiefs of cotton and silk. They conquered the Court of Louis XIV decked out in these fluttering ornaments and thereafter became popular. Later the neckties were perfected into the neckties we are familiar with today.
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