Dubrovnik

 The first stop on our cruise was Dubrovnik, Croatia. The harbor was gorgeous!

Dubrovnik was originally a walled city and a highlight is to walk the walls. The walls are fairly high and go about 2 km around the city. It is a beautiful view from the top. They are not for the faint hearted, however! We were there in the afternoon, and it was quite hot. We each had a child on our back. There were about a zillion stairs up and then up some more, then down a little and back up again. In some places, the ledges were not very high.  We stopped to take a picture, and Larry had Chelsea on his back. He told her not to move for fear he would lose his balance and tumble over the side. Yikes! After we had gone halfway around, we came to an exit point and we decided that was plenty for us.

 The view from the top - it was amazing to see all the houses just crammed together within the walls. Walking the walls, I thought about the story of Joshua and Jericho and the walls falling down. Walking on the walls of Dubrovnik allowed a unique opportunity to give Chelsea a visual of what those walls may have been like. So fun to have those teachable moments!

 After we climbed down, we were so hot. The kids had been riding in kid backpacks and they were drenched in sweat. As is the norm, we had a gelato stop on the way back to the ship. This is how we keep our kids happy in Europe. As you can tell, these were big cones. Little man loves his ice cream and savored this one until the cone turned to mush and ice cream was falling out the bottom.  He didn't mind though - he just kept on eating. Entire tour groups stopped to take pictures of him, and we gathered quite the audience standing there watching him eat his ice cream. Who can resist that face?