First, I will include some shots of the glorious trip from Cypress to Dubrovnik. We had a lot of time, as the distances are quite small, and we do have an academic program to run on the ship. Everyday at sea is a “school day,” which can translate into 7 or 8 days straight of teaching. But the views as we sailed along were outstanding. We passed through the Ionian islands of Greece, including an entire day drifting around Corfu. Really, really gorgeous. 

When it wasn’t cloudy, we had some incredible sunsets and sunrises. Joe and I tried to eat dinner outside at sunset one night, but it was just far too cold.

One morning, Dan was patient enough to take lots of sunrise pictures right from our balcony.

Finally, we arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Okay, I have said this about other places before, but I honestly think that Dubrovnik may be the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I have heard that it is positively overrun with tourists in the summer, but in the winter, in COVID-time, there are very few visitors. Indeed, on our first day in the city, the only visitors seemed to be other Semester at Sea voyagers. We heard a lot of “Hi Professor June” wherever we seemed to go. My favorite occurrence was when Dan and I were walking along the street just inside the city walls and we were hailed by SASers up on the wall! The students may feel a little “watched” when Joe, Dan, and I show up in the same restaurants, but we have honestly seen great behavior from my students, which makes me really happy.

If you watched Games of Thrones, as Joe and Jack did, you will recognize quite a lot of these places as pivotal location shots. The first season was filmed in Malta (our next destination) but the other seasons moved to Dubrovnik for many location shots. It is King’s Landing, after all.

The first day we settled into our (freezing) apartment and turned on all the heaters. It took about a day to warm up, but it’s very cute and is in the heart of the old city, about a block inside the walls. We explored around, and then Dan and I did some more walking, mainly along the water outside the walls.

Our second day we walked the entire city walls. You can circle the entire old city up high on the walls; it was so difficult to choose just some pictures; the views are astoundingly beautiful! 

The city is full of cats, and Joe is very, very happy about that. Tucked away in little niches are many human-made cat boxes/beds, and we often saw strays tucked in for the night together. 

On our third day we left the walled city and headed to Fort Lawrence, which was used as the Red Keep in the Games of Thrones series. Again, gorgeous views on the way up, and from the top. It’s hard not to constantly take photos!