Dubrovnik, Croatia

I don't know how long now I have wanted to go to Dubrovnik. Though it's far down the coast and no single day's journey from Barcs, this is a place I was itching to see. Pictures of the clustered fortress jutting out into the blue of the Adriatic are strange and magical and like nothing I had ever seen before. So I was thrilled to plan a stay. Although the city's juxtaposition to rock and water and history are easily as dramatic as observed in pictures, within the old town I had none of the elations I experienced in Split or Kotor; instead, this happened two kilometers south, in the house where we were staying, and in the cove where the neighborhood lazed.

We stayed in a villa with a family renting out other parts of the house to her extended family. With no guests, they numbered 15. The owner, Maja, was generous and warm, and throughout the stay talking with her was happy and easy. From the beginning she welcomed us with glasses of wild orange lemonades and settled us onto the grand terrace, the view of the city a near brilliant red over the edenic blue waters.

The girls were eager to get to the beach. Maja told us that the locals won't go swimming yet, but she often sees foreigners trying it even this early in the season. Once we saw the turquoise shores and candied depths, we were those foreigners, without a doubt.

The beach was broad and private. There were a dozen people here, most of them women in their twenties, and half of these topless. I'd like to be able to say that they didn't care and I didn't care, but I say instead that I was quite alert.

Sophie and Amelia waded and splashed until their hair weighed on their shoulders. Even Maisie, with none of the fear she once brought to the shore, laughed in the gentle waves. I paddled and swam to where the sea turned a royal blue, and then returned to stand over the white sand and dried.

On Easter, I spritzed water on Stephanie, trying to bring a little Hungary to our holiday (though I should have used a bucket, according to the custom). Later we walked the crowded city walls under the hot sun until the children were ready to tear them down altogether. The Easter Bunny managed to find our kids over the night and perhaps they were crashing from a chocolate breakfast. Maya gave us some beautiful dyed eggs maybe we should have eaten instead, but they were too pretty to crack. In any event, once the kids finally convinced us to exit the high walls of the city and get some lunch, we were given more dyed eggs, pictured, to commemorate the day.

  

 

In our final evening, we stayed on the terrace and watched the sun drowse under the clouds over the city. Maja brought us more wild orange lemonade and we talked about raising families while her youngest daughter ran with ours. Later Stephanie and I would play cards with the kids, using a Hungarian deck then Austrian, before our kids would put on a nighttime play of Alice and Gretel, within which I was the father who'd say to my wife, "We don't have enough food and I'm not about to get a job, so let's take the girls into the woods and leave them."