Early last year, we talked about going to Croatia. As we met and talked with different people over the course of a couple months - some at work for Brad, one in a water taxi in the Galapagos, and one on a tennis court in Florida - our trip planning extended to Croatia, Slovenia, and The Dolomites. (Eventually we had to stop talking to people as the trip kept getting longer and longer! 😉)
Once we decided where to go, we had to decide how to get here. Enter Suzanne and her hobby with travel points and miles. 😃 It took some figuring out, but we ended up flying to Dubrovnik from Miami with a layover in Madrid on Iberia Airlines paying with credit card points. We were pretty stoked to enjoy business class for the long haul flight - we had flatbed seats with enough room for Brad's long legs.
The seats even had a massaging roller! We also enjoyed a full pillow, blanket, seat cover, amenity kit, and great service. The flight attendants were very attentive, and for about seven hours (somehow the eight hour flight ended up landing an hour ahead of time) we basically were fed and slept between feedings. Dinner was as much wine and water as we wanted, warm rolls with butter and olive oil, a starter salad, the main meal (Suzanne had three cheese ravioli, Brad the grilled beef tenderloin), and dessert (strawberry cheesecake for Suzanne, three types of ice cream for Brad) with coffee.
The Happy Flyers! 😊
We landed in Madrid and as expected, we were confused with how to get around and where to go - but that is part of the adventure of traveling! We eventually found our way to our destination: The Plaza Mayor VIP lounge (a benefit of one of our credit cards) and enjoyed dinner - yes, another meal. 😂
Then back to our gate where we boarded for our flight to Dubrovnik. As we enjoyed international business class on our first flight, we joked about how would we ever fly with the riff-raff again.......we had the answer soon enough. Here is Brad now:
(Yup - his knees are against the seat in front of him! 😂)
Opposite of our first flight, this one left an hour late and seemed a lot longer than the 2 1/2 hour flight
- maybe because of the delay
- maybe because it was the end of a long travel day
- maybe because we were no longer being coddled in business class
We finally landed in Dubrovnik, which was a surprisingly small airport. We grabbed our checked bags, got some euros at the ATM, got our rental car, and drove about 45 minutes on a dark, windy, and narrow road (with only one wrong turn) to our (first of many) Airbnb.
Our host Maja met us and showed us where to park - it is a very small "cave" under the building....
Then take a right and go up a few more....
Then to our front door and our home for the next four nights.....
The evening view from our Airbnb.....
We finally went to sleep around 11pm and slept like a pair of rocks.......until the 6am alarm the next day. 😉
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