Hvar, Dubrovnik, and riots in Athens

After Split, we hopped on a ferry to Hvar, Croatia. We stayed for 3 days in Hvar and just loved it. We stayed in Hvar Town - it's a very cute village right on the sea with some nice beaches and a big fort overlooking the city. It just has a great relaxed feeling to it and is wonderful to walk around. I guess it is becoming known for attracting the "big-money" crowd (I wonder if they found our awesome hostel we stayed in...), but we can both see why. It was hard for us to peel off of the beach and leave. After Hvar, we went to Dubrovnik, which is on the southern tip of Croatia, and is known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic". Dubrovnik, by itself, is a fantastic village. It's origins are over 900 years old. It's located on a kind of peninsula and is completely walled off with these massive city walls (think 60-70 feet high and 6-12 feet thick). Very impressive, and you can see how the city would be impervious to attack. It's a joy to walk the walls and take in the city. Dubrovnik actually suffered quite a bit of damage in the recent breakup of Yugoslavia back in the 90's. The Serbs and Montenegrans launched an attack on the city doing substantial damage and killing dozens of civilians. However, they have recuperated very well from and the town is completely rebuilt from the attack. The downside to Dubrovnik is that it is extremely touristy. You can't walk past a restaurant without someone trying to shove you into a chair, put food in front of you, and charging you for it. For this reason, we were ready to leave when it was time. One cool thing about Dubrovnik is that we stayed in a traditional Croatian house in the old town. The lady that owned the house was SO nice, and she said her family has lived in Dubrovnik for over 5 centuries!! Can you trace your family tree back that far? I found that very impressive. After Dubrovnik we caught a flight to Athens, and arrived yesterday. We spent today doing laundry and then going to the Acropolis and seeing some very old ruins. Tomorrow we are leaving for our sailing trip. 10 days through the northern Cyclades and Peloponesse islands. We are going to be on a 55 ft. yacht with the captain and four other people that we don't know. Hopefully they are cool... :) Oh yes, one funny story about the riots in Athens. We had directions from the airport to the place we are staying, which we followed when we got into town. We had to get off on a metro stop, which happened to be the place where all the riots and protests were going on! We had read several weeks ago that there was some unrest in Greece but hadn't paid attention to the news lately. So we were pretty stunned to come out on the square and see thousands of people there with signs and chanting, and lots of tents. It was pretty docile when we were there, but we did see a kiosk that had been burned. We quickly departed the square without incident and upon advice of our host haven't returned.