Saturday, January 10, 2015

Tristeno Arboretum

A luxury coach was waiting on the dock when our tour party got off the ship. I noticed a few taxis (4!) waiting nearby but then there were 3 other ships in port and two of them (P &O ships from the U.K) carried 3,000 passengers each. The walled city of Dubrovnik, where one can pay to climb the steps to the top of the wall to walk around it, was a 15 minute taxi ride. No time for that now but I imagined we could do it when we returned in 4 hours or so.

These tour busses have a driver (which helps!) and a guide who does a narration over the P.A system so we know what we are looking at. Our guide was a young Croatian woman who was well-informed and very passionate about her country. She spoke very good English.

We drove up over the bridge which the ship was docked near and followed the coastline away from the city, heading for the Tristeno Arboretum, a 500 year old garden of plants and trees, many of which were brought here by sailors from far-off lands, including the Far East and you can't get much farther than that! The wealthy olive oil merchants who owned the property were responsible for the creation of this beautiful arboretum.


The Arboretum is right by the sea and to get there we had to park the bus (or rather we let the driver do it) and walk down a steep hill, so steep it had to have steps at one point.


 It was a beautiful warm morning and so the light breeze from the sea was welcome as were the shade trees on some of the paths



Here and there are signs to identify what you are seeing






This simple device is the family olive oil press which would have been turned by a bored donkey.



Back into the sunlight to continue walking these wonderful gardens
This above is a cactus. Don't sit on one!


The family had their own chapel in the grounds of the estate



Flies come to a sticky end...


The sound of running water caught my ear and led me to the garden's ornate fountain






What a beautiful creation to have in your garden!






The long uphill climb back to the bus



Stop for a breath and a look at the scenery




And back to the bus for the 15 minute drive to the town of Ston

Here's the video from the Arboretum.....

No comments:

Post a Comment