Welcome to the A to Z challenge, a blog post everyday of April apart from Sundays, covering every letter of the alphabet. My theme is travel, that thing that we haven’t been able to do over the last 12 months, so it seemed appropriate to reminisce about past travels we’ve taken, looking forward to when we can travel freely again.

Today we’re visiting a town that Julius Caeser landed at in England, and the city I cried over in 1991.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book, Deal is a town on the south east coast of England that Julius Caesar supposedly landed at when he invaded Britain in 54BC – that’s a very long time ago. In case you’ve not heard of it before, the Domesday Book is basically the record of a survey of land and land ownership in England & Wales that was undertaken in 1086 by order of William the Conqueror – it is stored in the national archives. The town is really pretty with lots of lovely old buildings and scrummy fish and chips.

• 

• 

• 

In 1991 I watched in horror as the news stories came through about Dubrovnik being under siege from the Yugoslav army, and this went on for several months. I cried as I watched as for years I had dreamt of one day walking the streets of this UNESCO world heritage site, and before the eyes of the world it was being desecrated by war. Fast forward 14 years and once again I was crying, but this time because I was standing on a hill getting my first glimpse of the city of my dreams.

It was a magical day, exploring this city that I never thought I would be able to, with my beloved – we walked the walls of the city, explored the marble streets, and just absorbed all of the history and culture. During the siege 68% of the buildings were hit by shells (Lonely Planet) and as you walk around you can still see some of the damage evident in this centuries old city. Apart from walking the walls, my favourite experience was the Franciscan Monastery which houses the third oldest working pharmacy in the world. It’s full of beautiful ceramic jars, pestle and mortars of all sizes, scales, and ancient ‘recipe’ books for healing products.

These shots are taken from and on the walls around the old city, and if you look closely at the roofs you can make out where the tiles have been replaced after the war – there’s a slight colour variation. You can also see the colour variation between me and my beloved, he just has to walk outside and he tans, whereas I stay a nice ghostly white.

• 

• 

What I don’t have a picture of is the moment a bird pooped on my beloved’s head – supposedly good luck, but definitely funny, and this won’t be the only time this happens during the a to z.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure you visit other bloggers who are crazy enough to be doing the challenge with me – Click Here to visit the master list of participants.

Stay safe and have a good day.

Previous A to Z posts:

2018 – D is for Dating

2017 – D is for Duirinish

2016 – D is for Doors