Header Image


Navigation images

The walls of Dubrovnik

We travelled to Montenegro by way of Dubrovnik, thanks to reasonably priced air tickets that were half the price of those to Podgorica. Quite naturally, we opted to spend the final day of our trip in Dubrovnik before flying home, so we won’t be at the mercy of some long-distance and cross-border public bus while racing to the airport to catch our flight. More importantly, we were glad things worked out the way it did because we absolutely love the stari grad Dubrovnik!

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Having arrived later than expected on Friday (due to wrong timetable found on the internet, plus further delays because of heavy traffic and slow border crossing) we decided we would make the most of our full day on Saturday by starting very early in the morning. By that, I meant 6am early. And even then, it was already a little late to catch the sunrise by the time we were out the door!

We wanted to enjoy Dubrovnik in some form of peace and calm. At that time in the morning, there was barely anyone on the streets and what a change it was, when we compared it to the hustle and bustle from the previous evening. The only other people out and about were oddballs like us, and folks starting their work day as restauranteurs, deliverers, and cleaners. It wouldn’t come as a surprise then we were among the first in the queue to walk the city wall, an activity which friends have advised to tackle before the cruise boats unload their share of tourists into town.

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

This is not a cheap monument to visit, given the nearly-two kilometres walk along the city wall ended up costing us 100 kuna (about €13) per person. Is it worth it? Oh yes, every single Euro cent spent! I’m not sure I know how to describe it accurately to do it justice. The views were stupendous and at every point we stopped (which was like 3 steps away from the previous spot) we ooh-ed and aah-ed in admiration.

I lost count of the number of photos I took during our little excursion. And normally, two kilometres walk is a breeze that takes less than 30 minutes, yet we took nearly thrice that amount of time because we paused often to just take everything in. It wasn’t like we were in a hurry to be somewhere else or planning to elbow our way among throngs of people to walk the inner city streets.

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

Dubrovnik city wall

This city wall just two decades ago bore evidence of heavy shelling during the Siege of Dubrovnik but today, following major restoration effort, these marks have faded away with very little trace remaining. The completeness of the city walls makes them one of the locations of choice for filming the Game of Thrones (yay, gratuitous mention of a show I’ve barely seen four episodes of and definitely not much of the King’s Landing) although there seems to be no love lost between some locals and the crews when filming means blocked access to the town and disruption of their daily rhythms.

By the time we were done, we had to fight our way down the stairs against hundreds of visitors streaming upward and then came to a surprise stop when we saw the extent of the queue that was already forming at the ground level. Before 10am! These above are but some of my favourite photos from this particular photowalk, but if you wish to see more (some more similar than others) then have a look at the full photoset on Flickr. I’ll let the photos (and a lack of masterful photography skill on my part?) do the talking.



Category: Croatia, Europe, Travel

Tagged: , , , , ,

4 scribbles & notes

  1. Chloé says:

    Told you so ;)

  2. medca says:

    Early bird definitely catches the worm heheheh…..beautiful view indeed n great weather a big plus ;)

Scribble a note


Notify me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.