Dubrovnik Old Town
For some time I had hankered after travelling to Dubrovnik, the bustling and beautiful UNESCO world heritage city, as part of a wider Croatian ramble This plan had been foiled last year when my lack of basic Balkans geography had put paid to a plan to visit to the Istrian peninsula before heading south to Dubrovnik. Without direct flights between Pula and Dubrovnik airports the travel logistics of combining the divided north and south of the long, spindly coastal part of Croatia, proved too challenging for a family holiday. A trip by land would mean the significant complication of negotiating the 12-mile wide Neum corridor. Neum gives an otherwise land-locked Bosnian and Herzegovina a corridor to the Adriatic Sea that, undoubtedly to the delight of many Bosnians, but much to my personal annoyance, separates Dubrovnik from the rest of Croatia. By sea, concerns about the reliability of the Adriatic ferries and their ability to disrupt my obsessive-compulsive derived travel plans was enough for me to discount this route. We had settled for remaining in the Croatian part of Istria but this time around I had opted for a much simpler plan of a visit to Dubrovnik with somewhere much closer, and more relaxed, along the Dalmatian coast.
My first thought had been to stay at the Grand Hotel Imperial, positioned just outside the walls of the old town, frequented in the past by royalty and movie stars and, rather handily, with it now being a Hilton hotel, I could use some of my loyalty points to reduce the eye-watering room rates. My wife, however, insisted that to see the best of Dubrovnik we had to actually stay inside the old town, so a quick foray onto the internet and a considerably cheaper house was rented via Airbnb. We had been warned that, since Dubrovnik Old Town is virtually car-free and slopes dramatically up to the southern walls that separate the city from the Adriatic Sea, the journey to our rented house might present a challenge. So instead of our luggage being whisked to our rooms by a bellboy eager for tips, leaving us only to check out the bar where, I like to imagine, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor sipped cocktails, and the elegant pool where Oliver Reed no doubt had a cheeky widdle (younger readers may wish to consult their grandparents at this point, about the names, not the widdling), we find ourselves engaged in a trial of strength and stamina for us and a destruction-test for our suitcase wheels as we drag our personal possessions over cobbles and up several flights of narrow stone steps to our home for the next few days. Actually, as far as cobbles go, the ones in Dubrovnik are easier to traverse, and more beautiful, than most. They are actually broad blocks of local limestone that have been polished by the passage of many, many feet and, more recently, spinner suitcases. I was struck on numerous occasions, as we wandered around the old town, how they bring a wonderful reflective light to the streets on a bright day. This luminescent beauty was, however, temporarily lost to me as we grunted and sweated and pin-balled our way past the first walking tour groups of the day and octogenarian cruise ship invaders to reach the small house we had rented. I should point out that the pool at the “Imperial” is a modern addition so Oliver Reed, if he ever did stay there, would not have had the chance to use it to relieve himself in it, so don’t let that put you off.
Our first impressions, after the odyssey of dragging our holiday possessions through the ancient streets, were gained from an evening stroll around the city walls. The rose-tinged evening light and the lack of crowds make this a more pleasant occasion than in the heat of the day during the peak cruise ship tour period. It allows one to take in the whole of the city before diving into what looks like a huge bowl of strawberry-red roofs set on top of the cream buildings and streets. From the vantage point of the walls the uniformity of the pale stone and the red tiles make the city look like it was built to an holistic grand design rather than an evolution of over a thousand years guided by wars, epidemics and earthquakes. As you look closer, wonderful highlights emerge; the imposing Assumption of the Virgin Mary cathedral and the handsome clock tower aside the Rector’s Palace, for instance, as well as smaller more subtle variations that just invite exploration. There are also interesting views outside of the wall including some wince-inducing diving and jumping antics into the sea from the slippery rocks near the platforms of the Buza bar, clinging to the outside of the city and accessed through a hole in the city wall. We prefer a drink at a more sedate bar positioned more securely on top of the broad walls whilst feeling smug at not making the rookie mistake of leaving the walls and expecting to be allowed re-entry (sorry, one-time entry only folks!). Our tour of the walls allows us to check out some restaurants either perched on roof tops or snuggled close to the walls so that we can peer down on diners and make a decision on the ambience and setting without recourse to Tripadvisor, in my case, and TikTok, in the case of of my daughter. Dubrovnik seemed amply stocked with a large number of good restaurants so that we feel comfortable selecting somewhere without internet guidance in some form and we finally settle on the Dubravka 1836 restaurant just outside of the Pile Gate that has a great view of the walls, the sea and the chittering swallows that put on a fine aerial display in their quest for insects in the evening light.
Over the next couple of days exploring the Old Town we see, up close, the evolution of the city and the marks and scars of earthquakes and bullets and shrapnel from wars as recent as the Balkans war in the nineties. The exception to this is St. Saviour’s Church, which was a built after a huge earthquake hit the city in 1520 in a bid for the locals to call on God to protect the city from further cataclysmic events. In 1667 a much larger earthquake hit the city and killed half the population but, in an ironic twist, miraculously St. Saviours was one of the few buildings that escaped damage. To this day it has not suffered any damage from earthquakes or been damaged by any wars. I can’t help feeling that somebody somewhere has a cruel sense of humour.
The Rector’s Palace on the other hand has been damaged and rebuilt many times as a result of consistently being used as store for gunpowder in an age where candles provided the main means of illumination. Consequently it is a wonderful mix of architectural styles as parts of the building were destroyed and rebuilt at different times. It is still a functioning building, for meetings rather than being used as the city’s arms depot, thankfully, but is mainly used as museum housing some of the gems of the city including an exhibition of paintings by Italian old masters. Just a few yards away the Assumption of the Virgin Mary cathedral is less imposing close up than it looks from the city walls, being more compact than when seen in the context of the town encircled by the walls of only 1.9 km in circumference. It is worth a trip inside but don’t expect the ornate grandeur of the cathedrals that adorn the cities of Rome, Paris and London.
In the evenings we had found restaurants the old fashioned way, that is by browsing the menu board whilst trying to make an assessment of the quality of the food based on the decor and gently fending off the friendly waiters politely trying to persuade us into their establishment. Snacks, however, were TikTok guided and included revelations such as Bureks, a long thin sausage roll type-affair where the flaky filo pastry remains but the sausage meat is replaced by a choice of cheese, chicken, spinach amongst other fillings. The highlight for me was not that they tasted so good but rather watching in fascination as the chefs at Holy Burek stretched pastry dough over a table top about 4 foot in diameter. TikTok also served up more familiar and equally tasty options of ice-cream from Peppino’s Gelato Factory.
When strolling around the town, ice cream in one hand and Burek in the other, it is hard to miss the Game of Thrones tour parties in search of the parts of the town that doubled as “Kings Landing” in the acclaimed TV series. Seemingly chief among these attractions are the Jesuit Steps, the Dubrovnik homage to the Spanish Steps in Rome, but sought out more often these days for their appearance in Cersei’s “walk of shame”. These swooping baroque stairs lead up to a square with the Jesuit School (College Ragusinum) to the south and St. Ignatius Church on the west. On the east is Restorun Kopun which is a fine place to take a break and watch the GoT fans run to the top of the steps and take photos before disappearing down again. Only a relatively few people seem to turn and take time to head into the square at the top, perhaps instead in a hurry to get to their next appointment with an instragrammable GoT location? In part this may be to do with the fact that this square seems to be the one place that looks less cared for than other areas of the Old Town. Beyond the few polished stones at the top of the steps most of the square consists of rough gravel, almost as if someone had come in the night and stolen all of the beautiful paving stones. Maybe they had but it would’ve been a nightmare trying to carry them out of the town, so I doubt it.
After three wonderful days it was time to prepare for the journey out of the city, mercifully down the shining steps this time, and then to our villa a few miles southeast along the coast near Cavtat, but that’s a tale for my next blog.
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