Having come to Dubrovnik during low season, a lot of things were closed and activities I wanted to do such as visiting Lokrum Island and going to an Oyster Farm and Wine Tour were not in operation.
That probably worked well for me, seeing that I had to cut short my stay in Dubrovnik by 1 night due to unexpected connection challenges with buses to Mostar not running on Mondays in low season.
The sights in Dubrovnik can be classified into Old Town and outside Old Town.
Old Town
I spent the 1st half day upon arriving in the city exploring the old town which was easily doable within the half day I had. It's a very pretty medieval town, and I could recognise a few scenes where the Game of Thrones was filmed.
When I visited the Visitor Information Centre, located just at the bus stop outside of Old Town, I found out they were having a walking tour on 18th December (Saturday), the last one for the year, and I signed up for it.
The tour was 1.5hr and extremely good, as the guide Verna was a wealth of information.
I've been having very lovely sunny and clear blue skies, but rather windy chill air through the town. About 10 degrees in the day and falling down to about 4 degree in the night. I learnt from the guide that this is the North Easterly Bura wind, coming down from the snow mountains. It is a good wind – clean and cold, it ‘clears the head’, as it's said in Dubrovnik. It dispels the clouds, but brings cold weather.
Dubrovnik is also known as "a place in oaks", because in the past, when someone was asked where they stay, they would point to the oaks and say there.
The tour gave me better insight of why the town is structured the way it is now, and the nuances of the town buildings.
There are 16 forts and 4 fortresses, and Dubrovnik is the world's most preserved medieval city. The forts were originally built in rectangular shape, but were later reshaped in later years with a circular surface when cannons were introduced, as the impact of a cannon on flat surfaces are worse than on a rounded surface.
Lovrijenac was built because of its strategic location of being able to protect the Fort on the opposite side, ability to spot threats from the sea, as well as from the nearby Mount Srð.
The Imperial Fort on Mt. Srð was built by Napolean and his army when they invaded in 1806.
There are 2 main entrance for people one on each end of the city, one called Pile and the other Ploče. The practice of closing the draw gates of the city each day was still practised up till 1918, end of WWI.
The main street in Dubrovnik is called Stradun - this was derived from an Italian word as it was named by Italians, and literally translates into "big and ugly street" 😂😂😂 .
Coming in from Pile gate, the right side of the city was first built and had a number of plazas and squares.
The city was later expanded to the left to allow for another group of settlers that herded cows and lived in the mountains to be part of the city and live within its walls, thus the left side were built quickly and upwards. The Stradun were previously marsh lands that were filled up. It was later done up much nicer by the Romans with a proper sewage system running at the bottom.
We were also told that St. Plaise is the patron of Dubrovnik, and numerous statues of him could be found all around the city walls, with him holding city of Dubrovnik in his hand. The one on the main entrance is slightly damaged in his fingers, but they decided not to restore it because the original statue had the middle finger slightly sticking out, as if giving the finger - the artist's way of expressing his unhappiness at the low pay he got from creating the statues. Every 3rd of February, there will be a procession and celebration in Dubrovnik to commemorate the Saint.
There are 42 churches and chapels within Dubrovnik old town (alot for the size of this city!). There are also 20 convents and monasteries.
In the olden days, the family may have over 15 children, though only a handful may make it till adulthood. There is always the family wish to hand down all property to a male heir. For a daughter, the family requires to prepare dowry when she gets married. In order not to diminish the valuables to be handed down to the male heir, only 1 daughter would be married, and the rest of the girls in the family would be sent to a convent or monastery
The Rector's Palace is the home of the Governor. In the past, the criteria to select a Rector is that he must be over the age of 50.
The Rector holds no political power and will only serve a term of 1 month, and no consecutive terms. It is a requirement that the Rector needs to live inside this building during his term. Political power is held by a senate which runs for 1 year term.
Because of the size of the families back then, it is often very challenging to move the entire family into the palace just for 1 month (although the option is available), so often it's just the Rector living inside the building on his own.
These steps are called the Jesuit steps because of the Jesuit quarters - the Jesuit were invited to the city as they are famous for education, and they started the 1st university in Dubrovnik. Today the building is now a high school.
The steps are shaped in this way as the Jesuit originally came from Rome, and they wanted to recreate the Spanish steps in Rome, that were shaped in this way. This is also known as the "Walk of Shame" because of the Game of Thrones Cersei scene.
We were also told that St. Plaise is the patron of Dubrovnik, and numerous statues of him could be found all around the city walls, with him holding city of Dubrovnik in his hand. The one on the main entrance is slightly damaged in his fingers, but they decided not to restore it because the original statue had the middle finger slightly sticking out, as if giving the finger - the artist's way of expressing his unhappiness at the low pay he got from creating the statues. Every 3rd of February, there will be a procession and celebration in Dubrovnik to commemorate the Saint.
There are 42 churches and chapels within Dubrovnik old town (alot for the size of this city!). There are also 20 convents and monasteries.
In the olden days, the family may have over 15 children, though only a handful may make it till adulthood. There is always the family wish to hand down all property to a male heir. For a daughter, the family requires to prepare dowry when she gets married. In order not to diminish the valuables to be handed down to the male heir, only 1 daughter would be married, and the rest of the girls in the family would be sent to a convent or monastery
The Rector's Palace is the home of the Governor. In the past, the criteria to select a Rector is that he must be over the age of 50.
The Rector holds no political power and will only serve a term of 1 month, and no consecutive terms. It is a requirement that the Rector needs to live inside this building during his term. Political power is held by a senate which runs for 1 year term.
Because of the size of the families back then, it is often very challenging to move the entire family into the palace just for 1 month (although the option is available), so often it's just the Rector living inside the building on his own.
These steps are called the Jesuit steps because of the Jesuit quarters - the Jesuit were invited to the city as they are famous for education, and they started the 1st university in Dubrovnik. Today the building is now a high school.
The steps are shaped in this way as the Jesuit originally came from Rome, and they wanted to recreate the Spanish steps in Rome, that were shaped in this way. This is also known as the "Walk of Shame" because of the Game of Thrones Cersei scene.
Verna also shared that there had been a number of guests, both male and female that had stripped naked on these steps and posed for photos 😂
I've seen this map in various parts of the old town, but never really paid attention to it.
The guide shared that in the war in 1991 - 1995, Dubrovnik city was besieged, with 9 buildings burnt down and rebuilt.
Every century, the city is subjected to big seismic activity. The last one was in 1979, and since then the city kept a very detailed documentation of each building and layout in the event they need to rebuilt. This helped with rebuilding the city after the war.
This building was one of those that was burnt down, but no one could hardly tell it had been rebuilt.
Other than images of the destruction that had been captured which had been hung on the building
There's currently 900 people living inside the old town. In the past, this was about 3,000. People have moved out as it is now just a pedestrian only city, and because of the number of steps in the city, moving and transporting bulky items can be challenging with the number of stairs to navigate.
There is still one last quarantine centre near the old port. This is called Lazereti, named after the Saint, involved for quarantine. This explains the name of Lazarus Island in Singapore, which was used as a quarantine island a long time ago.
Outside Dubrovnik Old Town
The 2nd day of my stay in Dubrovnik was spent mostly outside of the Old Town. The aim was to visit Lovrijenac and the coast, and then get my bus ticket to Mostar, and climb up Mt. Srð to catch the sunset. This whole walk took me the entire day as I walked for more than 6 hours and covered over 34,000 steps in the day.
Lovrijenac (also known as Red Keep from Game of Thrones)
Park Gradac - for good views of Louvrijenac
Rixos Hotel - unplanned stop, but it was kind of on the coastal route way. But also I wanted to check out the Teppanyaki place that was listed in Google Map. Very expensive Teppanyaki at about HRK 750 per person which is about S$150.
Views here were good though.
Lunch at Belvedere, because I saw online that they have oysters on the menu. Unfortunately on the day I went, there wasn't any available. So I ordered a fish soup, which didn't turn out what I expected. It was a clear consommé with some rice in it.
And Squid Ink Risotto
Next stop was Uvala Lapad Beach (Sunset Beach) but turns out it was a very rocky beach. It seems most of the beaches in Croatia are rocky? I don't think I would enjoy this kind of beach at all.
I continued around the coast and visited the neighbourhoods of Lapad and Babin Kuk, before making my way around the coast to the bus station.
By the time I purchased my bus ticket, it was already 2.45pm. The walk to the summit of Mt. Srð according to Google requires 1.5 hrs. And with the sun setting at 4.30pm, I had to really rush.
I've seen this map in various parts of the old town, but never really paid attention to it.
The guide shared that in the war in 1991 - 1995, Dubrovnik city was besieged, with 9 buildings burnt down and rebuilt.
Every century, the city is subjected to big seismic activity. The last one was in 1979, and since then the city kept a very detailed documentation of each building and layout in the event they need to rebuilt. This helped with rebuilding the city after the war.
This building was one of those that was burnt down, but no one could hardly tell it had been rebuilt.
Other than images of the destruction that had been captured which had been hung on the building
There's currently 900 people living inside the old town. In the past, this was about 3,000. People have moved out as it is now just a pedestrian only city, and because of the number of steps in the city, moving and transporting bulky items can be challenging with the number of stairs to navigate.
There is still one last quarantine centre near the old port. This is called Lazereti, named after the Saint, involved for quarantine. This explains the name of Lazarus Island in Singapore, which was used as a quarantine island a long time ago.
Outside Dubrovnik Old Town
The 2nd day of my stay in Dubrovnik was spent mostly outside of the Old Town. The aim was to visit Lovrijenac and the coast, and then get my bus ticket to Mostar, and climb up Mt. Srð to catch the sunset. This whole walk took me the entire day as I walked for more than 6 hours and covered over 34,000 steps in the day.
Lovrijenac (also known as Red Keep from Game of Thrones)
Park Gradac - for good views of Louvrijenac
Rixos Hotel - unplanned stop, but it was kind of on the coastal route way. But also I wanted to check out the Teppanyaki place that was listed in Google Map. Very expensive Teppanyaki at about HRK 750 per person which is about S$150.
Views here were good though.
Lunch at Belvedere, because I saw online that they have oysters on the menu. Unfortunately on the day I went, there wasn't any available. So I ordered a fish soup, which didn't turn out what I expected. It was a clear consommé with some rice in it.
And Squid Ink Risotto
Next stop was Uvala Lapad Beach (Sunset Beach) but turns out it was a very rocky beach. It seems most of the beaches in Croatia are rocky? I don't think I would enjoy this kind of beach at all.
I continued around the coast and visited the neighbourhoods of Lapad and Babin Kuk, before making my way around the coast to the bus station.
By the time I purchased my bus ticket, it was already 2.45pm. The walk to the summit of Mt. Srð according to Google requires 1.5 hrs. And with the sun setting at 4.30pm, I had to really rush.
It was tough as there were way too many steps just to get to the base of the hiking trail for Mt. Srð, and once on the hiking trail, it was all rocky and a long windy route up!
I must be getting old, because I had a young couple overtaking me early on, and they disappeared from site mid way through the climb. They would probably had reached the summit about 15 mins ahead of me.
The views mid way were already quite good and I had a good view of the sun setting. The weather was great too, with little clouds, and I got a good aerial view of the entire Dubrovnik old town from Mt. Srð.
I finally reached the summit at 4.15pm, completely exhausted and legs were already somewhat wobbly. The view of the back of Mt. Srð was also impressive, especially with an almost full moon already high in the sky. I also saw a man herding his flock of cattles back home.
I took a different path back down to old town, and thankfully too, because the path was a lot easier to walk, and had some street lamps, unlike the one I took up which had none at all. It appears I was the only one left at the top to make my way down on foot.
Although the path was better than the path up, it was still not easy as there were numerous steps, and my knees aren't the best with such rocky steps down either. It took me a good 45 mins I think just to slowly make my way down, legs feeling very wobbly too! It's really a sign of old age, especially when I turned exactly a year older on this day.
But it was nice to see how the city of Dubrovnik changes with the sun set and the city lighting up. Originally I thought I would catch the sunset here the next day again, but looking at all the steps, I definitely wasn't going to attempt it one more time.
I chose to take a leisurely stroll to Buza Bar, and had a beer and enjoyed the sun set instead. I certainly much prefer sunset in Split!
Cost wise, it's certainly true that things are alot more expensive in Dubrovnik than the rest of the country. Prices are basically Western Europe pricing. I found admissions in Dubrovnik completely overpriced - the walk on the fortress walls were HRK 200, which was SGD 40, just to walk the walls. I think I see it well from Mt. Srð. Almost everything requires an admission too. I think prices may had also been driven up after it got popular from Game of Thrones.
Before coming to Croatia, I thought Dubrovnik would be the most impressive city in Croatia but I now realised otherwise. It's an OK city to visit but not at the right price point for what it offered.
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