Dubrovnik

We have never watched Game of Thrones, which was filmed here and in Split, so let’s get that over and done with!

We drove from Split down to Dubrovnik as it turns out that the only car ferries departs at 7am but not in the summer, and there are no trains from Split! The train line in Croatia runs inland to Zagreb from Split but not down the coast, which is such a shame as it would make a stunning journey. 

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Half the road is dual carriageway, then you follow the coastline on a hillside single lane road.  The route took us through mountains and pine forests, through flat green plains full of fruit and olive trees, and through several small villages.  We also had to cross the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina, show our passports, and drive for 15kms before showing passports again to return into Croatia.

The route approaches the City from the north, it crosses over a river and goes behind Gruz Harbour where the original old docks berth the new modern cruise ships.  Cruise passengers are then ferried by coach the few miles into the city.

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Dubrovnik is a walled city with three gates, surrounded by several other fortresses and towers on all sides with an external harbour.  The wall is 1.5 miles long, and can be up to 6m wide in some places. From a distance it is stunning!

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Views of Dubrovnik walls and City

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First impressions are, its clean, smart, tidy and perfect.  Lots of marble stone pavements and drains, tall uniform buildings and perfectly restored walls and décor.  No signposts, no street markings, no advertising boards for businesses and hotels or restaurants.  Then you realise….something is not right, it’s too clean and perfect.  And we soon established why. 

Interior scenes

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In 1986 the city suffered an earthquake which rocked the foundations, then in the Civil War of 1990- 1995 over half of the city was bombed by the Serbs and others fighting for the territory. At the end of the war, the Government asked for money from the EU and the USA, and was given it, to rebuild the city as it is now.  Handmade terracotta roof tiles were made to replace the damaged ones, local stone was brought in to rebuild the walls and stone window lintels and cobbled stone streets were replaced with marble. The narrow steep streets do look charming with the old style lamps and polished streets, and you can imagine that it looked like that 100 or 200 years ago but it comes at a cost.

To claw back some of the monies owed, they charged and still do charge extortionate amounts of money to tourists.

The local council have cracked “tourism” but not fully.  All the old buildings are still called castles, Palaces and forts or Arsenals or military buildings, but are in fact hotels, restaurants, cafes or designer shops.  The Rector’s Palace is an art gallery.  The Arsenal is a restaurant and the old fort is now a maritime museum while the old port buildings house an Aquarium.  No information boards anywhere, no prices in shops and tourist operators trying to sell you boat trips or coach trips simply call themselves Tourist Offices and dish out a street map, a very unclear one! 

No street signposts or prices on anything do not add to the attraction but do encourage the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese inside where they will splash cash.  We were told that in the past 10 years, tourism has increased by 70% from those 3 countries alone, followed by Americans. Personally, we thought we were being ripped off.

To walk the City walls, all 1.5 miles, would cost €30 PER PERSON.  To do a guided walking historical tour of the city would set you back €25, if it involved Game of Thrones sites, it would be more.  A 1 hour 20 minute boat ride to look at two offshore islands was €35 and a 2 hour boatride into the sunset with a small finger buffet was €55.  A pint of lager was €7 but a glass of wine was the same.  A bottle of house wine (supposedly their cheapest) in a burger bar would have set us back €35, so we asked for 2 glasses of wine instead.  The home made burgers were €14 each, nothing special! They know how to con tourists here.  The main street through the Old Town was heaving with fast food outlets aimed at time limited visitors, “Burger Tiger”, “Pasta Lab”, “The Irish Pub The Gaffe” and others…..

Finally to cap it all, we wanted to take the funicular ride to the top of the mountain behind, it was closed. Two tourist offices claim it was a technical issue, and no opening date was known but when we left we actually walked past the entrance to the funicular where there was a sign saying something along the lines of: “Dear Visitor to Dubrovnik, we are sorry we are not able to offer you a ride in our panoramic cable car, but it would appear that the company who owns it have not complied with a petty financial and legal regulation laid out by the council, who have decided to close this facility indefinitely.”  We think this says it all………

The few things that we did visit were surprisingly empty, I guess when you are on a time limited day trip from the cruise ship, wandering around a monastery is not top of your list of things to do, so we made the most of it.  We visited two monasteries, a Dominican and Franciscan monastery, each very different, but so peaceful and calm and cool.  The Franciscan Monastery contains an old Pharmacy that has been dispensing concoctions since 1391, it’s the 3^rd oldest Pharmacy in Europe whilst the other monastery houses an old originally penned Bible, in Latin and in colour.

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And finally, the cats of Dubrovnik……

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