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As much as I enjoyed my solitary early-morning walk around Old Town Dubrovnik, I was excited when some of the attractions I had read about in my Lonely Planet guide started opening for the day. I started with the most obvious must-do: a walk along the city walls. The Old Town of Dubrovnik is enclosed by a mile (and a fourth) of stone walls originally built in the 9th century and later fortified with forts in the 15th century. After wandering around on the inside, it was a thrilling perspective change to climb up (82 feet at the highest point) to look down, both toward the city where I had just been…
…and out toward the stunning Adriatic sea! (Below is St. Lawrence Fortress, often called "Dubrovnik's Gibraltar.”)
I was partial to viewing the landscape through the little windows in these forts. It was sobering to think about the juxtaposition of the wartime purpose of these openings versus my incredibly peaceful experience of them.
Speaking of sobering observations, my Lonely Planet guide clued me in to noticing which terracotta rooftops had been replaced due to shelling damage from the 1990s. (More on this later.)
If you look closely in the photo below, you can see a cable car heading up the mountain. I made that journey a couple days later—stay tuned.
The views of Dubrovnik City Harbor were stunning.
Right next to these vast, epic vistas were the quaintest, realest scenes of local everyday life.
There were a few drawbacks to visiting Dubrovnik in the off-season (most notably that the ferries out to the islands were not operating), but I would not trade the fact that I got to enjoy this beauty sans crowds—I only saw a few other tourists on my walk along the walls. The weather was lovely, too. There is obviously no shade on the top of the walls (except inside the little forts), so I imagine it’s very hot up there in the summer.
I wish I had something more eloquent to say, but alas, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
Still not done with day 1! Coming up next: Alex finally gets to join me—briefly. ;) Not sure if I’ll get around to that before or after I add some of these photos as prints in the shop… :)
