Walking the Wall in Dubrovnik

We flew from Athens to Dubrovnik, and really had no idea what to expect in Dubrovnik.

First impressions: It is a gorgeous, clean city.

We are staying just outside the old town in an apartment. It seems the lady that owns the apartment has split her apartment into two, so she has some extra income. Our apartment is one big room with a bed, small kitchen and little table; as well as a washroom that has a washing machine in it! Yes! We have a nice little balcony with a view over the water. This is where we like to eat 😀

To get to the old town you walk down about 180 stairs which are just off the main road in front of our apartment. I'm sure you've already realized that 180 stairs down equals 180 stairs up in the 34 degrees Celsius heat! It was easy to find the stairs to go down, as someone had conveniently put a little sign on the wall so I knew where to turn 😀

The old city is the main attraction in Dubrovnik. There are two theories about the origins of Dubrovnik. One dates it back to the 7th century, but recent archaeological findings are dating it even further back to the "Common Era" (B.C.) and theorizing that it was founded by Greek sailors.

Whatever the date, the actual old city is quite stunning. It is built on the coast of the Adriatic Sea and has magnificent city walls. I was further flabbergasted by how beautiful it looked when I found out that it was heavily bombed in 1991... only 25 years ago. They have done an amazing job of rebuilding the city in such a short time!

When you get to the bottom of the stairs there is an information centre (where I didn't find the employees particularly informative), people selling tours and about three restaurants. If you walk between the restaurants towards the water you see a beautiful view of Blackwater Bay. (Blackwater Bay is its Game of Thrones name, I can't find the real name... even with "The Google")

When you look away from the water, this is the view you see.

Official Warning: This post is going to be photo intensive. We were really taken with how beautiful Dubrovnik is and took A LOT of photos!

When you approach the old town you see the main city gate called the "Pile Gate" (pronounced pee-lee). This consists of inner and outer gates.

Here we are outside the "outer" Pile Gate... excited to go in. We are not just excited because Dubrovnik looks like it will be beautiful, but because it is a filming location for Game of Thrones.

When you get in the outer gate there is a little plaza where an artist is set up, and another guy who is pressing coins.

Next you go through the inner gate and end up on the main street, which is called Stradun.

To the right, as you enter, is Onofrio's Fountain (from the 15th century). This is a good place to refill your water bottle, splash water on your face or sit down to eat an ice cream (the ice cream is for cooling off purposes only, of course!) 

There are fountains on each end of the Stradun, as well as bell towers. The street was originally built in the 13th century, but destroyed by an earthquake (and raging fire thereafter) in 1667. It looks mostly as it did after the rebuilding even though large parts of it were destroyed in the 1991 - 1992 mortar shelling. The Institue for Protection of Cultural Monuments,  said 68% of the buildings in the old city were hit by projectiles during this siege during the Croatian War of Independence, and nine of those buildings were totally destroyed by several major fires resulting from the attacks.They have done a tremendous job of rebuilding... so much so, that I wouldn't have known about the shelling if I didn't read about it. One other interesting fact was that the ancient walls were such good protection that the interior of the old city fared better than the more modern buildings outside the walls.

As you walk down the street you see many side streets. The ones heading towards the water are flat, but the ones heading in the other direction can be quite steep!

We were getting quite hungry at this point, and decided to look for lunch. Imagine our surprise <insert sarcasm here> when we found two Irish Pubs right next to each other. Of course, we chose to have lunch in one so we could add them to our "Irish Pub Experiment" 😀

After lunch, we set off on our main purpose... to walk the old city walls.

We did, however, get distracted and ended up exploring the old city a bit more. There are some absolutely beautiful buildings. I'm trying to restrain myself, so here are just a couple of photos!

We ended up going through a gate and finding the marina. There were a few restaurants here, lots of boats, and loads of people enjoying the sunshine!

Here I am enjoying the sunshine... can you find me?

I was wishing I had my bathing suit on so I could join these people who were going in for a swim. I think the red part in the middle was cordoned off for swimming laps.

Okay, after getting quite distracted we headed off again to climb the walls. The stone walls were constructed between the 12th and 17th centuries and run about 2 km in total. They circle the entire old city, and reach a height of 25 metres (about 8 storeys) at some points!

It costs 120 Kunas each to get in, and once you are on you can't leave (well you can leave, but your ticket doesn't allow for re-entry). This is about $22 Canadian, but worth every penny.

When you first get in, this is your first set of steps. Notice that I'm still smiling 😉

Official warning: Take lots of water (we did!), and be prepared for a lot of steps in the VERY hot sun!

There is a specific direction you are supposed to follow. You will see the signs when you get to the top of the first set of stairs. Of course we followed the rules, most people did, and one of my favourite viewpoints was right near the beginning. This is where you could see the area where Blackwater Bay is.

I'm just going to insert a few of my favourite photos here without commentary... when you feel like there are a lot of photos, keep in mind that I've already really narrowed them down!

Most of the buildings were intact, inside the walls, but this area wasn't. 

I'm not sure why this wasn't rebuilt.

Conveniently there are a few places to stop for some shade and a cold drink up on the walls. It isn't cheap, but at that point I would have paid anything for some shade and a cold drink (the water in the bottle we brought was hot already!)

Here is another place I found to hide in the shade while Steve took a bajillion photos!

When you get around half way around the walls you can see this cool little restaurant/bar where people can hang out and cool off.

There are so many stairs on this wall! It isn't that you go up and stay up, and then come down at the end. There are lots of ups and downs. I  must admit that down was my favourite!

We were wondering how the stores and restaurants in side the walls got their supplies because there were no cars inside. I imagined they brought them all in at night. Then we saw this little "freight train" bringing in supplies during the day.

More beautiful scenery shots...

When you get to the last section of the wall you reach your biggest climb. Here I am part of the way up.

This is where you really need water... shade... and regular resting (unless you're Steve of course... he just carried on like nothing unusual was going on!)

When we got to the last tower I had a break in the shade... (this falls into the know your limits category!) For you GoT fans, I'm sitting at the "House of the Undying" in this photo 😀

... while Steve climbed all the way to the very top.

Here is the view from the VERY top. You can see how much higher you are than the spots where we already felt we were high up!

This was a hard walk in the heat, but totally worth it. You must do this if you are in Dubrovnik. Just bring lots of water, and take refuge in the shady spots when you can. Lots of people say to go later in the day, but remember they close at 7:30, so you can't leave it too late. We spent at least 3 hours up on the wall! We talked to one local who said that even the people that live in Dubrovnik love walking on the wall... but only in the winter 😀

After we walked back down to the old town and left the walls, I was thrilled to realize we had to walk up the 180+ steps back to our apartment 😀 We made it, and I'm still alive and kicking. If I can do it, so can you!