Bokar fortress, Dubrovnik. Image credit: CC2.5 Daniel Ortmann, 16 April 2006

Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Its medieval city walls, paved streets and old world charm are mesmerising.  It deserves its reputation as one of the top medieval walled cities.

Dubrovnik has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979 and had been demilitarised in order to try protect it from exactly the sort of siege that it was later subjected to.  It is certainly deserving of the World Heritage appellation.

Dubrovnik is small and if you are reasonably fit you can explore it comprehensively by foot in a couple of hours.

Old City Walls

Walk the city walls, if you have time and your ship lets its passengers off early.  Why?  In summer many may find it excessively hot later in the day.  This is definitely worthwhile and a good opportunity for taking pictures.  The city walls are massive and were built for protection, but today serve as a wonderful open-air-museum.

Walled City

For us the chief attraction of Dubrovnik was being able to meander down the streets inside the old walled city.  Unfortunately, on the day we were there this was counter-balanced by grim weather with intermittent rain, and the arrival of a thunderstorm.  It was judged wisest to cut the walk short.

Out of necessity (we had colds caused by unhygienic shipmates sneezing on us) we visited the old pharmacy, founded in 1317.   It is said to be the third-oldest continuously operated pharmacy in the world.

While we were in the queue at the pharmacy, an Italian woman pushed her way through the crowd to the counter.  Her medical emergency was “pills for fat”.  When we left a few minutes later she was sitting on the step outside, reading the packaging.  On closer scrutiny we decided that she had bought badly.  She really needed, since “pills for rudeness” are not available, “pills for ugly”.  (When people in the queue protested about this, the pharmacist merely shrugged.  Jumping the queue is regarded as acceptable behaviour in Croatia.  It is not generally acceptable in polite Italian company – we stood in very orderly queues in Italy.)

What will you see in the walled city?  The sights include the Franciscan Monastery in which the Old Pharmacy is housed.  No photos may be taken within the pharmacy, but it’s worth going inside even if you are not purchasing anything.  In addition to the beautiful ceiling is the interesting collection of old bottles lining the walls. Space however is cramped and you should be prepared for a squeeze.

The fortress-like Dominican Monastery, the Sponza and the Town Hall are also noteworthy, with most of the monuments and old buildings having an authentic medieval look to them.

Where to eat

There are a number of cheaper places to eat but we had a splendid lunch just outside the Pile Gate to the old city, at the Nautika restaurant.  One could not hope for a better position.  It has lovely views of the ocean and is somewhat sheltered from the wind by the walls.  We were comfortable sitting outside on a fairly stormy day with the waves crashing against the rocks.  It gave a dramatic backdrop to our lunch of Croatian style pizza and red wine.  It is a pricey establishment and be sure to check the bill properly – as our waiter mysteriously lost his hitherto good English and looked at us blankly when it came to getting the correct change, even though we had tipped generously.

Arriving by Ship

If you are arriving by ship as we did, you will find that the cruise ships dock in Gruz, a harbour which is 2.5 km from the old city.  The bus stopped at a scenic point along the route to the old city where you can take a great photo.  Sadly it was also the artillery point used during the war when Dubrovnik was under siege for seven months in 1991.

The traffic into the city can be horrendous during the season.  The drive down from the lookout point into the city foot took thirty minutes of stop-go traffic in the bus, enveloped in Diesel exhaust fumes, owing to the number of buses from the visiting cruise ships.  It could have been walked in minutes.

When it came to getting a bus back to the ship there was a long queue of people encircling the entire square beside the Nautika restaurant.  Locals in traditional costume plied their trade alongside the queue, selling local memorabilia.

Money and payments

The currency in Croatia is the Kuna.  We had discovered that we could exchange Euros for Kuna in Venice, at the airport.  Dubrovnik features on the back of the 50 Kuna note.  Credit and debit cards are widely accepted, but one is generally advised against using them as the rate of fraud has reportedly been high.  Prices are sometimes marked in Euros and sometimes in Kuna, so you need to keep careful track of that.

Off-season travel

Two of our correspondents travelled to Dubrovnik off-season by land.  Getting there by bus was more complicated and included military inspections at the border, which may not be to everyone’s taste.

There are a number of small hotels and bed and breakfast establishments that provide good value if you intend to stay over.  The B&Bs tend to be more friendly than the hotels.  The downside to off-season travel is that Dubrovnik is a city that is very much dependent on tourism.  Many of the shops and restaurants are only open in season.  But if you travel when the cruise ships are not visiting you will have the city pretty much to yourself, which is an altogether less pressured experience.

This image and any images not specifically attributed, Copyright DIY Travel Expert.

If you are determined to go to a specific place on a specific date, pick your preferred airline and stay in a predetermined hotel you are likely to pay the most of all.  This is one reason that business travel is so expensive.  If you are prepared to show a little flexibility you can reduce the costs significantly whilst enjoying a higher standard of travel.

Dates

Check whether your proposed dates are high-season, shoulder-season or out of season.  Out of season is cheapest.  But the proviso is that some places can be quite nasty when out of season – their main attractions may even be closed, or the weather could be extreme.  It may be that by moving your date by as little as a week you can realise a nice saving.

Destination

If you want to see the Sistine Chapel in person you have no choice as to destination – it is at the heart of the Vatican, which is embedded in Rome, Italy.  To state the obvious: it is a building and never goes on tour to other places.  And if they are selecting a new pope at the time, you are not going to get in unless you hold the rank of Cardinal in the Catholic hierarchy.

If, however, you decided to see “Italian Renaissance Art” instead then your possibilities broaden considerably – practically any region in Italy will have rich treasures to please you.

Find the nearest transport hub

Some of our best adventures have come from having a variety of modes of transport, even on the same day.  (There are exceptions: One of our team loves flying so much that any journey that can be done by air, however impractical that may be, is going to be done that way.)

For instance, though it is possible to fly to Galway from Dublin, you are going to get a magnificent experience of the Irish countryside if you take the train instead.

Work back from the furthest part of your journey and add the links as you go.  If you are lucky, your chosen destination is a major city that is a transport hub.  But more often than not, you are looking at something prettier and smaller and it may be a problem to find the right hub.

For instance, there a number of wonderful Adriatic cruises that start and end in Dubrovnik, Croatia.  However, getting to Dubrovnik, which is only a minor regional hub, can be expensive.  After doing some further research you will find that it is as much as €200 more per person  than going to Venice.  Then you find out that there are Adriatic cruises that leave from Venice!  (And a number of those cruises stop in Dubrovnik anyway, so you still get to see the city.)

Break the journey at connections

DIY Travel Expert recommends that you break your journey at connection points and make them secondary destinations.  This is particularly true of long-haul flights with multiple connections.  If you stop over on the way there you reduce the journey to a series of shorter hops.

A number of carriers route their flights via their main hub.  If you are flying between Europe, Asia and Africa on Emirates, for instance, you are going to spend some time on the ground in Dubai.  Etihad go via Abu Dhabi.  Qatar will put you in Doha.  You may visit Istanbul courtesy of Turkish.  Who cares if those places are not destinations that you would have picked for your holiday?  You have your main destination picked out already.

A stopover at one of these places incurs zero additional transport cost!  It is almost a free destination.  (Okay, you may have to pay for visas, and there will be excursion costs, but the transport is free.)  In fact, it gets better than that… it is often cheaper to travel via the carrier’s primary hub (even though the distance is further) than it would be to fly direct city-to-city.

You probably do not want to stop over on both the forward leg and the return, so you get to pick.  Sometimes, if the place you are going through is particularly nice, you might want to plan to spend a few days in one direction and just one day, without a sleepover in the opposite direction.

If you follow this advice, instead of minimising your connection time, you may find yourself expanding it so that there is time for an excursion at the carrier’s hub city instead.  It is exactly why they brought you there in the first place, but you can turn it to your advantage.