DUBROVNIK, CROATIA
Today, we arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the first of five back-to-back port days. it was nice not having to be up at the crack of dawn to set up the art class; instead, we had a leisurely breakfast and was out on the quayside in time to catch the 10am shuttle bus to the Old Town, roughly 3.5km away (so, a little too far to walk there and back within the time allowed).
The bus dropped us off outside Pile Gate, the first of several locations in the city that have been used as filming locations for Game of Thrones. I had a webpage set up on my phone for reference, so I was able to confirm that Pile Gate doubled as a major gateway into ‘Kings Landing’.
One of the things that we’d already decided we definitely wanted to do was to walk the city walls. Dubrovnik is blessed with an almost fully intact wall that totally envelopes the Old Town.
To access the walls, however, requires purchasing a ticket… a not inconsiderate amount, I might add – no less than €35 each. This was a little more than we’d expected, but it isn’t every day one gets to visit Dubrovnik, so Tracey disappeared inside a nearby Tourist Information Centre to purchase said tickets.
At this point, I feel I should mention that there is something called ‘The Dubrovnik Pass’ a ticket that includes access to the City walls, all the museums ad galleries within the city and several other notable benefits and discounts. It was this ticket that Tracey believed she had bought (two of them… at €35 each). It wasn’t until much later, when we attempted to visit one of the museums, and was denied entry, that we discovered what she’d actually bought was a pair of tickets for the Walls only, and not the Dubrovnik Pass… also €35 each.
We weren’t happy, and popped into another Tourist Information Centre to confirm what tickets we were actually in possession of. There are two types of tickets then… The Dubrovnik Pass, which gives you access to everying… is €35… and tickets to the walls (only)… also €35. The distinction is so vague as to feel like one or the other is something of a rip-off. When I visited in 2009, when working on the Boudicca, I seem to remember being able to walk along the walls for free. Someone else was heard to ay that they’d visited in 2022, and had only paid £10 to walk the walls. As I understand it, Croatia has only relatively recently started using the euro for their currency… maybe they’re simply overpricing things… either that, or – maybe – they’re taking the p***.
I digress. Having bought the tickets, we climbed the steps to the top of the city walls and proceeded to circumnavigate the Old Town, which took us the best part of two hours. We weren’t in a hurry and were determined to enjoy every twist and turn, every nook and cranny. The views across the town were nothing short of spectacular – in fact, you could say that there was a notable viewpoint at every turn.
All the roofs are of the orange pantile variety, of which the city presents a veritable sea of them, punctuated by several towers and a dome or two. As the wall rose and fell, it also provided us with multiple views outwards, across to Lokrum Island. The wall was also quite busy, with several tours in procession along its length. The P&O ship Aurora was in port, parked up behind the Spirit of Discovery, so there was no shortage of visitors.
In retrospect, we were happy to have walked the walls, and would have paid whatever extortionate price for the priviledge, within reason. Whichever way you cut in, €35 is almost certainly on the extortionate side, but the ambiguity with the two ticket types is exploitative, and simply not good enough in my book. When we were exploring the streets down below after completing the wall walk, the discovery that we couldn’t use them to visit the museums and galleries was a bit of a shock, and briefly angered us, although I can’t honestly say that we were that put out by it (we just won’t buy one again). As compensation, we treated ourselves to very large ice creams (priced at a very reasonable €2 per scoop) then headed to Fort Lovrijenac, which was included in the price of our wall tickets… an adjacent fort, that doubled as ‘The Red Keep’ in The Game of Thrones.
Naturally, we made a point of visiting The Jesuit Staircase, which was where they filmed Cersei’s ‘Walk of Atonement’, and several other notable locations including Blackwater Bay and Minecta Tower, where Denearys attempted to free her dragons.
All-in-all, despite the tickets issue, we enjoyed our visit and look forward to returning in October.
