Dubrovnik - Pearl Of The Adriatic - Rosie and The Operator

Dubrovnik, Pearl of The Adriatic has a compact old town. Dubrovnik is also one of the most popular places to visit at the moment in the world. Dubrovnik also has the most early birds out and about before 0800am that Rosie and The Operator has ever encountered in a city.

Everybody visiting this town is aware of how early you need to be out and about before the invasion that Dubrovnik never planned for happens…..tourism…..and they are invaded here every day! All of us were out there hoping to claim a wee bit of peacefulness, solitude and early morning light for gorgeous photos in this beautiful city before the cruise ships come in (three due today, The Operator looked up the port schedule…4000 people from three boats!) plus the countless tour buses…all flooding the city, and its low season!

It made Rosie feel a little edgy, like she had to be quick and rush….Rosie doesn’t like that feeling on holiday but she could see the tourists entering the city and felt she had to hurry.

Walking through the Pile Gate….the anxiety ended, you were automatically transferred into another world and no one else around you mattered. Except when someone occasionally stood in front of me whilst I was trying to take a photo…how dare they!

This gate is the main entry into the town of Dubrovnik, the entrance way is thin and the walkway to the gate emulates the drawbridge that used to be there when it was built in 1537.

The ancient pulleys and wheels are still there on the wall that they used to raise and lower the bridge every day and night. This was one of only two original entrances into the walled city, the third one, that you saw Rosie peep through up to her house yesterday was drilled through the wall in the 19th century.

Rosie has never before seen a roped off section indicating where to walk if you are going in or out of a town…plus, you wouldn’t believe how long Rosie stood there to get these photos below with hardly any people in it…the early morning trickle was already turning into a flood. Where the people are walking is up from the city to the gate exit. Rosie is taking a pic from a side door that leads to a wee bastion on the side of the Pile Gate.

Entering the town through the double gates you first see The Big Onofrio Fountain, a tall, multifaceted build with multiple nymphs spouting continuously running fresh water into the surrounding trough.

The fountain is named after its architect and designer of the 11.7 km long Dubrovnik water supply system which was completed in 1438 and still supply’s the town today with beautiful fresh water.

Facing the fountain is the little Church of St Saviour on the left, with the round window above the door. It was built in 1520 as a thanks to the Saint for not destroying the city in a huge earthquake that happened that year. It also survived the even bigger earthquake of 1667 and this church is still the original building!

The Fountain stands at one end of the long wide Stradum, which is the main street of Dubrovnik, its wide, shiny pavers lead you past cafes, restaurants and shops all the way to the end where sitting under the tall City Bell Tower built in 1444 sits The Small Fountain, built also by Onofrio.

This area of Old Town Dubrovnik is breath taking, Rosie was slowly spinning around taking in the beauty of the buildings surrounding her. The end of the Stradum opens up into a square that houses a beautiful church and impressive decorative Venetian style buildings.

These wide streets which are unusual in an old town add to the feeling of wealth and space as well as allowing Rosie to get most of the buildings in a single picture for once. The light is still cool from the early morning but a glint of gold is starting to hit the buildings which are all exactly matching in the same colour of stone. A flock of pigeons is flying back and forth having just woken up and it is pretty spectacular!

The Sponza Palace sits to the left of the Bell Tower, it was built in the 16th Century and is completely original to this day. Back in the days of the Republic is was used as a storehouse, customs office, the city mint and town treasury. Today the building is the home of the Dubrovnik State Archives and houses the original Statute of Dubrovnik written in 1272.

This dude is just sitting there nearby watching the goings on of the square…blacked with age he has a beautiful big shiny golden, bronze nose from hundreds of fingertips which have rubbed it…its hard not to follow suit and give it a tweek…..it reminds Rosie of a big nosed uncle I have in Australia.

All the while you are looking at other buildings trying to take in all your surrounds and your gaze just keeps going back to the beautiful church that dominates the square, The Church of St Blaise who is the Patron Saint of Dubrovnik. Built in 1715, it just steals the show! The Facade looks so solid yet gracefully simple, good ole St Blaise stands atop the peak looking down over all.

Inside the church it is understated as well and peacefully simple. But the treasury, well the treasury just blows your mind. Tucked away in a side chapel is the Treasury of St Blaise (no photographs please).

Inside this golden bejeweled crown, made by a local goldsmith in 1694…is the head of St Blaise, an invaluable holy relic. No way.

Here is another terrible sneaky photograph, zoom into the nooks behind the glowing crucifix…which, by the way, holds a splinter of the actual wooden crucifix Jesus Christ was nailed to….in the nooks are golden arms and legs….these gold and bejeweled cases have corresponding pieces of saints, well, arms and legs in the appropriately shaped case. This is one of the largest Holy Relic Treasuries in Europe. The stronger and more powerful your city was the more relics you had. Damned if those bejeweled arm and leg cases were awesome!

Standing in front of The Church of St Blaise is the Orlando Column, a symbol of statehood and independence, built in 1418 it shows a handsome knight returning from the crusades.

The next avenue is just as breathtaking in the warming light of the morning. This is a view looking down the street to the Dubrovnik Cathedral at the end.

One of the buildings that you pass on the way there is the Rectors Palace, the home of the Chief Magistrate and the Head of the Dubrovnik Republic.

The Rector had a government consisting of three councils, all elected from the circle of Dubrovnik’s aristocratic families. Ordinary people did not have the right to vote, but the ‘small state was lawful, enjoyed excellent leadership and ensured subsistence and security for everyone’, as the history books say. The Rector had a beautiful house alright with the most humongous door knocker Rosie has ever seen. It is pinned in place so you cant knock it anymore……spoilsports!

Walking down towards the Cathedral with the super long name of The Cathedral of The Assumption of The Virgin Mary….yes, the same name as the Zagreb Cathedral. The sun is getting higher and casts a golden glow onto the yellow brick showing it in all its 400 year old glory…as a crowd of pigeons whoosh past adding to the etherealness.

The Operator waits near the stairs for Rosie to go in….no, not this morning, we have other sights to see before the crowds. Plus, just between you and me, Rosie is getting a little over the inside of churches, you know how you get when you visit Europe…two dozen later and well, you know. Interestingly, it was said that the original church on this site was financed with money from the English King Richard The Lionheart who survived a shipwreck nearby on his way back from the Crusades in 1192 and donated the building of the church to give thanks.

Round the corner, down an alley and we are in the Dubrovnik harbor, just as the morning sun has come over the hilltops.

The harbor is full of small boats parked up in rows against the backdrop of the city walls and the new town extends up the hill. It is a beautiful sheltered spot with a huge stone wharf which would have seen some action over its time. Now is the perfect opening to segway into a bit of background on the city…..

It is said that Dubrovnik was first settled in the 2nd century as a fortified military camp of the Roman Empire. In the 10th Century it declared itself an independent commune and some 100 years later became an independent republic…it remained so up until 1808 when changes in Europe bought about by Napoleons Wars of Conquest led to its abolishment. Amazing eh!

Dubrovnik was able to look after itself and prosper as it sits in a brilliant geographic location in the Adriatic where it constantly extended its sea traffic to the extent that by the 15th Century the Dubrovnik merchant fleet had over 300 ships and 4,000 seaman, which along with the Venetian fleet, who worked out of the City, made it the largest fleet in the Mediterranean. The city also had its fingers in the pie of transporting the goods bought in by sea, by land, and these transport links added to the wealth and expansion of the city. The huge defense walls that surrounded the city were also key in its survival through the ages….but more on that tomorrow.

Popping through a tiny door in the huge city wall on the harbor front that you wont even really notice unless you are looking for it as directed by The Lonely Planets walking guide of Dubrovnik, we go down a few back alleys and enter Gundulic Square.

Home to the cities ‘green market’ where farmers from nearby villages sell their produce every morning. This square was busy and bathed in golden light and combined with the colours of the stallholders produce made for a great vibe that Rosie just loved.

The Baroque Staircase was the early morning quest that most people were headed too, so many were posed on the stairs taking selfies or getting others to take shots for them for the perfect holiday momento. Rosie wasnt making eye contact with anyone looking around waiting to ask a stranger to take a picture of them on the stairs. No friendly tourist chitty chat this morning…Rosie was still focused on the mission at hand.

This stairway is so popular as it featured in Game of Thrones. The capitol city of the fictional TV series Kings Landing is filmed in Dubrovnik and these stairs were the start of the infamous ‘Walk of Shame., Hence the popularity of an otherwise…boring….set of stairs, said to be fashioned after the Spanish Steps in Rome….albeit a tinier narrower version.

Rosie got her snaps…this is the sum of Rosie and The Operators badly posed 5 second selfie that we take the world over, they are all bad pics Lol, but we have quite a collection now.

At the top of the staircase is the most beautiful square that looks untouched by the hands of man for the last 500 years! Hold on, it hasn’t, these are the original buildings from 500 years ago….another square famous for Game of Thrones filming because of its originality.

As we made our way back to the Stradum, it was lateish morning, time to congratulate ourselves on a successful sight seeing mission with an early aperitif me thinks. No argument from The Operator on that one…looks like alot of others were doing the same thing….

The beauty of the historical site area we had just traversed and shown you around is that this area is very flat. No steps and stairs. One street back from this main thoroughfare and the city starts to rise up the hill again….and man there are alot of stairs, there is no skirting them. We are at the lowest point of the Old Town on the Stradum and to get to lunch there are stairs…to get home there are even more stairs to get to the gate of the Old Town….and then you know how many stairs there are to get home….today Rosie has a cunning plan though.

But there is no escaping them to get out of the Old Town. Off we go. The tortuously steep alleyways are beautiful in their upward agony. Smaller streets that branch off the main upward paths all have intriguing endings or beautiful vignettes. Thank goodness because its nice for Rosie to stop and catch her breath and take a picture.

Up one huge flight you go to the main Eat Street of Dubrovnik. This street stretches from one end of town to the other and offers alley way dining to suit every taste….budget wise, it isnt cheap, but you cant beat the buzz and when in Rome…ooops Dubrovnik.

Talking to a waiter over lunch, we asked if this street closes for the winter like the rest of Croatia. He had worked in this restaurant for 17 years and said they used to close for winter up until 5 years ago. Now the town is open for business all year because of the amount of tourists that visit.

The City Government also doesn’t want the restaurants to close so they offer an incentive where the restaurant owners do not pay rent on the footpath dining areas outside their shops over the winter months when it is abit colder and visitor numbers have reduced slightly as an incentive for them to stay open. Now I work all year round he says….he has a young family and takes two different buses to get into the Old Town to work, he works from 0900am to midnight six days a week, his actual words were, sometimes I get a day off… but not over summer.

So, from the Eat Street there is another massive couple of flights of stairs to climb up to the gate. Rosie has to stop and rest on the way up these stairs. She is puffing like an old steam train and whilst she rests and catches her breath she pretends she has just casually stopped to take a picture of something that has caught her eye…sometimes it is true, most times not….like who even cares said The Operator shaking his head as he patiently waits.

Rosie does have still have a little pride….the first shot below is a fake, catch my breath photo….the next is a wee discovered gem halfway up. An artist had his wares out for display on the wall across from his little workshop, and the workshop, it was awesome. OK, lungs have caught up with my breathing, lets carry on.

Conveniently positioned at the top of the stairs is a small bar, the young waiter craftily waits at the top by the top step and says to the people puffing up, you look hot, come and have a sit down and a nice cold beer’. Didn’t need to say that twice to Rosie, and The Operator, even though he never even breaks a sweat wasn’t complaining either. This is the perfect pick me up before Rosie starts the haul home of 385 stairs, although I did say she had a crafty plan in mind.

Over a nice cold beer Rosie laid out the plan to The Operator. After having a beautiful morning wandering the old town and a delicious cocktail and a glorious lunch…instead of Rosie getting cranky and hot walking home up the stairs how about we get a taxi up to the ring road and from there take the rental car that The Operator had collected all ready for our departure out of the town, and drive on up the hill to the lookout instead of taking the overcrowded gondola. Okey Dokey said The Operator, he is all for an easy life. First we did a loopy around the old town and drove through the city walls back to where we started from, just cause we could.

Off we drove with Rosie craning her neck all the way up the steep road to see how good the view of the Old Town was over her shoulder. Just chill, said the The Operator, its good, he said looking in the rear view mirror, we will stop if you want on the way down.

So we drove up the narrow steep road to the Gondola Station at the top of the hill overlooking Dubrovnik. 500 meters before the gondola station was a giant pull in bay, pull in said Rosie, they don’t make pull in bays for nothing in this town. Well, the view was fantastic! This is the picture that Rosie had been longing to get. it was magnificent!

Want another 5 second selfie…yeah, of course we took one!

Up at the Gondola station, the lookout view from there was nowhere as good with all the cables in the way…Rosie smugly didnt even get her camera out.

On the way home we also got another beautiful shot of this fab city…. no matter how many times you see it, it just takes my breath away.

Parked up in the last spot available on the ring road edge after some very tight parallel parking on The Operators part Rosie was stoked to walk down hill back to her apartment. We sat on the balcony and watched the sun set and the lights come on in the Old Town. It was Sunday and in the dusk drifting up to us on the hillside was the sound of a beautiful massed choir singing from one of the churches in the Old Town…this day couldn’t have ended better.