1 destination · 28 things to do
Croatia
Dubrovnik is the walled city that the rest of the Mediterranean measures itself against: a limestone town of marble streets and terracotta roofs, wrapped in nearly two kilometres of medieval ramparts and set on a rock above water so clear it looks lit from below. For four and a half centuries it was the Republic of Ragusa, a merchant state that kept its freedom with diplomacy, money and walls rather than armies, and the city still wears that confidence — in the Gothic-Renaissance Rector's Palace, in a Franciscan pharmacy that has been dispensing since the fourteenth century, in the fortress of Lovrijenac with its motto that liberty is not sold for all the gold in the world. It has also lived through an earthquake that flattened it in 1667, a siege in 1991 and 1992, and a second invasion of a gentler kind, as King's Landing in Game of Thrones and a cruise port that now caps how many passengers can be ashore at once. This guide plans Dubrovnik properly — the walls at opening before the heat and the crowds, the cable car up Mount Srđ for sunset while it is running, Lokrum's peacocks and pine woods by the little ferry, a sea kayak under the ramparts, the Elaphiti islands, and day trips to Ston's oysters, Mostar's bridge and the Bay of Kotor — and it is honest about the seasons, the closures and the queues. Then it matches you to the right hotel, from a palace on a Baroque square inside the walls to cliff-edge villas with Lokrum across the water and family resorts on the Lapad peninsula, because in a city this small and this busy, where you sleep decides how you see it.
