Rector's Palace

The Rector's Palace is where the Republic of Ragusa was governed, and its story explains how this small city stayed free for so long. Dubrovnik was ruled by its nobility through a set of councils, and the head of state, the rector, was elected for just one month at a time; during that month he lived in the palace, apart from his family, and could leave only on official business. The idea was that no single man could gather enough power to become a tyrant, and the inscription over the council hall door reminds officials to forget private matters and attend to public ones. The building you see is largely fifteenth-century, rebuilt after gunpowder explosions in the 1430s and 1460s, with the work of the Neapolitan architect Onofrio della Cava, who also built the city's fountains, and later Renaissance additions; the result is a beautiful hybrid, with a Renaissance loggia of carved capitals on the street front and Gothic windows above. The heart of the visit is the atrium, a two-storey courtyard with a grand staircase and a statue of Miho Pracat, a wealthy shipowner who left his fortune to the Republic and is the only commoner honoured with a monument here. The courtyard is also one of the main concert venues of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. Upstairs, the Cultural History Museum, part of Dubrovnik Museums, fills the rector's apartments and offices with furniture, portraits, coins, keys to the city gates, and the documents and objects of daily life in the Republic. It is in the heart of the Old Town, beside the Cathedral, and it is covered by the Dubrovnik Pass and the combined Dubrovnik Museums ticket.

Most visitors give the palace an hour, and that is about right. Start in the atrium and look at the carved capitals of the loggia from close up, where you will find Aesculapius, the god of medicine, among the figures, a nod to the tradition that he was born in nearby Cavtat. Climb the staircase to the upper floor, where the rooms are arranged to suggest how the palace looked in the Republic's later centuries: the rector's study and bedroom, the council rooms, the armoury, the old pharmacy jars and the paintings of noble families. Downstairs, the former prison cells and the courtroom are reminders that the building was also the seat of justice. The collections are modest rather than dazzling, but they make the Republic real in a way the walls alone cannot.

Opening hours change with the season. Dubrovnik Museums runs longer summer hours from April to October, and shorter winter hours from November to March, when the palace is closed on Mondays; the museums are also closed on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and the Feast of St Blaise, and open only in the morning on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. Payment is cashless. The single-site ticket is reasonably priced, but the better deal is either the Dubrovnik Pass, which also includes the city walls and buses, or the Dubrovnik Museums combined ticket, valid for a week across several museums including the Maritime Museum in St John's Fortress, the Ethnographic Museum in the old Rupe granary and the archaeological exhibitions in Fort Revelin.

If you are lucky enough to be in town during the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, try to catch a concert in the atrium, where the acoustics and the candlelit stone make it one of the most atmospheric venues in the Mediterranean. Game of Thrones fans will recognise the courtyard as a filming location for scenes set in Qarth. Pair the palace with the Cathedral and its treasury of reliquaries next door, and with a coffee on Gundulić Square after the market stalls have packed away. On a rainy day, or at midday when the streets are hot and full, it is the ideal refuge.