Wrapping Up in Dubrovnik

Friday, November 23

We finally get around to doing the free tour.  We had scheduled with the operator before but had to cancel because we were not feeling well.  After being in Dubrovnik for over a week why did we bother?  It’s true that we already knew our way around the city quite well but we’ve found that these tours offer interesting stories and insights.  Besides, it’s great to get a local’s perspective on the wars of the 1990s and the politics of the day.  We’d actually signed up for two tours: a city tour for today and a Game of Thrones tour for tomorrow but were told that since we’d been the only ones who signed up, and the tours were very similar, that we should just choose one of the dates.

We met the tour near Buža Gate at 11:00 am.  Three others had also signed up so we would be a party of five.  One young girl was from England and there was a mother and daughter from Queens, NY.  The tour guide had chosen this gate as a meeting spot because it is one of the highest points in the city.  This meant that the tour would be mostly downhill.  The old city is built on a hill and there are a LOT of stairs.

Truthfully we didn’t see too much that we hadn’t already seen but we did learn one little factoid about Game of Thrones that made it worth our time.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** If you don’t want to know skip to the next paragraph now: Kit Harington was seen filming scenes in Dubrovnik which means that Jon Snow eventually makes it to King’s Landing.  We can’t wait until April when the series will finally be back on the air!

We did get to see one place that we hadn’t seen before.  It was the Rector’s Palace, sometimes referred to as the Duke’s Palace.  The interior was used in several scenes from GOT where Daenerys Targaryen meets with the Qarth’s Spice King.

(Rector’s Palace)

Distance walked: 1.9 miles

Saturday, November 24

Our last day in Dubrovnik.  This was our last opportunity to see things that were on our to-do list.  We started the day by going to the Franciscan Monastery where we found one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe.  It was founded in 1317 and has been in continuous operation since.  The monastery’s cloister is open to the public and we had a nice stroll around.  The columns and arches were characteristic of the Venetian style.

(Venetian Style Cloister)

Outside, the main street, we took some photos of Big Onofrio’s Fountain.  It’s a huge, ornate fountain that has supplied the public with drinking water for centuries.  The fountain was originally used exclusively by the Jewish community but in the 9th century, after the fall of the Ragusa Republic when Dubrovnik became a self governing state, it was moved to its current location near the Pile Gate.

Next we headed towards the Ethnographic Museum.  We had no intention of entering it – we just wanted to see the building.  The exterior had been used as the entrance to Peytr Baelish’s brothel in Game of Thrones.

Along our way to our next destination we stuck our heads into Church of the Holy Annunciation – an Eastern Orthodox church.  The interior was decorated with Western style paintings.  It’s very unusual for an Eastern Orthodox church.  The only other place we’ve seen this was in Saint Michael’s in Belgrade.

Today we finally got a chance to visit a gallery that we’d noticed previously.  It was a large, two story store that sold Croatian Naive Art.  We’d first been introduced to Naive Art in Zagreb where it had its beginnings and hadn’t seen much of it elsewhere in Croatia so we were surprised to see a large collection here in Dubrovnik.  The gallery was packed full of paintings.  We even saw a couple by an artist that we particularly like: Croata.  The prices were quite high and nothing we saw even tempted us but it was fun to visit.

The gallery was part of a complex of buildings that housed a Dominican Monastery.  They have a museum that was said to feature paintings from the Renaissance period.  The cost of entry was 30 KN / $4.75 per person.  Cash only.

The museum is housed in a set of rooms off another beautiful, Venetian style cloister.  Some of the highlights of the collection included two Papal Bulls from 1304 granting an indulgence for one year to anyone participating in the construction of the monastery, a painting by Titan from 1490 and a reliquary containing the head of Saint Luke the Evangelist.

(16th Century Triptych)

By now we were ready for a snack.  We headed back to Taverna Arsenal, the place where we’d had Thanksgiving Dinner.  Deborah had a cappuccino and we split a piece of their fantastic Krema Schnit.  We had the same waiter from our previous visit.  Apparently he remembered us too because he gave us a 10% discount for being repeat customers.  If we’d known that we would have ordered TWO pieces of schnit!

We haven’t really gone into as much detail about Dubrovnik as we would normally have done but we were pretty sick during our visit.  In spite of being there for eleven days we were only out and about for a few of those days and most of the time it was only for a few hours.  Dubrovnik is a lovely city and is really worth a visit.  Our only complaint is that it was the most expensive city on the Dalmatian Coast and, by our observations, the most expensive city in the Balkans.

Distance walked: 2.0 miles