Dubrovnik - Part 1

Hello, Bonjour, Zdravo - from Croatia 🇭🇷

I am writing this post onboard a ferry from Dubrovnik to Korcula Island, where we will stay for three days. It’s Thursday afternoon and we only arrived in Dubrovnik Old Town around 9pm on Tuesday … so it’s been a short visit, by design. But fabulous in every way, with the added bonus of another catch up with my sister Julie, when our travels overlapped for one night 🩷

Dubrovnik Old Town is compact, just 0.26 square kilometres. And you can walk the entire perimeter along the City Walls - just short of 2 kms, with lots of stairs - in about an hour. You can see a lot in a short time … and we did.

This is my first visit to Dubrovnik but The French has been here before. In the mid 1990s, Domi spent more than six months in Croatia and other countries of the former Yugoslavia as part of French and international de-mining and peacekeeping operations. The city looked very different then.

The siege of Dubrovnik lasted from October 1991 to May 1992 during the Croatian War of Independence. Though Dubrovnik was largely undefended and had no military significance, it became a target due to its symbolic importance to the Croatian people. The residents suffered severe shortages of water, electricity, and food while cut off from the rest of Croatia. More than 300 military personnel and civilians died during the siege.

On December 6th the Yugoslav army launched a full scale attack on the UNESCO protected Old Town resulting in widespread fires and artillery damage to more than half of the buildings within the walls. Heavy shelling destroyed two out of every three tiled roofs.

Nowadays for the average tourist like me it’s difficult to imagine that there was such devastation. Domi doesn’t need to imagine. The restoration of the Old Town, coordinated by UNESCO and The Institute for Restoration of Dubrovnik was meticulous and remarkable. The Old Town is a treasure. And busy.

Today, Dubrovnik is one of most visited cities in the world with ‘Over-Tourism’ a genuine concern. According to Responsible Travel:

‘Dubrovnik has been ranked the most overcrowded city in the world, with 27 tourists to every resident at its peak. Renowned for its beauty, as well as its historic architecture and walls, the city’s issues with overtourism began hitting the headlines with the arrival of the Game of Thrones TV series, which resulted in around 60,000 location-spotting tourists a year. But the real culprits behind Dubrovnik’s crowds are the three usual suspects: cheap flights, short term lets, and cruise ships.’

But Dubrovnik is fighting back ..

‘Dubrovnik has instituted a set of short-, medium- and long-term proposals, bound up in a package called ‘Respect the City’. It is based on two premises. Firstly, that tourism is vital to Dubrovnik, and that what is needed is better management, not barriers to entry. As such, the focus is less on reducing numbers but improving the ‘flow’ of visitors through the city. And secondly, that city officials, tourism businesses and local people are partners, not adversaries, with everyone pulling together towards a shared goal of making Dubrovnik a better place for both residents and visitors.’

https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/dubr…

With its stunning location, magnificent architecture and rich history, it’s easy to see why Dubrovnik continues to attract so many visitors.

We thoroughly enjoyed our short stay and certainly felt welcome at every encounter, but the time we had was enough. We are ready for our next stop - the island of Korcula. 😎Read more