Like many visitors to Croatia Dubrovnik was high on our places to see. Ton recommended that we try to get there early before the cruise ships drop everyone into town, so we were out waiting for the bus at 9:15 am. The bus ride in was uneventful, but as we were riding I saw them advertising something called the Dubrovnik Pass on the video board on the bus. A quick look saw that a three day pass cost 300 Kuna and included the walk on the wall (240 Kuna by itself) and some other museums, and free bus passes for the three days so for us it was a great value and will probably save us 400 0r 500 Kuna during our visit. We highly recommend it.
We arrived in town about 9:45 and it was pretty quiet when we got to the wall. The old town in Dubrovnik is completely enclosed by a medieval wall that is quite impressive. It was built by the Venetians to protect from sea raids and to also defend against the Ottomans to the land side. It was only breached once in its history by Napoleon.
The seaward side protects two different harbors on either side of the peninsula that Dubrovnik is on. Overall it is quite an engineering feat and pretty fun. Dubrovnik was a minor tourist destination until fairly recently due to being under the communist government of Yugoslavia, and then getting tied up in the resulting civil war that came with the break up of Yugoslavia.
In the last 15 years it is no longer undiscovered, but overwhelmed with tourism. The tourism is a double edged sword as it drives the economy of the region, but also makes living here very tough for the Croatians. The local government has limited the number of cruise ships that can dock on a daily basis and are studying other measures to find the correct balance between tourism and the quality of life for the local people.
The other factor leading to the explosion of tourism is Game of Thrones. When the town was quite a bit sleepier it was the ideal setting for Westeros in Game of Thrones. As the show became more and more popular people came here just to see the site that the show was filmed at.
It took us about 2 hours to complete the 2km circuit around the walls. Having completed that we dropped down into a very busy old town. While we were walking around we had seen a steady stream of boats coming in from one of the cruise ships that was anchored out, and while the crowds were not overwhelming it was busier than we like.
We took in a couple of other sites including the Jesuit Steps which are similar to the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the market. As the crowds built and we have three days to explore we decided to return early tomorrow to continue looking around.
As our Dubrovnik Pass now allowed us unlimited rides on the bus system we decided to get out of the tourist part of town and head to the local microbrewery. Dubrovnik Brewing shares its location with a tire shop and was doing good business on a Friday afternoon. The beer was good, and the food truck attached to the brewery was serving a Croatian take on a Pork Burrito which was interesting.
