From Kučiste we drove to Mlini, just south of Dubrovnik and stayed at a lovely little campsite, Camping Kate. We were glad we got there early as it was full by the evening. From there we took the water taxi to Dubrovnik, a beautiful half hour journey which took us right to the entrance to the old town. Through a website called Freetour.com we had booked a tour guide called Marco who took a group of about 15 of us on a just under two hour tour of the city. Marco was great. He spoke good English and he spoke loudly and clearly. He was very engaging and very interesting. We learned all sorts of things, including that Dubrovnik was founded by Greeks in the 7th century, managed to avoid being taken over by Venice and was an independent state for 500 years until Napoleon turned up in 1806.
Dubrovnik is very beautiful with its pale yellow stone buildings. Its pavements too are made of yellow stone and are very shiny, making the whole city seem very light. It’s also very clean. It has lots of narrow cobbled streets, enticing gift shops and wonderful gelati. What it doesn’t have much of is ordinary shops because, as Marco explained to us, ordinary people don’t live there any more. Instead they rent their properties to tourists. It also has no advertising in the streets. Shops are only allowed to advertise on street lamps!
Dubrovnik was the main filming location in Croatia for King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones and the city is full of shops selling merchandise. Some tours take you around all the filming locations.
The view of Dubrovnik from above was stunning with its red roofs. Our guide Marco told us that originally the roofs had been the yellow / grey colour of the local stone, but as a result of the attack on Bosnia during the homeland war in 1991 many buildings lost their roofs. When the war ended, France donated new roofs to help with the restoration of the city and those were terracotta.
Campsite
Just across the road from the campsite was a restaurant where we were able to have a delicious meal on our last night in Croatia.
