Ancient City Walls Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik’s City Walls: Walk Them at Dawn or Don’t Bother

The Dubrovnik city walls were designed to be intimidating. The Republic of Ragusa, which governed this city-state from 1358 to 1808, spent centuries and enormous sums building walls up to 6 metres thick and 25 metres high, with towers positioned to provide overlapping fields of fire. The walls were never actually breached by force. The republic fell eventually not to invasion but to Napoleon, who simply told Ragusa it no longer existed.

The 1.9km walk around the complete wall circuit takes about 2 hours and offers the definitive view of the old town: the red-tiled roofs, the church towers, the harbours on either side, and the Adriatic extending south toward the islands. You can buy the ticket and walk it at any hour the gates are open, but the practical advice is to be there by 8am when it opens. By 10am in summer the wall walk is a slow procession behind tour groups; by noon the limestone reflects enough heat to make it genuinely unpleasant.

The Walls

Entry to the walls costs 35 EUR for adults (purchased at several gate entrances). The circuit starts most naturally from the Pile Gate on the western side, which is also where most visitors enter the old town. Walking clockwise takes you up to the Minceta Tower, the highest point on the walls, with views over the rooftops and north toward the mountains.

The 1991-1992 siege of Dubrovnik by Yugoslav/Serbian forces left visible damage on roughly 70 percent of the old town’s buildings. The repair work has been thorough, most visitors don’t know what they’re looking at, but small plaques on specific buildings note the damage and the restoration. The walls suffered direct artillery hits; the damaged sections were rebuilt from matching Dalmatian limestone. The difference between old stone and new stone is barely detectable after 30 years.

Fort Lovrijenac, the separate fortress outside the western walls on a 37-metre rock, is included with the wall ticket. The approach via the gate with its inscription “Freedom Is Not For Sale Even For All The Gold In The World” (Non Bene Pro Toto Libertas Venditur Auro) has been above this entrance since at least the 16th century.

The Old Town

Within the walls, the limestone-paved Stradun (Placa) runs the full length of the old town from the Pile Gate to the old harbour. The 14th-century Franciscan Monastery at the western end contains the third-oldest working pharmacy in Europe (opened 1391), still dispensing skincare products using centuries-old formulas and worth a stop.

Rector’s Palace on the Pred Dvorom houses the city museum, with the most coherent presentation of Ragusan history available in English. The Republic of Ragusa was genuinely remarkable: it abolished the slave trade in 1416, had a functioning quarantine system from 1377, and maintained diplomatic relationships with both the Ottoman Empire and Catholic Europe simultaneously for centuries.

Where to Eat

Restaurant Kopun in Strossmayerov Park serves capon, the traditional Ragusian roast dish that the restaurant takes its name from, at around €25-35 per main. The cooking is serious and specific to Dubrovnik’s culinary history. For something less formal, the market at Gunduličeva Poljana sells local produce including fresh figs and smoked fish in the mornings.

The tourist restaurants on the Stradun itself should generally be avoided in favour of the streets one block back in either direction, where prices are 20-30 percent lower and quality is comparable.

Where to Stay

The old town has a handful of hotels, Hotel Stari Grad, Hotel Ston, at premium prices given the location. Staying in Lapad, 5km west, and taking the bus (Line 4, frequent and cheap) works well for budget or mid-range travellers. The bus journey gives a view of the new town that most visitors miss entirely and takes 15 minutes.

Book accommodation very early for July and August. Dubrovnik’s tourist capacity is genuinely strained in peak summer and last-minute options are expensive and poor.