New Bulgarians: City Walls of Dubrovnik

At the end of October, the University called fall break and Anne and Mark promptly left for a tour of the Dalmation Coast. They set up camp in a place called Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a very old city that has seen its share of action over the years. It is located across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and has a history that dates back to before Roman times. Early on it became clear that the city was strategically located and foreign powers would try to take it over. You had all your usual suspects, Slavs, Turks, etc. You also had the Venetians just across the sea during their hey day, trying to be a big, tough maritime power. The local residents decided to fortify this location against these foreign threats. Several fortifications have been built over the centuries, some replacing others and some built upon others, but even the most recent parts of the walls that exist around the city today are hundreds of years old.

Behind Anne in the photo above, you can see the entire "Old Town" portion of Dubrovnik. The walls encompass the old town on all sides, with a wall to the sea and to the land to protect against either type of invasion, with only a series of gates through which people could enter or leave.

Despite having these significant fortifications, the city of Dubrovnik has been the target of multiple raids over the years, as well as being involved in several wars. Most recently, Dubrovnik was put under siege from 1991-1992 in a war among the people of the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia (Dubrovnik is located in Croatia, which was a part of Yugoslavia until it dissolved). As a result of this, the city has sustained extensive damage. The old portion of Dubrovnik has mostly been restored, using original materials whenever possible.

The exceptionally good-looking man in the photo above (I realize it is the back of his head, but that can still be the better side for some people) is looking over the rooftops of the city while standing on top of the city walls. If you look closely you can see that most of the roofs are bright red and only a few are of an older, more brown and "worn-looking" color. The red roofs are the ones that were replaced following the bombing of the city during the 1991-92 siege. The older-looking roofs are the originals. As you can see many red roofs in the current version of the city, the damage to roofs in the city was extensive.

The photo above is the main drag through "Old Town." It is called the Stradun and it is usually packed with locals and tourists alike (the photo above shows a nearly empty Stradun only because it was taken early in the morning). The store fronts and the streets in Old Town sustained significant damage in 1991 and 1992, but the repairs made by the people have been done so well and so completely that the entire scene is nearly seamless. Anne and Mark did notice a few places where the scars of the invasion still showed through, but mostly Dubrovnik has cleaned up and moved on.

If anyone is planning on visiting Dubrovnik, Anne and Mark have two pieces of advice: (1) bring your ~~walking~~ stair-climbing shoes and (2) pack light. The city is built on a rocky island and to get around, the residents go up and down stairs nearly all day long. This is fine for the local residents, who no doubt have fabulous cardio and strong calf muscles and do not have to carry around luggage. On the other hand, these stairs are not ideal for Americans, like the one in the photo above, who happen to be carrying around an extra hundred pounds (and I'm not talking about the luggage). Anne and Mark rented a room just off of the Stradun. The location was fabulous: in Old Town, 50 yards from the main drag. Perfect. The part they did not tell us was that the 50 yards were all vertical. 72 steps from the Stradun to the room (but who's counting?)

Mark runs ahead to get a picture before all the other tourists arrive at the corner of the city walls.

Assuming that their cardio fitness was up to par, Anne and Mark decided to walk the walls. The city estimates that it is about a 2.2 kilometers hike to walk completely around the city on the walls (2.2 kilometers is roughly 45 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 gallons - Anne and Mark are really starting to pick up this metric systems stuff). At the end of the walk around the top of the walls, Anne and Mark visited the Fortress of St. Lawrence just adjacent to the Old Town. The views from pretty much any point on the city walls and the fortress are spectacular.

Like this one: Spectacular