Dubrovnik City Walls...

Day 3 in Dubrovnik was meant to be raining... indeed the evening preceding had found me wandering outside, initially all around the property trying (and succeeding!) to get Abbey to sleep, but as the dark skies allowed forth a damp mist, then a light shower, I was forced to retire under the safety of the porch just outside our room. Ivo happened past on his way home and we had a really great chat about life in general, the war and its effects on Dubrovnik, Ivo himself, and his family, priorities in life, and that sort of thing - what was really important for each of us. I have to say I really enjoyed that chat out in the cool darkness of the Croatian night, with the warmth of friendship extended between two complete strangers from very different walks of life. Ivo had lived a rich and varied life both in terms of career(s) and just going places and seeing things. A great man to chat to it turned out. And I was reminded once more of the importance of just being with other people of very different backgrounds to your own. The two of us could easily have let that relationship be purely polite, but I think both were/are of the temperament not to let such things be the case. The advantage of chatting with complete strangers too (I think) is that you have no emotional obligations I guess. Which is now making a pleasant chat on a porch sound more like extolling the 'virtues' of a one-night-stand, which is of course exactly the wrong message to get. Perhaps it is true there are no emotional obligations, but the beauty of such meetings is the depth achieved in such a short space of time that leaves you desiring more of that, and more willing (I guess) to go there again with another random stranger. Anyway enough of deep and meaningful conversations. Fortunately for us the rain never came the following day, so after packing up all our stuff and Ivo assuring us that nothing would go missing if we left our bags outside for the entire day, we set off to play on the walls. After much deliberation, we decided to take the audio tour - ensuring we would learn a few random facts (the vast majority of which are soon forgotten and hence wont be repeated here!). Anyway that is what Mez is holding up to her ear.

First sight when up on the walls is this gigantic 16-sided fountain, which has been bringing water into the city since the 15th century. It's called Onofrio's fountain (named after its creator) and was clearly an exceedingly important thing in days past when the city was in the midst of a seige (could shut the city inside and still have access to running water). Nowadays its is still in fine form, and a exceedingly cheaper alternative to buying bottled water. Though to be honest, I have no idea how good or otherwise it tasted, you'd have to ask Gwum!

The Dubrovnik city walls surround the entire Old City and are 1940 meters in length and up to 25 meters in height. To get an idea of just what this is like I tried taking a photo off the edge - which of course does it no justice whatsoever. Again though, with regard to safety - this is probably Dubrovnik's biggest tourist thing to do, yet there are places where barriers are only about half a metre high, with a sheer drop of many many metres after it. Yet (one assumes) no one has been hurt climbing over it (or things would have been put in place to spoil the view but keep us all 'safe'... hmm maybe they just refuse to legislate to stop stupid people in Croatia... the Darwinian approach to tourism). On the landward side, the walls are up to 6m thick - to protect from the Ottoman's, on the seaward side, as little as 1.5m thick. Clearly neither Neptune or the Venetian's worried the Croats much. The whole City Wall complex was built from the 8th until the 16th century, consisting of an inner and outer section. There are five bastions, 3 circular and 12 square and rectangular towers, two corner towers, and one huge fortress. The outer section of City Walls consists of a lower wall, having 10 semicircular bastions built by the famous Italian architect Michelozzo (whoever he was!). The town is defended by two more separate fortresses, at Revelin on the eastern side (on the right of the pic on the right) and Lovrijenac on the west side (pic Left). There was once a moat that ran around the outside section of the City Walls, which today is a somewhat scary road to drive down (with walls towering above you on either side). The pic on the right was the best I could do to show that... pic is of the landward (eastern) side of the walls - should probably have gone walking down there to get a pic looking up and give an idea of just how towering those walls are... MASSIVE!!! Would have been a formiddable city when the moat ran around I reckon, though also makes you wonder about the realities of the nature of strangers and warfare back in those days if they went to such lengths to keep the unwanted ones out!!! Pic on the left is (clearly) the western (seaward) side of the walls which has stunning views out to the adriatic (like the one which starts this blog with the boat heading out to sea...) Below that is a pic of a south western fortress (with Mez in the middle in pink) and on the right is some people swimming in the water just below it! Absolutely stunning - and I would have loved to dive in (but for the fact of being 25m above the water!)

I mentioned in an Earlier blog about the rooves and how more than 70% were destroyed by shelling... Managed to get this great pic of an exceedingly old roof, that obviously survived the war (bar a couple of tiles!) and so have to contrast it with a pic looking from the southern side of the walls back across the city towards the biggest tower on the walls (Minčeta) which shows all the rooves, as well as the tower from the Dominican Church in the left side of the frame. Probably the most interesting fact I remember from the audio guide was the location of the Serbian fort (from which they shelled the city during the war). In the photo below left, the Serbian post can (just) be seen as a little dark bit on the left hill, just above the line of the more distant mountains... There is actually an old medieval fort there, which they used... the retaliatory post which was used by the Dubrovnik defenders sat directly above the city on the hill which would be to the right of the photo on the right that looks towards Minčeta.

Our day was made a bit more pleasant by a bit of cloud when we got up on the walls, and at one stage it even could have been classed as 'brooding' but the clouds unbrooded themselves leaving us in pleasant sunshine for the afternoon again - Abbey had started out in the sling (as in the photo on the left... incidently in the background on the right side is an Island called Lokrum which is most famous for having A Benedictine Monastery, a fabulous botanical garden, and nudie beaches... not sure if the monastery is still in operation or if it is just a shell for tourists to visit... but it was the Monks (of course) that started the botanical garden, and, one assumes, not them that started the nudie beach). Anyway Abbey started the day in the sling, but soon got too hot in there, so had a bit of open air in her great wee pink dress, Mez discovered that she sat quite comfortably on her bag too which was a great discovery. Except that then I didn't get quite so many people smiling at me... Ah what things a cute baby girl in a cute baby-girl-dress does for one's social life!!!

Managed to find this great guillotine. Great for photo's, not so great for Gwum, who i'm sure would have preferred one in real working order. Mind you, chickens can still run around without their heads, and people always say i've got chicken legs... maybe I would have gotten away with it??!

The photo below and left is of the Southern mouth to the harbour of the Old town, which today is home only to precious few yachts and tourist boats. The sea wall is apparrently the only surviving sea wall in the world, that was built in Medieval times. There used to be a chain that linked the fortress on the right side of the frame, with the sea wall, to block off the entrance to the harbour and keep the nasty Venetian's out. Quite ingenious really - I guess you see similar things for driveways, but I never would have thought of doing such a thing for boats entering a harbour. Mind you, i've never had a boat to protect, or a harbour for that matter, which is a possible reason for the lack of thought in that regard. I'm talking crap now. Must finish this blog.

This is the tower called Minčeta. The name derives from the name of the Menčetić family, who owned the ground the tower was built upon. (A departure from the custom of naming after the Architect or Builder!) By its height and impressive volume the tower dominates the northwestern high part of the city and the walls. Indeed it is the highest point on the walls. By a long way! It was built in 1319, originally as a strong four-sided fort by a local builder Nićifor Ranjina. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was a clear sign to the Dubrovnik-ians to quickly take defensive measures, so the first task (and one of the most important ones) was to strengthen this key point.

Below is where I decided to play a bit with the Sepia feature on the camera, which produced a couple of great shots - the Swallows nesting in the edges of the tower, and Mez and Gwen captured from a distance and unawares, sharing a moment that made both smile.

And I'll leave it with this shot glancing south-east(ish) over the city. Great few days. Great city. Great people. Fascinating history. Thought provoking. Great country. I'd happily go back. We left a bit before midnight on an overnight ferry headed across the Adriatic for Bari, Italy.