War and fantasy in Dubrovnik, the walled city

The night I arrive in Dubrovnik, a lightning storm strikes. 

It’s far out at sea, past the cursed island of Lokrum. It’s so far out that I can’t hear the accompanying thunder, and the rain clouds haven’t reached the mainland yet. So I sit on the beach outside my airbnb and watch as 15 million of volts of electricity slice through the night sky like blades. 

It’s a warm night for November; the air is crisp and refreshing, it tastes like sea salt. The sea is a churning, seething mass of white foam. Waves crash dramatically against the rocky shore, sending up fountains of spray in a deafening roar. 

The lightning strikes come like clockwork every 20 seconds. Forks of pure, blinding white light illuminating the horizon like a camera flash, creating heat three times hotter than the surface of the sun. They’re mesmerising to watch, though only because the storm is far enough away that I know I’m safe from it. 

As beautiful as lightning is, it’s a deadly kind of beauty, like watching a wild animal savage its prey. Some primitive instinct inside me is screaming danger, stay away, knowing that I’m witnessing something that could vaporise my fragile human body in an instant if I got hit. With the roaring sea and bolts of electricity shooting down from the clouds, it feels as if Zeus and Poseidon are at war. 

The storm continues to rage all night, well after I’ve gone to bed. I sleep to the sound of the wind howling like a wounded animal and the sky tearing itself apart. But by the next morning, the sea is calm again. The sun is shining and the gleaming stone walls of the city are cleansed, as if it never happened. 

Dubrovnik is an ancient, medieval town that sits on the Dalmatian coast of Southeast Croatia, by the Adriatic sea. The old town is surrounded by impressive 25m high city walls built in the 15th century to protect the city’s wealth. These days Dubvronik is known for being a popular tourist destination, and is flocked by Europeans every summer looking for a sunny beach holiday with a splash of culture. 

For most of its history though, it’s been known as Ragusa. A prosperous and well-developed maritime trading port in the Mediterranean. Founded in the 7th century, Ragusa was originally under the protection of the Byzantine empire, then later the Republic of Venice. Between the 14th and 19th centuries it was a free state, known for its riches and skilled diplomacy. It was a place where Croatian culture and arts flourished, until an earthquake nearly destroyed the city and it spent the next few hundred years being passed around every major empire in Europe. 

In the 1990s, Dubrovnik was caught in the fallout of Yugoslavia’s collapse. It was shelled by the Yugoslav army for seven months, sustaining significant damage. Walking around the old town today, I can still see evidence of the war. Rubble that used to be wall, abandoned houses and destroyed buildings in the sections of town that tourists don’t go. 

The city’s unique history – both the good and bad – has shaped the people here, too. I can’t say they’re the friendliest, which I put down to tourist fatigue, but they are proud. The smooth stone streets of the old town are immaculately clean, polished daily until they gleam in the sunlight. Every local I meet, particularly the older generation, has a subtle kind of self-assuredness about them that’s hard to put into words. It’s as if they’re saying: look, we’ve survived all of that, so what else can you do to us? 

It’s an understandable attitude for a city of people who are essentially war veterans. In the UK and for a lot of Europe, war has become a thing of history. Only a small minority of Brits still alive today would have experienced the second world war first hand. For the rest of us, it’s something we learn from a textbook in school. In a few decades, there will be no one left alive who remembers it.

In Croatia though, the war is still fresh. Not enough time has passed for it to fade into the recesses of history. The wounds are bandaged and disinfected, but they’re still very present. One of my tour guides, a woman who looks no older than 50, tells us about living through the siege on Dubvronik with a small baby.

She talks about how the fear burrows into you like a parasite. How the paranoia leaves you in a constant state of tension, unable to ever fully relax or sleep. It’s days and weeks and months of waiting – living in an awful limbo – never knowing if it’s life or death that you’re waiting for.

She tells us about how for seven months supplies were prevented from reaching Dubrovnik’s port and the people trapped in the city lived off dwindling food and water rations. She says even now the smell of tinned mackerels makes her sick. And yet herself and many others still took in refugees who had managed to escape from nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina by trekking across the mountains. 

The fallout from war always lasts far longer than the actual war itself. I think that’s the most tragic part. You can restore cities to the way they were. You can take away the bombed out rubble and build new, more beautiful buildings in their place. But despite that the war is still causing damage through the trauma it leaves behind. 

Looking at Dubrvonik from the outside, it’s hard to imagine that the city was shelled only 30 years ago. It’s magnificent in the golden light of sunset, all sand-coloured stone and ornate Romanesque churches. It’s a vibrant, bustling place thronging with tourists having a great time: eating ice creams in the sun, strolling along the top of the city walls, stroking the many cats that prowl the streets. People buy plane tickets to Croatia thinking of sandy beaches, aquamarine seas and all-night beach clubs. 

No one thinks of war, except for those who lived through it. I imagine it must be a strange new reality to live in, catering to tourists and selling them souvenirs when they were fighting for their own survival so recently. 

‘We’re happy that we’ve had 30 years of peace now,’ my tour guide says, at the end of her harrowing story, perhaps trying to finish it on a happier note. ‘It’s time to rebuild our country and economy, and the tourism industry has been a big help with that. So thank you coming today. My name is Sandra – please leave us a good review on Tripadvisor!’ 

It’s hard to accurately write about Dubvronik without bringing up Game of Thrones. Being the setting for the fictional capital city of Kings Landing is what many people know Dubvronik for. And it does deliver on that. Walking through the narrow, lantern-lit alleyways and cobblestone streets makes it feel like you’re entering a fantasy medieval kingdom. 

Though it’s been years since the TV series ended, the legacy of Game of Thrones has been immortalised in the streets of Dubvronik, becoming interwoven with the city’s identity. It’s sold in the form of tacky shirts and souvenirs in every shop, and tours dedicated entirely to seeing the filming locations. 

Everywhere I go, I see the three-headed dragon crest of the Targaryens or the Stark’s famous direwolf. Some places I visit give me deja vu, and I realise it’s because I’ve seen them before on the TV show. 

Game of Thrones turned Dubvronik into a dream tourist destination for fantasy fans all over the world, and it’s clear what a huge impact it’s had on the whole country. I find it fascinating how the mythology of a fictional world has manifested itself into this real life city, how the imagination of one man (thanks George R. R. Martin) has created a self-sustaining legacy that has continued well after the show’s end. 

I did this Game of Thrones walking tour in Dubrovnik which I was very impressed by. Our tour guide (and many more like him) built his entire career on Game of Thrones, getting his first job on set during the filming for season 1. He speaks fondly about his time working on the show, even if it was mostly carrying heavy things around and shooing tourists away from filming spots. 

He tells us little anecdotes about how simple shots of the actors walking through the city gates often took 30+ takes to get right, and how one of his colleagues was assigned to single-handedly keeping the actor playing the Mountain supplied with food at all times. 

During the tour he shows us photos of scenes from the show to compare with the real life places, and I’m amazed by how much they’ve been altered with CGI. And yet even with all the editing, Dubvronik is still recognisable as the city of King’s Landing. When you think about it, Dubvronik’s own history as a wealthy trading capital isn’t so different, even if there were less dragons involved. 

And perhaps I’m a little biased as a fan of the show, but I’m glad that the world of Westeros has been kept alive through places like Dubvronik. It may be a fantasy series, but like any good fantasy it’s based on real nostalgia and fascination for our own history. 

Peak tourist season in Dubrovnik is during the summer months, July and August. This is a good time to visit for hot weather, beach clubs, festivals and water activities as everything will be open, however it will also be very hot and very busy.

For a calmer experience, I recommend visiting in May, June or September.

From October – March, the winter season, many restaurants and tourist activities in Dubrovnik may be closed and the town is much quieter. However this is also a good time to go to get cheaper deals, and to experience the town and the beaches in a more tranquil environment.

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