The city pentagon
The walled whole on the blue — the mother picture.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Balou46 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tiia Monto — CC BY 4.0 · Joanbanjo — CC BY-SA 3.0
Srđ is Dubrovnik's sky balcony: the cable car lifts you from just above the walls 405 metres in four minutes — the summit opening the picture nowhere else gives: the complete pentagon of the walled city on the blue, Lokrum green before it, the Elaphiti islands chained to the horizon — the whole Adriatic's most famous panorama. On the top stands the Napoleonic Fort Imperial (1812), holding the Homeland War Museum: from this very fort seventy Croatian defenders held and broke the 1991 siege of the city — the summit memory before view, its great white cross rebuilt after shelling smashed it. Sunset is its imperial hour (book the Panorama restaurant's edge days ahead) — the sporting alternative the zigzag Cross path, ninety minutes' climb on foot: free, its view widening at every turn. The night's last cars strand the late: check the season's timetable.
The walled whole on the blue — the mother picture.
Napoleon built it, the Homeland War hallowed it.
Petra Krešimira IV, 20000 Dubrovnik
Dominican MonasteryAt the **eastern** end of the old town near the Ploče Gate — the opposite end fr1 minute walk4.1
The Ploče GateThe eastern entrance to Dubrovnik's old town, less crowded than the famous Pile 2 minutes walk4.6
Sponza PalaceThe building that survived. When the **1667 earthquake** destroyed medieval Dubr2 minutes walk4.4
Lazareti — The Quarantine BuildingsA complex of eight adjoining stone buildings with open courtyards just outside t2 minutes walk4.6
The Small Onofrio's FountainA small stone fountain at the eastern end of Dubrovnik's Stradun, from 1438, by 2 minutes walk4.7Croatia's independence war (1991-95): the Yugoslav army besieged Dubrovnik seven months and shelled its UNESCO town, shocking the world — it held with a handful of defenders, the highest here on Srđ. The museum tells it in photographs of the burning city — then you descend to see it whole and well today: the ending that explains its people's pride.