Climbing Walls

Today we set out to explore the old city walls here in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is another UNESCO World Heritage site, specifically due to its city walls/giant fort with moats, old man gargoyles, and creaky chains. It is quite amazing, the city was once known as the Ragusa Empire, a medieval trading partner to rival Venice, and well situated between Istanbul (which was then Constantinople…go on sing the song, you know you want to) and Europe. It was constantly under attach by both the Ottomans and the Venetians, as they wanted this strategic port. Ragusa successfully thwarted attempts to be taken over, in large part due to their amazing fortification walls.

Despite never having been actually conquered by the Venetians, there is a huge mish mash of Venetian and Ottoman influence on their architecture (this may also be due in part to the importing of some Florentine and Veronese architects back in the city’s hay day). The old city is built upon terraces of increasing steepness, that run from the middle of town, upwards towards the homes along the periphery (and closest to the walls). It is very picturesque, and the only city I have seen that comes close to its character is Rhodes in Greece, and that is much larger.

Ulises and I started out by eating far too much pizza and walking up to the beginning of the wall in the heat of early afternoon. By 2pm we were slightly melted to the white marble blocks of the wall, but continued on our journey. No where else can you get the views of the Dalmatian coast that are clear from the height of the fortification walls. We lazily walked up to turret towers, and into cool armory storage areas, stopping to snap photos of the old moat and the archeological dig going on below the Bokar Fortress. We stopped to huddle in the little bit of shade we could find near one fortress wall, and met a nice couple from Australia, in week 5 of their 9-week holiday. We sat around commiserating about how the dollar (both the US and the Aussie) isn’t worth anything in Europe, and how pricey everything is, and wouldn’t it be nice if one of us owned the 5 masted super yacht out in the harbor (Diego, I think it was your boat…someone must have borrowed it from Nice and not told you!).

We said goodbye to our new friends and continued to walk around the walls, stumbling upon a few rock beaches that were just to the outside of the walls, and only accessible through small doorways – they were crowded with folks soaking up the late day southern sun, and listening to bad easy listening versions of California (yup the one with Dre and Tupac).

Tired and a little sun beaten we headed back to the apartment to make Fajitas (or a decent facsimile thereof) for dinner, and watch Portugal get beaten by Germany (take that Ronaldo).

We were so enthralled with our visit to the city walls, that we hopped online to learn more about them, and came across this video of what happened to the city and the role the walls played during the war in the 1990’s. It is quite dramatic to watch, and I can attest that you can still see bullet holes and mortar damage to several places in the city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU0JPXUmg44