19th June

Dubrovnik

19.06.2026

I arrived into Dubrovnik as the sun was setting and went straight to the hotel and to bed. I woke up to a view of the Adriatic Sea from my balcony at the Villa

I got ready for my morning tour before having breakfast at the hotel with amazing views of the ocean.

My tour today was a 1 1/2-hour driving tour around the city of Dubrovnik in an electric old-style Ford.

Ivan was the driver and has been doing these tours for seven years. After being picked up in front of the hotel, we went to the top of Srd Hill, which offers panoramic views of the walled city. Driving there, we drove through a village that was destroyed in the war of 1991-1995. The school is still standing as they used the bunker underneath during the war, but since the war ended, it has remained empty, although they have rebuilt the village. The war was when Yugoslavia was broken into 7 separate countries with Croatia being one of them.

At the top of Srd Hill is the Imperial fortress, some of which was hit during the war, there is a mig Russian fight jet memorial at the fortress and it also houses a Museum.

The Cable car station is at the top so I got out and saw this along with the view over the Adriatic Sea, the Old Town walls and Lokrum Island, which houses the botanical gardens, a monastery and Fort Royal. Napoleon stayed at both the Imperial Palace for 3 months and then also at Fort Royal, however he never made it into the walled city.

As we drove back down the mountain I saw the zip line and the bike line that you can do from the top along with buggy excursions through the forest.
We drove through the different sections of Dubrovnik (there are 27) and across the bridge that was opened in 2002. And took 3 years to build, but cut down the time to cross the river from 35 mins to 5 mins.

The rest of the tour showed, the marinas, the original train station, the port of Dubrovnik, the main bus terminal and the Boardwalk that runs for 2.5 km and has cafes and restaurants.
I decided to be dropped at Pile Gate of the Old Town.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the streets of the old town, looking at the buildings, shops, restaurants and a couple of the churches.

I ate lunch over looking Gundulic Square where they has a local market. After a Caesar salad for lunch I bought a tub of fresh raspberries and continued walking around Old Town.

I then caught a taxi back to the hotel and sat on my balcony watching everyone swim at Bellevue Beach. The water looked lovely but not worth the 1000 stairs to get down to it.

Then it was time for dinner in the hotel restaurant looking over the sea, it was beautiful.

After dinner I went back to my room and got ready to depart the hotel tomorrow for the start of the 7 night cruise from Dubrovnik to Split.