5 Days in Dubrovnik

The walls are the reason to come, and the single best use of your first morning. The full circuit is 1,940 meters and it's the only way to see how the city works: red roofs packed into the grid, laundry lines, football in a schoolyard, the sea on one side and the karst hill on the other. Most of the stonework is 13th to 17th century, and the heavy towers went up in the 1400s: Minčeta, at the highest corner, was begun in 1463, and Fort Bokar, the round casemate at the western end, in 1461.

Enter at Pile Gate and head for Minčeta first, so the steep part comes first and you finish above the old harbor (there are two more entrances, at Fort St. John and by the customs house). The ticket is for one walk and you can't re-enter. It's the most expensive sight in the city, and the walk is still worth it, but only if you go early. At 11 on a cruise day the narrow passages become a queue. The same ticket also covers Fort Lovrijenac (day two).

Come down from the walls at Pile and the first door on Stradun is the Franciscan Monastery. It has a late-Romanesque cloister with carved capitals, a small museum of manuscripts and old pharmacy equipment, and a pharmacy founded in 1317 that still sells its own creams and remedies. The 1667 earthquake wrecked the church but left much of the cloister standing, which is why the cloister is the reason to pay.

Do it before lunch: in winter the museum tends to shut early afternoon. Dress with shoulders and knees covered, as the friars still live here. The cloister is quiet even on busy days, and the pharmacy is a fair place to buy something small that isn't a fridge magnet.

Stradun is a limestone street 300 meters long, and it exists because someone filled in a marshy channel in the 13th century to join the island settlement of Ragusa with the mainland one. After the 1667 earthquake a law decided the layout of the houses, which is why the facades look so alike. At the western end, next to the monastery, the Large Onofrio's Fountain is a 15th-century piece of the city's water supply. It's still the best place to drink water for free.

Walk the whole street once, then leave it. Stradun is polished by a few hundred years of feet and crowded by lunchtime, so the better streets are the stepped lanes either side. At the eastern end you reach the Bell Tower and the Luža square, which is where the next three stops are.

The Old Port is a small harbor behind a stone mole, and in winter most of the seafront terraces are shut or half empty. That's actually a good sign: places that stay open in November are the ones for locals. Look for a small konoba (tavern) or a seafood kitchen with a short menu on a board, and avoid any restaurant with a photo menu out front.

Order what the Adriatic does simply: a plate of grilled fish, a bowl of buzara (mussels or shrimp in wine, garlic and breadcrumbs), or a squid-ink risotto. Ask what came in today. Oysters from nearby Ston usually turn up on menus here too, which gives you a taste of day four. Fort St. John, at the harbor mouth, houses the Maritime Museum (9 to 4 in winter, closed on Wednesdays) if you have time after lunch.

The three buildings around Luža square are the old state. The Rector's Palace was the seat of the Republic's rector, and the building you see grew out of a fire in 1435, a gunpowder explosion in 1463 and the earthquakes of 1520 and 1667, with Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque all in one atrium. It has been the Cultural History Museum since 1872, and the rooms show how a merchant republic lived: furniture, portraits, coins and keys.

Next door the Sponza Palace (built 1516-1522) was customs house and mint, and it survived the 1667 earthquake without damage. The State Archive is still inside, with papers from the 12th century. The Baroque cathedral, finished in 1713, stands on the site of the earlier churches the earthquake destroyed, and its treasury holds the reliquaries of St. Blaise, the city's patron saint. In the middle of Luža stands a statue of Roland (Orlando), the knight the Republic put up as a symbol of its independence in 1418 (the present Gothic one dates from 1419). Beside it are the Bell Tower of 1444 and the 18th-century Church of St. Blaise. Do the palace first: it closes at 4 pm in winter.

Dinner today is a good place for black risotto, the dark squid-ink rice that you'll see on every menu from Dubrovnik to Pula. It's rich, salty and messy, and it comes with stained teeth and a straight face from the waiter. The side streets north of Stradun, the ones that run up in steps, have the small restaurants with six tables and a handwritten menu.

Finish with rožata, the Dubrovnik version of crème caramel, flavored with rose liqueur. Book ahead for Friday and Saturday evenings, and ask for a table inside in winter.

After dinner, walk Stradun again. Without the tour groups it's a different street: lit stone, a few couples, a busker, the sound of your own steps. In the run-up to Christmas the city strings lights across the lanes and puts a stage on the street for the winter program.

The Old Town is safe and small enough to cross in ten minutes, so there's no need to hurry. If you want a last glass of wine, go to a vinoteka (wine bar) instead of a café, as the coffee terraces are mostly shut by 9.

Lovrijenac stands on a 37-meter rock outside the western wall, and it's the best place to understand how Dubrovnik thought about defense. The walls facing the sea, where an attack would come from, are almost 12 meters thick. The wall facing the city is only 60 centimeters thick, so a commander who turned against Dubrovnik couldn't hold it. Legend has it that the people of Dubrovnik built the fort in three months, to beat the Venetians to the rock.

Over the gate is a Latin line you'll find on every postcard: Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro, "liberty is not sold for all the gold in the world". In summer it's the stage for Hamlet, the signature play of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. Game of Thrones used the walls and the Old Town as King's Landing, but the view back at them is the real reason to climb.

Lokrum is 600 meters off the coast, a green island of about 0.8 square kilometers, and the boat from the Old Port is a short crossing. The official ticket costs 30 EUR and includes the reserve and the return boat; you buy it at the Luža ticket office in the Old Port (open 8-16). A Benedictine monastery was first mentioned here in 1023, and it was deserted in 1798. In 1859 Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, later Emperor of Mexico, built a villa and laid out a garden, and the peacocks he brought are still around.

Walk the paths, the cloister and the botanical garden (started in 1959). There's a local curse legend too: when the monks were ordered off, they are said to have walked the island dripping candle wax and cursed anyone who would claim it. Plan around the boats, which stop at 5.

The highest point on Lokrum is Fort Royal, 96 meters above the sea. The French began it in 1806 and the Austrians finished it in 1835, and the view from the top is the one that makes a travel poster: the walls of Dubrovnik across the channel, a sea that goes from green to dark blue. It's a steady 20-minute climb on a wide track.

On the south side of the island the Dead Sea (Mrtvo more) is a small salt lake about 10 meters deep, fed by caves and fractures in the rock. Locals swim in it in summer, and in November it's a place to sit on a rock with a flask. Near the monastery you'll also find a replica of the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones, which is as much of that show as most of us need.

The last boat leaves Lokrum at 5, so you'll be back in the Old Port around 5:30, tired and a bit windblown. Skip a big meal and get a coffee and a slice of rožata, the rose-liqueur custard, at a café on Luža. The pastry shops keep winter hours, so check the sign.

Dubrovnik coffee is Italian-style: kava, macchiato and a small glass of water, taken slowly. A coffee is a chair rental, and you can sit for an hour without anyone asking you to move.

Peka is lamb, veal or octopus roasted under an iron bell covered with hot embers, and it's the Dalmatian dish to eat in winter. It takes hours, so restaurants that cook it usually ask you to order when you book. Say you want it when you reserve, and arrive hungry.

Sides are potatoes and vegetables that cook in the same juices. A glass of local red is the right drink. Expect to pay more per head than a normal dinner, since peka is made for two or more.

Finish at the harbor mouth, where the old stone mole gives you a view of the fort on one side and the lit walls on the other. The water is quiet at night, the fishing boats creak, and the only noise is from the restaurants behind you.

This is also a good place to plan tomorrow: you can see Srđ from here, the dark hill behind the town where the cable car goes.

The cable car runs from just above the Old Town to the top of Mount Srđ, the hill that stands over the Old Town. The lower station is a short walk up from Ploče Gate, on the east side of the walls. The ticket is steep for what it is: 30 EUR for the return, 17 EUR one way, with children aged 4-12 at 8 EUR return. Buy one way and walk down if your knees allow, or the other way round if you prefer.

The view of the Old Town from the top is the one with the grid of red roofs and the sea beyond, and in the morning the light is flat and kind. The cable car runs as soon as there are enough passengers, and the last departure from the lower station is 30 minutes before closing.

Fort Imperial at the top of Srđ is where Dubrovnik's modern history gets personal. In the siege that began on 1 October 1991 the Yugoslav People's Army besieged the city for seven months, and the Croatian Army lifted the siege in May 1992. A UNESCO team that came in late 1991 estimated that 55.9% of the Old Town's buildings were damaged. The museum in the fort tells that story with photographs, personal items and a short film.

Go up to the roof for a second view of the city, and don't skip the museum. Then look down at the roofs and remember that figure. It's small, serious and quiet.

Banje is the city beach, a pebble cove just outside the eastern wall at Ploče, with the Old Town in front of you and Lokrum behind it. In summer it's a beach club with loungers and a restaurant. In winter much of that is shut, and the beach is for walking and sitting. The pebbles are fine, the water is clear, and the view is why people come.

This is a beach guide as well as a sightseeing one, so the honest answer for November is that the sea is cold. The beach is still the best place to eat a sandwich and watch the light change on the walls. If you want warm water, come between June and September.

Sveti Jakov is the quieter beach, less than two kilometers east of Banje, down a flight of steps. It's a pebble and rock cove with a view across the water to Lokrum.

Walk along the coast road from Banje. In winter there's nobody here, which is the point: you get the cove, a flask of coffee and the sound of the water. Go in the early afternoon, as the light drops fast after 3, and head back toward the south wall for sunset.

Buža means "hole" in Croatian, and the bars are exactly that: terraces on the rocks reached through holes cut in the south wall. You sit on stone with the open sea in front of you and a drink in your hand. Come for the sunset, which in early November is around half past four, and leave when it gets cold.

Both bars are seasonal and sources disagree on whether they open in winter, so don't count on it. If one is shut, the same view is on the walls themselves, or from the rocks below Banje. Bring cash if it is open, and keep to the rocks away from the edge.

Tonight is shellfish. Buzara is mussels or prawns cooked in white wine, garlic, olive oil and breadcrumbs, and you eat it with a lot of bread. Start with a plate of Pag cheese, the hard sheep's cheese from the island of Pag, aged with herbs and salt, with olives and cured ham.

Dalmatian wine, red or white, comes by the glass or the quarter-liter. Ask for a local label rather than an imported one.

Start in Ston itself, at the salt pans, a grid of shallow basins where sea water is left to dry. They are the reason for the walls: salt was a major source of the Republic's wealth, and it was worth defending with one of the longest fortification systems in the world. The pans are what the whole wall system was built to protect.

In winter the basins are quiet. Walk along the edges first, then go up to the walls, as the climb ends at the oysters in Mali Ston.

The Walls of Ston were built by the Republic of Ragusa to protect its salt and its shellfish, and the original system was more than 7 km long. Construction began in 1358, and Michelozzo, the Florentine architect who also built Fort Bokar in Dubrovnik, was among the designers who worked on it. About 5.5 km of wall survives, and the walk takes you up steeply, then along the ridge between Ston and Mali Ston.

This is the climb, and it's steeper than anything in Dubrovnik. Go in the morning with good shoes. The views are the point: the salt pans, the bay and the Pelješac mountains.

Mali Ston Bay is where the oysters grow, and the tiny village of Mali Ston is where you eat them. The flat oysters here are famous in Croatia, and the cold months are traditionally the season. A plate of a dozen with lemon and a glass of white from Pelješac is what you came for.

Restaurants line the quay. Choose one that opens its own oysters at your table, and do not order the large mixed seafood plate unless you're hungry. Prices are by the piece or the dozen, so ask.

Pelješac is a peninsula about 65 kilometers long, and its slopes grow plavac mali, the dark red grape behind Croatia's best-known reds. Dingač, on a southwest-facing slope at roughly a 45-degree incline, became Croatia's first protected wine region in 1961. Winemakers paid for a one-lane tunnel at Potomje in 1973 so that grapes no longer had to be carried over the pass by donkey.

Most wineries take tastings by appointment in winter. With a car, call ahead and drive the coast road to Dingač; without one, a small-group tour from Dubrovnik is the practical way. Taste the red, buy a bottle, and drive carefully.

Libertas line 10 runs south from Dubrovnik to Cavtat, about 15 km, and takes roughly 30-40 minutes depending on traffic. A ticket costs a few euros (sources give 2.50 to 5 EUR), and it's easiest to pay cash on board. A boat also runs in season, but in winter sailings are fewer and weather cancels them, so don't plan the day around one.

Sit on the sea side of the bus: the last part of the road drops to the bay with the town below you. Cavtat is on a small peninsula with a harbor on one side and a bay on the other.

Cavtat was founded in the 6th century BC by Greek settlers from Corinth as Epidauros, and later became the Roman town of Epidaurum. The sights are smaller and later. At the top of the hill, in the town cemetery, is the Račić Mausoleum, a tomb of the Račić family, decorated by the sculptor Ivan Meštrović.

It's a quiet building on a hill above the bay, and the view from the cemetery is worth the climb on its own.

Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922) was born in Cavtat and became one of Croatia's best-known painters, and his house is now a small museum with his paintings and studio.

Winter hours are limited and sometimes by appointment, so ring ahead if the house is on your list. If it's closed, walk the harbor promenade and read the plaques on the houses instead.

Cavtat's harbor is a curve of stone houses and moored boats, and the restaurants along it do grilled fish, mussels and risotto at a lower price than the Old Town. In winter only a few stay open, so walk the length of the quay before you choose.

Order the catch of the day by weight and ask the price first. It's the last proper meal of the trip, so take your time, then catch the bus back before dark.