Everybody Should See Dubrovnik—and That’s a Problem

I’m part of the problem. Dubrovnik, a beautiful Croatian city overlooking the Adriatic Sea, has become one of the most popular tourist sites in the Mediterranean, with thousands of guests spilling into its famous walls every day. Long popular with tourists, and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979, Dubrovnik’s old city retains its architectural splendor even as most of its retail and living space has been taken over by the kind of tacky gift shops and mid-quality cafes found wherever out-of-towners congregate en masse. Want to get a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and Game of Thrones ballcap in a picturesque fortress whose earliest ramparts date back to the 13th century? Get yourself to Dubrovnik, like I did during a recent cruise.

I didn’t know what to expect from Dubrovnik, other than a pretty good wall. (Or system of walls, I’m still not entirely positive on that.) It’s definitely an amazing looking place, from all angles. Whether you’re standing on the port outside its walls, in the middle of its aged stronghold, or far away on a hill overlooking all of Kolorina Bay, the majesty of Dubrovnik is impossible to deny. As an American, where European-style towns are only a few hundred years old—and as an American from around Atlanta, where our oldest non-indigenous settlements are about 200 years old and were largely burned down in the 1860s—it’s a little remarkable to think that places like Dubrovnik actually exist. It’s a true fortress town, a settlement of rock within massive walls that looks like it’s straight from a film set—and basically is, if you watched Game of Thrones. (I didn’t. Sorry.) 

Yes, Dubrovnik was used as the shooting location for King’s Landing. It’s clear to see why: again, this place looks like it should have kings and queens and knights milling about even today. (It’s definitely full of pawns, still. I was one of them.) But the phenomenal popularity of that show was like pouring gasoline on an already raging fire; the Game of Thrones connection cranked up the already bustling tourism trade in Dubrovnik, and even now, a few years after the show ended and apparently angered every single person who ever watched it, every fourth store within the city walls seems to be some kind of “official” Game of Thrones gift shop. I love when people love stuff (as long as it, y’know, doesn’t hurt anybody else), but it’s still a little sad to see something so gorgeous, with such a long and fascinating history, reduced to “that place where that TV thing happened.”

As one local explained to me during a recent visit to the city, the ever-rising tide of that tourism has had a profound impact upon the old city itself. Thousands of people used to live within Dubrovnik’s walls, not just centuries ago, but within the last couple of decades. The population has plummeted in the last 20 years, though, as more and more residential spaces are converted into retail and, especially, rental units. Dubrovnik has become the most expensive city to live in within Croatia, and the high value of a centrally-located apartment has made it practically impossible for a regular person to live in the old part of town. Overtourism has even done what the Yugoslav wars of the early ‘90s didn’t do. Over 400 civilians and military personnel were killed in Dubrovnik during what locals call the Homeland War in the early 1990s, but the old town’s population stayed steady at about 5000 people throughout that decade. Since 2000 that has dropped to just over 1000 people—almost 80% of the old town’s population leaving in part because of the effects of tourism.

I can’t blame anybody for wanting to see this amazing, literally unbelievable city, though. Whether you liked that TV show or not, Dubrovnik is basically a medieval fantasy come to life. Even with the chintzy gift shops you’ll feel transported back centuries to the kind of place we can only dream about today. It’s an especially powerful feeling when you’re walking its mighty walls, although you’ll see the telltale sign of overtourism there, too: it costs 35 Euro to scale those walls now, several times what it cost just 20 years ago. 

Much of the old town was destroyed in an earthquake in 1667, but you can still get a sense of what it looked like before from a few surviving Renaissance buildings. One of them, Sponza Palace, is one of the first buildings you’ll see when you enter the city walls, and although it won’t wow you with its size the ornate details of its facade and the quiet of its courtyard are intoxicating. Similarly, the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary doesn’t have the overwhelming power of Europe’s largest or oldest cathedrals, but it’s a gorgeous building that fits this city perfectly. And make sure to look up to the Bell Tower when it chimes; although it’s not the original tower that was erected all the way back in the 1400s, the current tower features two figures that appear to ring the bell at the start of every hour. 

Beyond its age and architectural intricacies, Dubrovnik’s old town is such a breathtaking place because of how unified it all is. Every building is the same shade of the same rock. It all looks like one single place, planned in unison and carved out at the same time, from the stones you stand on to the ones at the top of the walls and clock tower. At the risk of sounding like an ignorant American, it almost feels like a playset given life, like a plastic fortress of small, connected buildings that your toys would live and play in when you were a child reproduced at a human scale. Only it has a real, lived-in, impossible-to-miss history to it all that clearly stretches back centuries, well before any of America’s European cities were founded. Despite the lame shops and hit-and-miss restaurants, the tension between Dubrovnik’s very real history and its almost toyetic attributes make this a town worth visiting even if you don’t care about TV shows or ancient fortresses—if you can get past the shame of contributing to its overtourism, that is.

Dubrovnik is taking some measures to combat its tourism problem. Cruise ships are staggered more than they used to be, hopefully lessening the number of guests tromping through the old town every day. A report earlier this year that the city had banned roller suitcases doesn’t seem to be accurate, as Ed Cunningham reported at Time Out, but they have produced a video hopefully educating guests on how to be more respectful to the city’s integrity. But during my recent visit, a weekday during the off-season, the small old town was filled with guests, making it hard to easily navigate the town and drink in its glory in comfort. And, of course, I was absolutely contributing to the problem. I can only imagine how obnoxious it must be to any residents who don’t depend on the tourism trade for survival—assuming anybody like that still lives in the old part of Dubrovnik.

Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, and anything else that gets in his way. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.