Walls of Dubrovnik

Few cities are as completely held by their fortifications as Dubrovnik. A continuous ring of stone, close to two kilometres long, wraps the entire old town, rising in places to about 25 metres and swelling to four to six metres thick on the landward side, where attack was most feared. On the seaward flank the walls grow thinner, trusting the cliffs and the water to do part of the work. Walk the full circuit on top and the city unfolds beneath you as a single composition: terracotta roofs, bell towers, the long straight line of the Stradun, and on the other side the open Adriatic.

The ring was outlined in the fourteenth century but kept evolving from the thirteenth to the seventeenth, as the merchant republic of Ragusa adapted it to each new threat. The republic hired some of the best builders of its age. Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, the Florentine who worked for the Medici, reshaped the defences in the early 1460s; Juraj Dalmatinac of Šibenik followed him; and the local master Paskoje Miličević spent decades refining the system. Their work shows most clearly in the round Minčeta Tower of 1463, the high crown of the landward walls, and in the two-storey casemate of Fort Bokar, which guards the western approach just above the sea.

Beyond the ring stand two detached strongholds. Revelin, built in the mid-sixteenth century on the east, was the strongest fortress of the city, and Lovrijenac, St Lawrence, perches on its own rock 37 metres above the water outside the western gate, answering the walls across a small cove. St John's Fortress closes the old harbour. Gates tell the story of arrival: Pile on the west and Ploče on the east, with smaller openings towards the harbour. The walls withstood medieval sieges and, in 1991–92, a long bombardment during the breakup of Yugoslavia that struck most of the old town's buildings; the damage was repaired stone by stone. The old city with its walls has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.

Getting there

The walls enclose the old town of Dubrovnik itself. The nearest airport is Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV), about 15 km away. The circuit has three entrances: just inside Pile Gate, beside the Church of St Saviour, where a steep stair climbs to the ramparts; near Ploče Gate on the east, past Fort Revelin; and at St John's Fortress by the old harbour. The classic route runs anticlockwise from Pile, sea views first.