We have had a really busy day today, starting with a yummy buffet breakfast at the hotel we are staying at. As I mentioned the hotel is out of town so there is an element of travel to get into the centre of town, but in my view the ambience of this place is so worth it. There is a shuttle bus that takes guests in to town from the adjacent hotel. I had thought that they were free but the are about $10 AUD so certainly not a price that’s you wouldn’t want to pay.

Catching the 9.30 bus gets us to the “Old City”by 10.00 and we decide to take a walk on the ancient city walls, the cost is 150 kn (so about $32AUD). It is about 2 kms long and there are steps but lots of places to stop where you can buy drinks, ice creams and icy poles ( Calypo was our ice pole of choice) so you can cool down your whole body particularly on these hot days. We decided not to take one of the many tours available and instead “free wheeled it”.

The wall that was built in the 12th century, and overlooks the incredibly blue water with boats of all size floating along amongst them kayakers and people jumping from the rocks outside the city walls, it is extraordinary. The walk walk is well worth the effort however we were really pleased that we did it relatively early as today was a scorcher.

From here we took the cable car from the old city up to the top of Mount Srd it’s a climb of about 780 metres and it takes about 3 minutes. The price was 180 kn, so about 39 AUD and included the return cable car trip and entry to the Museum Dubrovnik in Homeland War.

The Museum is in the Fort Imperial on Srd Mountain, and is a moving exhibition about the war in 1991 – 1995. This fort was the first line of defence for this town and was the command centre. It was a really difficult place to visit as seeing the destruction first hand and remembering this war as only 25 or so years ago made it more real. There was a significant piece at the beginning where the residents of Dubrovnik spoke about the strong belief that they had early on that other countries would assist them and that no one would ever bomb this beautiful city. In one of the rooms they played news clips with international reporters on air whilst bombs were being dropped. Of the 824 buildings within the city walls of Dubrovnik more than half were damaged and there were many casualties. I felt so incredibly emotional in this solemn and sacred place, and have such admiration for these strong and resilient people.

So what would we follow a visit to the Museum with, yep you’ve guessed it a Game of Thrones (GOT) tour of course.

Iva our enthusiastic guide for the two hours, who incidentally started as an extra on the set, then was a double for Khalessi and Cersise (she is tiny) and now is a production assistant – gave us the insiders view of GOT. She talked a lot about the impact that the HBO show had on Dubrovnik post war. Before the war there had been a number of movies filmed here, but after the war it took time for producers and directors to have the confidence to come back. Since the filming of GOT shone the light on this town other films like Star Wars episode 8 had some scenes filmed here. The financial and social impact of these productions, through tourism as well as the revenue coming in from the productions have all been positive. I did wonder how the storyline of GOT would sit with this apparently deeply religiously city of about 46,000 (almost everyone is a catholic) however the bonuses described by Iva are, I guess, so great with now nearly zero unemployment in Dubrovnik and no issues with homelessness, it would seem that there are still times where one can turn the other cheek perhaps. I say more power to them.

It was a fun couple of hours for GOT watchers ( fortunately the four of us are ) ending up at the GOT shop where I (again) helped the local economy and made a couple of purchases, see below my new favourite work mug!