16 May - Dubrovnik, the Game of Thrones and 10,000 Stairs

We woke up excited about the day in Dubrovnik and the tour we had booked online. No bus excursion for us tooday. Had our breakfast in the buffet and headed off to exit the ship which was moored outside the town or at least at the far end of it by this very interesting bridge. The sun was shining through some high clouds and the day promised to be very pleasant.

From the pier we caught a taxi into town and got there an hour early so walked around just admiring the bay and the walls. Found a little coffee shop across the street about a block and a half away from the main square and had a coffee that was good and strong. The owner gave us directions to the public washroom at the end of the street by the bike rental shop. The Bike rental shop turned out to be scooters and motorbikes, a small parking lot full of them which we had to walk through to get to the washroom. We paid the 1 euro to gain entry and found it clean and empty as we beat the ladies from the Japanese tourist bus in so we were happy. 

We wandered over to a park which really needed some attention paid to it. In the centre was a very very large plane tree that must have been at least 300 years old and took a few photos. One never knows how old a tree is in warm climes as they grow faster there. 

We walked across the street to the main square outside the walls where we were scheduled to meet our tour at 10 and were immediately approached by a pleasant young man who tried to sell us a tour of Dubrovnik. We explained that we had actually already book our tour online. He told us we should never book online as there were lots of tours that a person could just walk up and take that were probably better and cheaper than online. We told him that we did not know that there were so many tours available and that the next time we were in Dubrovnik we would certainly not book online but come and find his tour group. Now placated our very nice, and good looking, young man told us OK and to look for the blue T-shirts and moved off to find other potential customers.

We popped into a souvenir shop just on the square to fill the time but as we did not see any Game of Thrones type souvenirs did not buy anything there. At ten we found our tour guide wearing the blue T-Shirt and so began a day filled with narrow laneways, squares, churches, walls, stairs and history tied in with the GOT. Oh did I mention the Stairs, lots and lots of stairs. I love Dubrovnik! 

Lana was our tour guide and she was wonderful. Her presentation of the history of Dubrovnik and Croatia as it worked in with the Game of Thrones story was excellent. 

First we visited the “Red Keep” in Kings landing. (A lot of stairs) just before you go up the last set of stairs and into the “keep” there is a small lookout with a bench. I sprinkled mom and dad there right by the flowers beside the bench. The colour of the water was stunning.

We continued up the steps and into the “Keep”. Lana took care of our tickets and we proceeded into the old stone fortress which was once part of the defences for the Old Town Dubrovnik against marauding outsiders. Lana showed us where they filmed different scenes and pictures of how they altered the scenes digitally, adding things here and there to create the "Red Keep" and "Kings Landing". It was marvellous. 
The view of the city from the Keep was our first and was beautiful with the red tiled roofs, the great wall surrounding the town and "Blackwater Bay".

Dubrovnik is a medieval walled town with all the stone buildings inside wide stone walls that you can walk on around the whole city. There is a marina just outside the walls with  coffee shops and tour boats to take you to the cursed Island and back as no one spends the night there.

the history of Dubrovnik is actually very interesting with many similarities to the Game of thrones with many different kingdoms ruling at different times.

Wikipedia says

Ragusa was founded in the 7th century, named for a "rocky island" called Lausa, by refugees from Epidaurum, a Greek city situated some 15 km to the south, when that city was destroyed in theSlavic Incursions. 

Excavations in 2007 revealed a Byzantine basilica from the 8th century and parts of the city walls. The size of the old basilica clearly indicates that there was quite a large settlement at the time. There is also evidence for the presence of a settlement in the pre-Christian era.

Antun Ničetić, in his 1996 book Povijest dubrovačke luke ("History of the Port of Dubrovnik"), expounds the theory that Dubrovnik was established by Greek sailors, as a station halfway between the two Greek settlements of Budva and Korcula, 95 nautical miles (176 km; 109 mi) apart from each other.

After the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the town came under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. Dubrovnik in those medieval centuries had a Roman population. After the Crusades, Dubrovnik came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205–1358), which would give its institutions to the Dalmatian city. After a fire destroyed almost the whole city in the night of August 16, 1296, a new urban plan was developed. By the peace treaty of Zadar in 1358, Dubrovnik achieved relative independence as a vassal-state of the Kingdom of Hungary. 

We left the Keep and went down to the bay and on into the walled city through the large gates. After walking down a wide main stone street as a group we turned right into a maze of narrow lanes. it was so interesting. the old air conditioning still visible and once explained noticeable on many buildings. Our history lesson continued.

Between the 14th century and 1808, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state, although it was a vassal from 1382 to 1804 of the Ottoman empire and paid an annual tribute to its sultan.The Republic reached its peak in the 15th and 16th centuries, when its thalassocracy  rivalled that of the Republic of Venice  and other Italian maritime republics.

We started to climb stairs. The tour had advertised 10,000 steps of Dubrovnik and we now hoped it was not 10000 stairs of Dubrovnik.

For centuries, Dubrovnik was an ally of Ancona, the other Adriatic Maritime Dubrovnik republic rival of Venice, which was the Ottoman Empire's chief rival for control of the Adriatic. This alliance enabled the two towns set on opposite sides of the Adriatic to resist attempts by the Venetians to make the Adriatic a "Venetian Bay", also controlling directly or indirectly all the Adriatic ports. Ancona and Dubrovnik developed an alternative trade route to the Venetian (Venice-Austria-germany): starting in Dubrovnik it went on to Ancona, through Florence and ended in Flanders. 

The Republic of Ragusa received its own Statutes as early as 1272, statutes which, among other things, codified Roman practice and local customs. The Statutes included prescriptions for town planning and the regulation of quarantine (for sanitary reasons).

The Republic was an early adopter of what are now regarded as modern laws and institutions: a medical service was introduced in 1301, with the first pharmacy, still operating to this day, being opened in 1317. An almshouse was opened in 1347, and the first quarantine hospital (Lazarete) was established in 1377. Slave trading was abolished in 1418, and an orphanage opened in 1432. A 20 km (12 mi) water supply system, instead of a cistern, was constructed in 1438 by the Neapolitan architect and engineer Onofrio della Cava. He completed the aqueduct with two public fountains. He also built a number of mills along one of its branches. Lana was very proud to tell us these wonderful things being from Dubrovnik herself.

The city was ruled by the local aristocracy which was of Latin-Dalmatian extraction and formed two City council. As usual for the time, they maintained a strict system of social classes. The republic abolished the slave trade early in the 15th century and valued liberty highly. The city successfully balanced its sovereignty between the interests of Venice and the  Ottoman Empire for centuries.
the tour continued up wards through narrow streets and most with stairs, stairs, stairs.

The languages spoken by the people were the Romance Dalmatian and common Croatian. The latter started to replace Dalmatian little by little since the 11th century among the common people who inhabited the city. Italian and Venetian would become important languages of culture and trade in Dubrovnik. At the same time, Dubrovnik became a cradle of  Croatian literature. 

We got up to the cathedral where they had filmed the Wlk of Shame in the GOT. well not exactly the cathedral would not let them shoot a nude scene in front of the cathedral and so they used the stairs but not the cathedral. the high point of this stop was that now we were walking downtime stairs, yea!

The economic wealth of the Republic was partially the result of the land it developed, but especially of seafaring trade. With the help of skilled diplomacy, Dubrovnik merchants travelled lands freely and on the sea the city had a huge fleet of Merchant ships that travelled all over the world. From these travels they founded some settlements, from India to America, and brought parts of their culture and flora home with them. One of its keys to success was not conquering, but trading and sailing under a white flag with the word Latin: Libertas (freedom) prominently featured on it. The flag was adopted when slave trading was abolished in 1418.

Many Conversos, Jews from Spain and Portugal, were attracted to the city. In May 1544, a ship landed there filled exclusively with Portuguese refugees, as Balthasar de Faria reported to King John. During this time there worked in the city one of the most famous cannon and bell founders of his time: Ivan Rabljanin (Magister Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle). Already in 1571 Dubrovnik sold its protectorate over some Christian settlements in other parts of the Ottoman Empire to France and Venice. At that time there was also a colony of Dubrovnik in Fes in Morocco. The bishop of Dubrovnik was a Cardinal protector in 1571. At that time there were only 16 other countries which had Cardinal protectors; those being France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Poland, England, Scotland, Ireland, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Savoy, Lucca, Greece, Illyria, Armenia

We saw this ship out in the bay and wondered if it was a tourist ship.
The Republic gradually declined due to a combination of a Mediterranean shipping crisis and the catastrophic earthquake of 1667 which killed over 5,000 citizens and levelled most of the public buildings, and consequently negatively impacted the whole well being of the Republic. In 1699, the Republic was forced to sell two mainland patches of its territory to the Ottomans in order to avoid being caught in the clash with advancing Venetian forces. Today this strip of land belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is that country's only direct access to the Adriatic. A highlight of Dubrovnik's diplomacy was the involvement in the American Revolution.

We got down to the bay and then headed up onto the wall. there were many more stairs to do but the scenery was marvellous. A storm was blowing in and we thought we might get caught in it but it just missed us so only a few raindrops were our stormy experience. We loved looking down at the narrow streets from on high.

In 1806, the city surrendered to the Napoleonic army, as that was the only way to end a month-long siege by the Russian-Montenegrin fleets (during which 3,000 cannonballs fell on the city). At first, Napoleon demanded only free passage for his troops, promising not to occupy the territory and stressing that the French were friends of Dubrovnik. Later, however, French forces blockaded the harbours, forcing the government to give in and let French troops enter the city. On this day, all flags and coats of arms above the city walls were painted black as a sign of mourning. In 1808, Marshal Auguste de Marmont abolished the republic and integrated its territory first into Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy and later into the  Illyrian provinces under French rule. This was to last until 28 January 1814 when the city surrendered to Captain Sir William Hoste leading a body of British and Austrian troops who were besieging the fortress.   

The official language until 1472 was Latin. Later, the Senate of the Republic decided that the official language of the Republic would be the Dubrovnik dialect of the Romance Dalmatian language, and forbade the use of the Croatian language in senatorial debate. The Gospari (the Aristocracy) held on to their language for many centuries, but it slowly disappeared.

After a few stops to take photos, ( catch our breath and give our legs a break) We reached the top of the wall where there is a little house of sorts where they had shot a few scenes of a blacksmiths shop. I cannot imagine how tired Tyrion, the dwarf, would have been walking up all those stairs. I know Margie was exhausted and when we went up to the little tower she stayed on the wall to rest.

The Italian language as spoken in the republic was heavily influenced by the Venetian language and the Tuscan dialect. Italian took root among the Dalmatian Romance-speaking merchant upper classes, as a result of Venetian influence.

When the Hapsburg Empire annexed these provinces after the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the new authorities implemented a bureaucratic administration, established the Kingdom of Dalmatia, which had its own Sabor (Diet) or Parliament, based in the city of Zadar, and political parties such as the  Autonomist Party and the People's Party.  They introduced a series of modifications intended to slowly centralise the bureaucratic, tax, religious, educational, and trade structure. Unfortunately for the local residents, these steps largely failed, despite the intention of wanting to stimulate the economy. Once the personal, political and economic damage of The Napoleonic Wars  had been overcome, new movements began to form in the region, calling for a political reorganisation of the Adriatic along national lines.

We started our walk down which was so nice. the city has schools with basketball courts and gardens on rooftops. so nice to see.

The combination of these two forces—a flawed Habsburg administrative system and new national movement claiming ethnicity as the founding block toward a community—posed a particularly perplexing problem: Dalmatia was a province ruled by the  German-Speaking Hapsburg monarchy, with bilingual (Croatian- and Italian-speaking) elites that dominated the general population consisting of a Croatian Catholic majority (and a Slavic Orthodox minority).

In 1815, the former Dubrovnik Government (its noble assembly) met for the last time in Ljetnikovac in Mokosica. Once again, extreme measures were taken to re-establish the Republic, but it was all in vain. After the fall of the Republic most of the aristocracy was recognised by the Austrian Empire.

When we reached the main square there was a Game of Thrones store that we wanted to go into but the tour was containing continuo we tried to remember where it was so we could go back and get a few things after the tour.

In 1832, Baron Sismundo Getaldic-Gundulic (Sigismondo Ghetaldi-Gondola) (1795–1860) was elected Mayor of Dubrovnik, serving for 13 years; the Austrian government granted him the title of "Baron".

Count Rafael Pucic (Raffaele Pozza), Dr. Jur., (1828–90) was elected for first time Podestà of Dubrovnik in the year 1869 after this was re-elected in 1872, 1875, 1882, 1884) and elected twice into the Dalmatian Council, 1870, 1876. The victory of the Nationalists in Split in 1882 strongly affected in the areas of Korčula and Dubrovnik. It was greeted by the mayor (podestà) of Dubrovnik Rafael Pucić, the National Reading Club of Dubrovnik, the Workers Association of Dubrovnik and the review "Slovinac"; by the communities of Kuna and Orebić, the latter one getting the nationalist government even before Split

We reached the end of our tour back out at the main gate of the city. Those of us who were continuing on to the garden part of the tour should meet where we met in the main square in one hour, that would give us time to shop a bit and have lunch. So the race was on. We tried to find the GOT store but were unsuccessful and it was getting quite hot out so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the main street by the big square. It was very good and we were very tired. We always try the local beer or drink and we did here too. What a lovely city. 

We finished our lunch and got to the main square where we met Lana once more. there were 4 of us going on the garden tour. 6 with the driver and Lana. we headed out of town as the gardens are about 25 minutes outside the city. they shop all of the garden scenes for kings landing there and we were looking forward to seeing all those lovely places. We drove over the very interesting bridge and past many lovely Adriatic scenes plus some road construction. the season of good weather is road construction.

We arrived at the garden which judging from the entrance is more of a woodland with paths than a garden but we were willing and able after our rest in the van to continue on to see what we would see. we passed the remains of an old Roman Viaduct and many lovely glades.
 Our history lesson tied in with the GOT continued.

In 1889, the Serb-Catholics circle supported Baron Francesco Ghetaldi-Gondola, the candidate of the Autonomous Party, vs the candidate of Popular Party Vlaho de Giulli,  in the 1890 election to the Dalmatian Diet. The following year, during the local government election, the Autonomous Party won the municipal re-election with Francesco Gondola, who died in power in 1899. The alliance won the election again on 27 May 1894. Frano Getaldić-Gundulić founded the Societa Philately on 4 December 1890.

We came to a wonderful fountain and pool containing lily s nd gold fish. I loved this part of the garden and Lana showed us which GOT scenes were shot there and what was modified to create the scenes. lovely.

In 1905, the Committee for establishing electric Tram Service, headed by m. Luko Bunić – certainly one of the most deserving persons who contributed to the realisation of the project – was established. 

Pero Cingria (1837–1921), one of the leaders of the People's Party in Dalmatia,^[29] played the main role in the merger of the People's Party and the Party of Right into a single Croatian Party in 1905.

With the fall of  Austria-Hugary in 1918, the city was incorporated into the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Dubrovnik became one of the 33 oblast of the Kingdom. When in 1929 Yugoslavia was divided among 9 Banovina, the city became part of the Zeta Banovina. In 1939 Dubrovnik became part of the newly created Banovina of Croatia.

There was an old chapel on the path that Lana told us was locked up due to a sad circumstance  Once long ago a young daughter of the wealthy land owner was involve with a young man who worked on the estate. She wanted to mary him but her father said no and she ended up killing herself in the chapel. this was very sad. and brought us to talking about marriages in the old times and it seemed that a young man had to have at least 5 olive trees of his own and a goat or something in order to marry. 

During World War II, Dubrovnik became part of the Nazi- puppet Independent State of Croatia, occupied by the Italian army first, and by the  German army after 8 September 1943. In October 1944 Yugoslav Partisans occupied Dubrovnik, arresting more than 300 citizens and executing 53 without trial; this event came to be known, after the small island on which it occurred, as the Dakasa Massacre. Communist leadership during the next several years continued political prosecutions, which culminated on 12 April 1947 with the capture and imprisonment of more than 90 citizens of Dubrovnik.

Under communism Dubrovnik became part of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1979, the city joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

Just after the sad chapel we came to an old buyding that was being used as the washroom facility. there were lots of little things written on the walls where there were damages I thought. I asked Lana and she said they were getting ready to repair the buydings but needed to know exactly how they were constructed so that they could repair everything authentically. How much patience does that take?

We finished up in the garden with all of its flowers, paths and  shaped bushes and exited from a different exit walking through an old olive press and down steps past houses with lovely gardens of their own. We ended up down by the sea at a little dock with a stone patio by the sea. I remembered what scene was shot here and so did the others we re-enacted the scene. it was great fun.

In 1991 Croatia and Slovenia, which at that time were republics within Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, declared their independence. At that event, Socialist Republic of Croatia  was renamed  Republic of Croatia.

Despite demilitarisation of the old town in early 1970s in an attempt to prevent it from ever becoming a casualty of war, following Croatia's independence in 1991 Yugoslavia's Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), by then composed primarily of Serbs, attacked the city. The new Croatian government set up military outpost in the city itself.  Montenegro, led by president Momir Bulatovic,  and prime minister  Milo Dukanovic,  coming to power in the Anti-beaucratic revolution and allied to Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, declared that Dubrovnik would not remain in Croatia because they claimed it historically had never been part of Croatia. This was in spite of the large Croat majority in the city and that very few Montenegrins resided there, though Serbs accounted for 6.8 percent of the population.

On October 1, 1991 Dubrovnik was attacked by JNA with a siege of Dubrovnik that lasted for seven months. The heaviest artillery attack was on December 6 with 19 people killed and 60 wounded. The number of casualties in the conflict, according to Croatian Red Cross, was 114 killed civilians, among them poet  Milan Milisic. Foreign newspapers were criticised for placing heavier attention on the damage suffered by the old town than on human casualties.
Nonetheless, the artillery attacks on Dubrovnik damaged 56% of its buildings to some degree, as the historic walled city, a UNESCO world heritage site, sustained 650 hits by artillery rounds. The Croatian Army The lifted the siege in May 1992, and liberated Dubrovnik's surroundings by the end of October, but the danger of sudden attacks by the JNA lasted for another three years.

Following the end of the war, damage caused by the shelling of the Old Town was repaired. Adhering to UNESCO guidelines, repairs were performed in the original style. Most of the reconstruction work was done between 1995 and 1999. The inflicted damage can be seen on a chart near the City Gate, showing all artillery hits during the siege, and is clearly visible from high points around the city in the form of the more brightly coloured new roofs. ICTY indictments were issued for JNA generals and officers involved in the bombing.

General  Pavle Strugar, who coordinated the attack on the city, was sentenced to a seven-and-a-half-year prison term by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for his role in the attack.

Our tour van came down and picked us up at the little dock and we headed back to the ship with just one stop. the tree they say is 400 years old and it is really big. another photo op.
They brought us back across the big bridge and dropped us off right at the pier and when we came through the gate we found some little shops and one was a Game of Thrones store! We bought all kinds of things. glasses, t-shirts, bags, just lots of GOT souvenirs. yea! the ship looked great and we went straight to our room to put our things away and go to dinner. we were very tired and did not go to the show that night. it really was an amazing day with 10,000 steps more than accomplished. Our joints were telling us to go to sleep so we did. we had to rest up for Venice our last stop of the cruise.