"Your grip is on every city, where someone rejoices at you", I applied Balašević's universal verses this time in Dubrovnik to Vlaha Bogišić, a Croatian writer born in this city. Vlah and Sanja were not among the ancient walls of the former maritime republic, but their recommendations helped us to make our stay in Dubrovnik pleasant and not too expensive.
During the summer season, Air Serbia flies from Belgrade to Dubrovnik daily, and if you get your ticket in time, the 55-minute flight is certainly the best option. We arrived at the hotel by Uber driven by a charming girl from Mostar. Uber prices in Dubrovnik are lower than taxis in Belgrade - from the Old Town to the hotel in Orašac, the 15 km ride (20 minutes on average) cost 15 euros.
For dinner, Vlaho recommended the "Kamenice" restaurant on Gundulićeva Poljana in the Old Town, one of the few places in Dubrovnik that are not tourist traps and offer good food at decent prices. Around 20:15 p.m., we were met by a line of about XNUMX people who were waiting for one of the tables in the garden next to the monument to the famous Croatian writer, after whom this square was named, to become free.
Arboretum in Trsten
We were hungry, so we went to the also decent tavern "Pupo". That evening, Serbia played against England at the European Football Championship. I drew Sandra's attention to the fact that it is not the smartest thing to cheer loudly for Serbia in a garden in the center of Dubrovnik. However, the waitress from Bijelo Polje loudly cheered for Serbia, as did the owner of the tavern, a native of Dubrovnik, so a couple of guests from England who happened to be in the garden - remained lonely. In the end, there was not too much reason to celebrate when it came to the result of the match, however, the realization that being a Serbian tourist in Dubrovnik is not so unusual anymore brought relief.
Ekavica was heard at every step, from the mouth of almost every other waiter, and it seems that guests from Serbia are no longer a rarity either. Out of a dozen Uber rides, most of the drivers were local guys in their twenties, who are usually the most radical anywhere in the region, however, we didn't feel an iota of discomfort. All the squads praised the time spent in Belgrade and Novi Sad and whined about tourists from cruise ships "who don't spend anything and make a fuss". And yes, at the New Year's Eve 2024 on Stradun, Zdravko Čolić sang.
The next morning, the waiter on the beach of our hotel greeted me with: "Here's our guy who we watch in the morning program on K1!". I asked him where he got K1 in Dubrovnik; he replied that he was from Trebinje, where the cable channel has channels from Serbia. This summer, I got the impression across the region that television content from neighboring republics is being consumed much more than before. That despite the aspirations of the political "elites" to keep the people "in the trenches", ordinary people travel, work and consume content from the entire region quite normally.
Another one of Vlaho's recommendations was the Arboretum Trsteno, the oldest monument of landscape architecture in Croatia and the only arboretum on the Croatian Adriatic coast. It is located in Trsteno, 19 km northwest of Dubrovnik, only 3 euros by Uber from the hotel. I wanted to go by bike, but they answered me - the highway is very narrow and busy, and the parallel road is rocky and full of jumps, so the episode "Bicycle through Dalmatia" was omitted this time.
The Arboretum was founded in 1948 on the site of a Renaissance summer house with a garden, on an estate owned by the Gučetić-Godze noble family from Dubrovnik since the end of the 14th century. In 1949, it was protected by law as a natural monument. It covers an area of approximately 25 hectares and in that area unites several entities: a Renaissance park with a summer house, a neo-romantic park from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, an old olive grove and natural vegetation of forest and maquis, with coastal rocks.
Within the complex of the arboretum, apart from the summer house, there is also the chapel of St. Jerome from the 17th century, an old olive press, an aqueduct from the 15th century and a baroque fountain with Neptune and nymphs, built in 1736. Together with a rich plant fund that consists of 465 cultivated and 510 wild species, the Trsteno Arboretum uniquely combines natural and cultural heritage. Today, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts has jurisdiction over the Arboretum.
The park complex, which later became the Arboretum, was created at the end of the 15th century, when the Dubrovnik lord Ivan Marinov Gučetić-Godze built a summer house with a park on his Polish estate in 1494. The summer house and the park soon became the center of the humanistic and cultural life of Dubrovnik, and many famous names of Dubrovnik's cultural history are associated with them. Among others, the famous Dubrovnik poet and beauty Cvijeta Zuzorić stayed there, and during the 16th century, the famous philosopher and humanist Nikola Vitov Gučetić wrote numerous philosophical works and treatises on this property.
At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, another park was built on the property, spatially separated from the Renaissance garden, decorated in the then modern landscape style. The construction of the summer house itself was completed in 1502. The building was built in the Renaissance style, but the original building was destroyed in the earthquake that hit Dubrovnik and its surroundings in 1667. A new one was built in its place, which is still there today.
Numerous scenes from the popular series Game of Thrones, produced by the American production company HBO, were filmed on the grounds of the Arboretum. A unique summerhouse garden, an aqueduct, a mill, a baroque fountain with sculptures of Neptune and nymphs, and a lookout overlooking the sea and the islands created a unique natural scenery of King's Landing.
Dubrovnik walls
The days were so hot that we gave up on all other planned day trips to the islands around Dubrovnik and spent time on the beach and evenings in the Old Town. In the evening, when the tourists from cruise ships and those who come on day tours by bus leave, Dubrovnik becomes a quite decent place to walk while hundreds of swallows fly and chirp above you.
When you climb the Jesuit stairs to Crve St. Ignacija, at the end of the square in a spacious courtyard is the restaurant "Ruđer". Excellent local wine and delicious dishes at decent prices. The recommendation for the restaurant was given to me by Severina Miletić, whose grandfather Svetozar bought an apartment there, a few steps away, at the end of the 19th century. It is fascinating how almost a century and a half later the apartment remained in the hands of the family, no one wasted and gambled away, no state took it away.
As we leave the Old Town on the last evening, somewhere near Orlando's Pillar, our attention is drawn by the deafening noise made by eight elderly men dressed in local folk costumes. They come from Župa Dubrovačka, they were hired by the city's Tourist Board to parade along Stradun a couple of times a month. They sing and turn rattles, or as they say here - rattles, with which they dispel "evil spirits".
