A Trip to King’s Landing : Dubrovnik, Croatia

As summer was coming to an end it was the perfect chance to soak in a bit of late summer sun and head to the Mediterranean islands and coastline of Croatia. I was joined by my sister (@stephsykora) from Canada as we decided to do some “dual” traveling together and visit some distant family.

Dubrovnik

Where to first? Well, you can’t go to Croatia without visiting its most popular attraction: Dubrovnik! Thus we started our trip in this stunning town full of culture and staircase “roads” (which we found out the hard way after being dropped off by a taxi and trucking our luggage up the 20m flight).

The jewel of the Adriatic is, without a doubt, the 13^th – 16^th century old town. This UNESCO world heritage site is a spectacular city filled with marble streets, seaside guard towers and scenic city walls. So we did the #1 thing to do and walked along these gorgeous, but really hot (tip: don’t do in the middle of the day!), walls.

The defensive walls are stunning with the Adriatic Sea on one side and the baroque architecture building with orange brick roofs on the other side. And on top of that, we discovered that it was the location where they filmed scenes for King’s Landing for HBO’s Game of Thrones!

I love Dubrovnik, it is one of my most favorite places I have ever been to, and I have been to ALOT of places. It’s just so freaking beautiful! A word of warning, it is VERY touristy, all of old town is sadly, shops, restaurants, gelato stores and bars. However, if you ever find a small hole in the wall near the western wall where the locals are jumping off the rocks, crawl through to the lovely sunset bars perched up on the cliffs and grab a drink.  Worth every penny. Blink and you’ll miss it.

After Dubrovnik we were in the ideal spot to head north along the coast, and what better way than to do some island hoping and visit the Croatian islands.

Hvar

We “hopped” to the party-happy island of Hvar. The host of copious yachts, but also beautifully clear waters and mini-islands that were wonderful to swim around.

Of all the island in Croatia  Hvar is the “it” island, it’s where the rich and famous go to party and be seen. However, if you are like me and neither rich nor famous you can still enjoy Hvar via hostel life and pub crawls. This place is seriously a must if you want to get the best of Croatian island hopping.

Korcula

Another island we visited was Korcula, famous for its white wines and stronghold (sort of like a min-Dubrovnik). Marco Polo inscribed merchandise was everywhere, which we thought he must have been born there, but turns out he just lived there in the 13^th – 14^th century.

We only spent a day on the island of Korcula, and quite honesty out of all the places visited in Croatia this was probably my least favorite. It had beaches yes, it had strong holds and old town culture as well as trendy seaside restaurants overlooking the sea. It was kinda like a mixed grab bag of everything, however nothing spectacular in comparison to other places in Croatia: Dubrovnik for architecture, Brac for beaches, Hvar for parties, Split for city life, Zagreb for cafe culture. But I guess in a sense that kinda does make Korcula special, cause you can get a tiny bit of everything in just one place.

I does have wine though, yes let’s not forget about the wine.