Old City of Dubrovnik

The Old City of Dubrovnik is one of the great walled towns of the Mediterranean, a compact grid of limestone streets, churches, and palaces inside a ring of medieval city walls. It belongs on the bucket list. It is also, in high season, overwhelmed. Cruise ships unload thousands at once, and the main lanes pack shoulder to shoulder, the same overtourism that hits Venice and the Louvre.

Almost nobody lives inside the walls any more. The old town has emptied of permanent residents and filled with short-term rentals, so staying in an apartment within the walls is, oddly, the truest way to see it now. If you want a hotel instead, the big chains sit about fifteen minutes out by car, like the Sheraton Dubrovnik Riviera up the coast, with independents closer in around the harbor at Gruž or up in the hills.

Most of what you walk through was rebuilt. The old town was shelled through the siege of 1991 and 1992, even as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and much of it was rebuilt in the years after. From the walls the repair is easy to read: the brighter terracotta roof tiles are the replacements, and the weathered ones came through the war.

It used to be a bargain and is now expensive, and the cheap places to eat thin out every year. Even so, many of the restaurants and bars are still run by local families rather than chains, which is rare in a town this busy. I would stay a night rather than day-trip in, and have a real meal of local fish and Dalmatian wine once the day crowds thin. Crowds and prices and all, I would still go.