I cannot be alone when I say that a dream trip to Croatia and the “Pearl of the Adriatic” should include at least one trip to the beach! While not entirely known for its beaches, Dubrovnik does have quite a few to choose from. Though beaches here are quite shelly, sometimes even rocky, they are still exquisite and a great place to people watch. With the weather forecasting a sunny day ahead, we chose to head to the beach first thing in the morning. We chose Banje Beach because of its proximity to Old Town. A short walk outside the city gates, Banje beach is a public beach that stares out at Lokrum Island to the south. There is a beach club and restaurant from which you can rent lounge chairs and other beach equipment or grab some food and drink. During warmer months, I’m sure this beach is quite busy, but for us, the water was pretty chilly yet, so we were one of few groups taking in the sun. We stayed for a couple of hours before walking back to Old Town for lunch at one of Dubrovnik’s many outdoor terrace restaurants.
Lokrum Island
We tossed around several different ideas for how to spend the remainder of the day. The top contender on our list was taking the Dubrovnik cable car to the top of Srd Hill to witness the amazing views of Old Town Dubrovnik from above. Much to our dismay, though, the cable car was not functioning during the entire week that we were there due to a local lawsuit against its owners (related to taxes, not safety!!). So instead we decided to take the ferry to Lokrum Island and explore the island we had been staring at all week. The ferry is easy to find from Dubrovnik’s port and leaves several times an hour for the 15 minute journey. Tickets were fairly priced. Once on the island, most of your time will be spent walking around and enjoying the island’s natural beauty. There are ruins of an old monastery, botanical gardens, a fort at the top of the hill, and peacocks galore! I wish we had known about the small swimming hole that is called “The Dead Sea” because by this point in the afternoon it was quite warm, and we were sweating but did not have anything to change into. There are also “beaches” on the edge of Lokrum that are actually just large rocks to climb on. We read that this is a favorite spot for “naturalists” to sunbathe but did not spot any of these daring travelers. Maybe that’s a good thing? Ultimately I’d say we enjoyed our afternoon on Lokrum Island, but if you only have a limited amount of time in Dubrovnik, this is one thing that can be reasonably cut from the list of things to do.
After a couple of hours we had traversed most of the island and were ready to take the ferry back to Dubrovnik. On our way back, we remembered that we actually had one more entrance ticket each for the city walls because our Game of Thrones tour came with a ticket in order to get us in to Fort Lovrijenac. We couldn’t possibly consider leaving this on the table, especially with how beautiful and sunny this day had become. So, despite being tired from walking all across Lokrum Island, we once again climbed the steps to walk Dubrovnik’s city walls one last time.
After a nice nap and some time to recover our tired legs, we went for dinner at seafood restaurant Kamenice. Steps away from our AirBNB in the booming Gundulic Square, this restaurant caught our attention early in the week with its blue and white striped chairs and fresh seafood aroma. We enjoyed a bottle of red wine and the freshest seafood before ending our night by popping in the candy store.
