After spending 4 days in Croatia, sailing the Adriatic Sea with Contiki, I decided to take a quick trip to Dubrovnik before boarding my flight home to Canada. I’d heard so much about the charming old town that I wouldn’t have forgiven myself for not checking it out when I was already so close.
Another Canadian on my tour planned on doing the same and was flying back on the same day as me, so we ended up taking the bus and staying together.
looking for a quick Croatian adventure? Here’s how to spend 48 hours in Dubrovnik in the spring.
Day 1
When we arrived, we went straight to our Airbnb which was about a 5-minute walk from Ploce gate. Our host was the sweetest local Croatian woman named miss Nada. She was super excited to give us tips about exploring the town. I wish I could find a link because she was honestly the best.
Once we were settled in, we grabbed something to eat from a bakery nearby that our Airbnb host recommended and walked to the old town walls and down the steps into Luza Square.
Dubrovnik Musical Spring was happening so the orchestra was out in the square performing. We sat on the steps outside St. Blaise Church just taking in the music and the beautiful spring evening, while the sunset glowed over the buildings around us.
Eventually, we stood up and began to wander down the street and around the corner, and accidentally ended up finding the famous steps from Game of Thrones. We were already hungry again so after taking a few photos, we stopped at the takeaway restaurant in the middle of the steps for some fries and continued walking up.
We wove through the streets of Old Town for a while and then made our way back to Luza Square and back up to the Airbnb for the night.
Day 2
We started the morning by walking back down the road to the bakery that our airbnb host had recommended for breakfast, then went into the old town to grab a smoothie from Mr. Fresh.
From there we made our way to the local tourism office just outside Pile Gate to pick up a 3 day Dubrovnik Pass. I couldn’t recommend these more. They’re great value if you’re planning on visiting the local attractions, including entry to most of them! It also includes unlimited access to public transportation.
Both myself and the person I was travelling with are big Game of Thrones fans and considered joining a tour, but ended up just doing it self-guided and based our day of exploring the town around the shooting locations- luckily all of them happen to be Dubrovniks top attractions..
We started in Pile Bay, then wandered around in Fort Lovrijenac.
It started to rain, so we headed back into Old Town to explore the town’s museums in Rector’s Palace and some of the other indoor attractions.
After going back to the Airbnb to freshen up and change, it finally started to clear up. The crowds were still pretty low from the rain, so we thought it would be the perfect time to walk the city walls.
They were still far from empty, but there were few enough people that you could stop to admire the views without people trying to push past.
It took about 2 hours to walk the length of the city walls, once we were finished we grabbed some gelato and sat on some steps along the Strandun.
Then we continued our self guided Game of Thrones tour with a few more stops and ended in a souvenir shop taking silly photos on a replica of the iron throne.
We were both pretty exhausted, so we left the Old Town and found a restaurant just outside the walls before heading back to the Airbnb for the night.
Day 3
We checked out of our Airbnb early and spent our last couple of hours soaking up the Dubrovnik atmosphere.
After an amazing breakfast at Cele Dubrovnik Gourmet & Lounge, it was time to catch our afternoon bus back to Split and say “dovidjenja!” to Dubrovnik.
