21st June
Got up and had breakfast and then boarded a coach to Old Town for a walking tour through the streets. We met our guide who gave a brief rundown of the history of Dubrovnik.
In the 14th century Dubrovnik was considered a separate country.
They had a pathetic army so they became good diplomats and they became very good sea traders.
This put them up against the Venetians. The Venice ships had to pass the Croatian coast which led to a lot of piracy in the region. So the Venetians then took over the northern coast of Croatia so they could trade in the Northern waters.
Mehmed ll was a 21 year old conqueror from Turkey. When the Istanbul sultan tried to conquer the country of Dubrovnik they said they will pay more tax if he doesn’t invade so for centuries they paid the tax and remained uninvaded.
Rector’s Palace (shown above)
There were several political parties. Senators were elected and they then hid away and they made the decision always in secret weren’t seen unless they were sending the money in taxes off to Istanbul in which case they sat on the seats outside Rectors palace looking imposing.
So they set up a middle man elected every month he was the rector and you could only be reelected in after 4 years.
He lived in the palace for that month between the senators and the people
Dubrovnik was one of the 1st to do sewage and also to do the aqueduct system in the 14th century which is still providing the water to the fountains in the old town, Big Onofrio’s Fountain (shown below) is one of them. 
In the 1667 a lot of the old town was destroyed. The Church of Saint Savour (the church at the Pile Gate) had to be rebuilt however the church next to it is 200 years older as it survived the earthquake.
Some facts about the Old Town:-
- The 3rd oldest (in the world) continuously operating pharmacy is in the old town.
- The Main Street gets wider as it goes into the town from the Pile Gate, to make it appear bigger than it is
- UNESCO offered money after the war of 1991 to rebuild the old town the photo below shows what devastation was caused by the war.
Buildings in the Old Town
St Blaise Church
Saint Blaise is the patron saint of Dubrovnik and because of this he holds Dubrovnik in his hand and his day is 3rd Feb and celebrated more than Independence Day
Tax office and bank etc the economic centre of the town was housed in Sponza Palace, it is in the corner opposite St Blaise church and has the word for tax above the door
2nd most important person was the monk Orlando, he has a column in front of St Blaise. Some cracks were discovered in his Column so it is being fixed at the moment
The Catholic Cathedral is in the corner and it held the treasury. It required 3 keys to be turned at the same time to open it. The earthquake broke it open and everything was stolen.
Under the current cathedral there is a 6000 century chapel underneath 
More photos from inside the Old Town
We then had free time to wonder the city and I walked back to the park and to the Cove at the end.
The bus then took us back to the ship and as we sat down to lunch we set sail for Slano 2 hours away.
We pulled up 1 1/2 hours later at the end of the Cove away from the Port so that we could all swim in the Sea, some people paddle boarded, other snorkelled, the rest just swam and hung around in tubes and noodles. I bought my blow up seat and sat in that in the water for 1 1/2 hours. 
We then packed everything up and sailed the last 1/2 hour into the port of Slano.
We were the last boat in a run of 6 and you have to walk through all the other boats to get ashore.
When you got there there were a couple of statues.
There was a rocky beach and one shop, one bar and one supermarket, so not a lot of time was spent ashore, came back to the boat to rest before the Captains Dinner. At the dinner a local band got on and played Croatian songs whilst we ate dinner. After dinner they played songs we all knew and sung along to. It was a great night.
This featured blog entry was written by staceybaker0 from the blog Croatia June 2026.
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