The Old Town, Honestly

Everything in this walk depends on the hour you start. Be at Pile Gate by 07:45 and the drawbridge, the gate arch and Big Onofrio's Fountain just inside it are yours; the fountain is part of the 1440s water system Onofrio della Cava built to bring spring water twelve kilometres into the city. By ten the same spot is a queue.

A few steps inside the gate. The church is free to enter; the cloister and the pharmacy museum are ticketed, reported at around €10 for adults, with opening roughly 9:00 to 18:00 in summer and shorter in winter. The monastery pharmacy was founded in 1317 and is widely described as one of the oldest continuously operating pharmacies in Europe — a claim repeated everywhere but one I could not tie to an institutional source, so take it as tradition rather than a certified record. The ticket price is a third-party figure too; confirm at the door.

The Placa — everyone calls it Stradun — runs dead straight from Pile to Luža Square, paved in limestone worn to a shine by four centuries of feet. It was rebuilt in its uniform, shuttered style after the 1667 earthquake, which is why the whole street looks designed rather than grown. This is the window for the classic photograph straight down the street. You will not get it again all day.

The two-kilometre circuit is the reason most people come, and the single most heat-exposed walk in the city. The 2026 adult price is €40 in high season, 1 March to 30 November, and €20 from 1 December to 28 February; ages 7 to 18 and students pay €15 and €5, under-sevens go free. The ticket is valid 72 hours and allows one lap. Entry is at Pile, at Ploče, or by St Luke's near the Old Port. Open daily except 25 December, roughly 8:00 to 19:30 in summer with shorter winter hours — the exact seasonal table lives on citywallsdubrovnik.hr and changes, so check the day before. Allow ninety minutes to two hours, and start at opening: there is almost no shade up there, and between eleven and three the limestone radiates.

The fortress on its own rock west of Pile, free with your City Walls ticket — reported as usable for up to three days after your walls visit, though I could not confirm that window on the official ticket page, and a standalone ticket is quoted at about €15. Official hours are 8:00 to 19:30. It is the exterior of the Red Keep in Game of Thrones, and it is also simply the best place to stand and understand the walls you have just walked.

Back inside, aim to be here by half past nine. The palace housed the Republic's elected Rector, who served one month and was not permitted to leave the building during his term. Adults €15 for the palace alone, €8 for students and schoolchildren; the combined ten-museum ticket is €20 for adults and €10 reduced, valid seven days with one entry per site, and it also covers the Maritime Museum, the Ethnographic Museum, the Homeland War Museum and the Archaeological Exhibitions at Fort Revelin. Hours are commonly given as 9:00 to 18:00 in summer, 9:00 to 16:00 in winter with Monday closures off-season, but those hours come from a secondary source — confirm on dumus.hr.

The nave is free and holds a Titian polyptych of the Assumption above the main altar. The Treasury beside it charges a small separate fee, reported at €3 to €5; I found no official price list, so treat that as an estimate. Visit outside Mass: weekdays at 07:30 and 18:00, Sundays at 09:00, 10:00 and 18:00, with the morning weekday Mass dropped in July and August and the evening one moved to 20:00.

Sponza is the only major building on Stradun to come through the 1667 earthquake intact, which is why its Gothic-Renaissance front looks different from everything around it. The courtyard is free most of the year and ticketed in the summer months — €5 individual, €3 group, per the State Archives' own site. On the ground floor, the Memorial Room to the defenders of the 1991–92 siege is free and quiet, and it is the honest counterweight to a morning of postcard views. Orlando's Column stands outside, where the Republic read its proclamations and raised the flag of Libertas.

Near Ploče Gate, and consistently less busy than the Franciscan side at any hour. Fifteenth-century Gothic cloister, a Titian altarpiece and a Nikola Božidarević triptych. Entry is reported at about €5 and hours at roughly 9:00 to 18:00 from May to October — both third-party figures, unconfirmed on an official page. It is run independently, so it is not in the ten-museum ticket or the city pass. Mass is at 07:00 on weekdays and Saturdays, 08:30 and 10:30 on Sundays.

Finish at one of the Buža bars, reached through gaps in the outer sea wall on the south side — a few tables bolted to the cliff above the Adriatic. They are not part of the paid walls walk, there is no booking, and Buža I often wants cash. Drinks are priced for the view; the figures circulating online are third-party estimates rather than a posted menu. Come at nine in the morning to swim, or after eight in the evening for the light.