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The walls from my front door
The best tourist thrill in Dubrovnik is a walk around the walls of the Old City. Miraculously for the season, Mother Nature dealt me a gorgeous clear sort-of-warm day to do just that.  Looking out from my front door, we see today's destination: The City Walls

View from the walls View from the walls
Oops! Gotta wait for opening time, looking up in anticipation. Finally, opening time! Buy the ticket, and up the steps.
View from the walls View from the walls
We aim for a full circuit around the old city, so let's get started. View from the walls
View from the wallsView from the walls
This roof survived the siege of 1991. The tiles are colored with age. Roofs that weren't so lucky have been restored with bright new orange tiles.
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See the cat napping in the niche? See him in the wider view? That is one cool cat nap. Dubrovnik is chock full of cats.

"These nutches have troubles
The biggest of which is
The fact there are many
more nutches than nitches.

Each nutch in his nitch
Knows that some other nutch
Would like to move in
To his nitch very much."
View from the wallsView from the walls
View from the walls
That is quite some location for a cafe. I wonder how you get to it? View from the walls
View from the walls
A kid's bicycle? Up here?!? View from the walls
View from the wallsView from the walls
Hey! There's my apartment. The front door downstairs, the terrace upstairs. And YA neighborhood cat. (Downstairs is relative - I climb 97 steps to get home from the main street.)
View from the wallsView from the walls
View from the wallsView from the walls We see each other through a puddle, fairly clearly.
View from the walls View from the walls
Rounding a guard tower, we look straight down Stradun, the main street of the old city. Once it was a channel separating the island town from the mainland part.
View from the wallsView from the walls
At the foot of Stradun is Onofrio's Large Fountain, just inside the city's main visitors' gate. The dome is ringed with water spouts, where visitors to this hygiene-concious city were once required to wash themselves before entering, as a precaution against plague.

And if we are over Onofrio's biggie, then we can turn around and see the Pile Gate ("PEE-lay"), named for the neighborhood directly outside.
View from the wallsView from the walls
The Pile Gate is also where one of the three entrances to the walls is located. 'Tisn't the one we came up though, so on we go.
View from the walls View from the walls
View from the walls View from the walls
A massive fortress is built into the walls at each corner of the roughly square city. We climb up to - and down from - the northwest fortress, the most towering of the lot.
View from the wallsView from the walls
The old harbor! We must be nearly finished.
View from the walls View from the walls
Indeed we are. Our wall descends past the Ploče Gate ("PLOH-chay", named for the neighborhood it leads to). One last look down on the folks in the street from the gate to the town, and voila, back down the same stairs we entered by.

We've just had three hours of entertainment. A group of brits going the other direction "lapped" me over the space of about a quarter circuit, as if the idea were to return to the starting point as quickly as possible. Did they not realize that they were already there when they started?

Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf