Should you visit Dubrovnik?
Dubrovnik is a beautiful town in Southern Croatia, famous for it's historic walled old town. In paricular, it has become very well known for being used as the filming location for Kings Landing in the HBO series Game of Thrones. But is it worth a visit?
First of all, Dubrovnik is very expensive, by far the most expensive town I have been to in Croatia. A 0.5l beer can easily cost 35 to 45 kunar. If you want to go on the town walls, which is really a must see, you will have to pay 250 or 150 kunar if you have a student card.
Second, public transport is horrible. The city bus company, libertas dubrovnik, is the most incompetent transit company I have ever had the misfortune to travel with. The city bus map is inledigble, the bus stations are often not labeled and in the bus it does not say which stations are coming up. All in all it makes for a very confusing and frustrating experience if you're going somewhere other than the old town. Also, the bus map is not integrated with Google maps, as could be expected from a somewhat competent bus company.
Apart from the quite beautiful old town Dubrovnik is a unremarkable, spread out city full of tourist apartments and huge hotels. The beaches are crowded and the beautiful, crystal clear sea has become somewhat merky and dirty. A tour guide also warned of swimming in the bay near old Town, as the old sewage system of Dubrovnik is often overwhelmed, causing raw sewage to run of into the nearby sea.
To sum up, I would probably not come to Dubrovnik again. If you really want to visit here, I would recommend not staying more than one night, as it is really enough to see the old town.
However, it does look quite pretty, as you can see in some in the pictures I took:
