The story of Walls of Dubrovnik

Up on the walls, you can walk an uninterrupted circuit of about 1,940 metres around the old town, with the terracotta roofs on one side and the open sea on the other. The walls reach about 25 metres at their highest. They were built mostly between the 13th and 17th centuries, and strengthened by three round and 14 square towers, five bastions, two corner forts and the great St John's Fortress, with more than 120 cannon and a moat on the land side.

The story goes back much further. Refugees from destroyed towns such as Epidaurus fled here and made the rocky islet a place of refuge. The first stone fortifications began at the end of the 8th century.

When the sea channel separating the islet from the mainland was filled in during the 11th century, a single wall was built around the whole present-day city. In 1979 the old city, with its walls, joined the UNESCO World Heritage list, and in 2019 more than 1.2 million people walked them.