Dubrovnik, Croatia. An epic fortified town.
Built from limestone that has endured for many generations.
Full of inspiring
architecture and bearing the scars of war from being under siege in 1991 when
she was hit with over 2,000 bombs. And yet, that hardly compares to the
earthquake of 1667 that nearly leveled the entire town and claimed
approximately 5,000 lives.
Today she is a mix of old and new but she stands strong
and lively as over a million tourists flock to see her magnificence each
year. It is no wonder that a town of such grandeur was chosen as the set of
King's Landing in the masterpiece Game of Thrones.
I'm Dylan Magaster.
I'm Tara Wear.
We sailed to Dubrovnik and teamed up with Tom.
Hey, winter is coming.
Hi, I'm Tom. I'm a Dubrovnik tour guide.
To bring you a unique tour of this unparalleled city.
Winter is coming!
Entering the 14th century fort via the drawbridge we turn around and see very
clearly that we have reached our first film location, the gates of King's Landing.
We get to experience a similar albeit more commercialized and
placid feeling as when Jamie returned to the city.
Still in Pile Gate before
entering into old town is our next film location when Joffrey and his royal
escort get harassed by the people.
They all quickly escape the riot and duck into
the red keep which is a bit of film magic because we get transported into the fort
of St. Lawrence.
The fort in present day shape is standing like this from 1639 and
apparently there was a chapel of St. Lawrence that was built on this side.
Technically the chapel being built there was built so that the Venetians could
not attack it. Why? If they destroy the chapel, they would upset the Pope
and the Pope was not the person you wanted to mess with in the Middle Ages.
He had the army, the navy and the power to ex-communicate.
From the fort we overlook
Blackwater Bay and get an impressive view of old town. Standing in the fort we
can only imagine the effort that it must have required to create, but to convert
it into a set is rather easy: add a fake wall, grab these old lamps, and now we
have an entrance to the keep. Sansa is left behind. The Hound didn't have to
look far for Sansa because she was already inside here. So this may be the
castle of King's Landing and the Red Keep, but it's also the
stable where Sansa was almost raided so if you just go across the corridor and step inside here...
I'm holding my dress.
You have to look terrified.
Another glimpse into the creativity and magic that is filmmaking.
Hodor!
This fort has served as many film sets for Game of Thrones but don't
forget that it was also a functioning well-built fortress. So this wall is much
thicker than the wall facing the city so even though this looks quite symmetric
that wall is about six times thinner. Why? Because it's designed for defense
not for the attack so if somebody breaches they wouldn't a ccomplish much
because you can easily bridge that wall by the cannons from the old town so it's designed for
defense, not for the attack.
In this particulate scene, it looks like a pyramid.
We locked up the fortress and before heading back to old town, Tour Guide Tom
is going to show us some lesser-known gems. Over here we have what remains of the former
fishing settlement, let's say. In summer months it's actually pretty cool because it's
one of the most hidden beaches so if you happen to be in Dubrovnik I would
definitely recommend this one.
Tom drives us to the private port of the nobleman Ivan Marinov Gučetić.
This is a local gem and a familiar location.
Most people stop here but if you
continue on a little further we arrive at a secret location.
Looking at the
concrete ground you can see that they painted on the mosaic for staging.
So we got into the Trsteno Arboretum now known popularly as Tyrell Gardens.
We're going to move along the path, but around the camera.
As you can see there's a camera over there.
We sort of are trespassing which is
going to happen once more on this tour. Now, it wouldn't be fair to say that I never
did it. I did it before and I was lucky. I hope we're gonna be lucky today as well.
I can explain that the Gardens are closed for the reasons of safety because the
trees were falling down so it's at our own risk
but I don't see Bura, maybe Scirocco yesterday.
The gazebo which we could not really see but I have my plans on getting you there
as well which is the front of the house where
they have their offices for the gardens. That would be used during the 1500's and
1600's for evening meal. It would be too hot to eat over there during summer months so
here it is cool, just by the water, and this is where they'd serve lunch.
This would be shaded leisure for lunch and this is also where the murder weapon was produced.
You're drunk.
Yes.
That's Poseidon in the middle. Who's
left? Amphitrite on the left. His son, Triton, on the right.
This one was built in
1736. There was an older fountain which collapsed in the earthquake in 1667. Behind the
fountain is the aqueduct. Despite the Roman and Greek God statues this
fountain was used subtly in many scenes.
Tom was telling us that these plants were brought in on ships. All of this
dirt was brought in on ships over the course of years to create this giant garden.
Now, this is the Olive Press. Putting the olives inside these, crushing the olives into a pulp.
This is the first press, cold press
or what Italians call extra-virgin olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil is just
market. I mean virgin is a virgin. It can't be extra virgin. This one here would
be used probably for hot press. There's also a further procedure that you could
use adding chemicals but ugh, it's funny it's called Sans Olive Oil. Olive oil made
of Sansa, which is an interesting detail, but that oil is not so good.
This would be for the wine. According to Croatian law, wine is not considered
alcohol. Wine and beer are not alcohol in Croatia. That's what the law says, I don't know.
The gazebo, another place where a myriad of scenes were filmed.
After our discreet tour of the
Arboretum we headed to old town. This monastery is one of the few things that
survived the earthquake of 1667.
Senior citizen nursing home has been
working since when? From 1400's. 1400s and is still works today and a lot of those senior
citizens have lived inside the walls their whole life. Yep, they probably never moved out of the old town.
The old town is a town within a town. It has a little Hospital
elementary school, high school, music school, university.
Originally, they used the towers on the walls to store the grain but in 1590 they
drilled 15 underground silos on the cliffside that we saw from the fort to
store the grain. Two years supply for the population of the city. It took about
forty three years to complete it.
As we continued around old town we came across many films locations.
Arriving in this courtyard we came across one of the most
well known scenes in all of Game of Thrones.
Dubrovnik has embraced Game of Thrones tourism. The walk of shame was filmed all
over old town but the final bit was filmed outside of the east entrance to
old town. That's a bit more film magic for you. We were able to peek our heads
in the Rector's Palace and from Game of Thrones we can get an idea of what the
palace looks like.
We are headed to the Belvedere Hotel which is an abandoned
hotel where they filmed the fight between the mountain and the red viper.
That's St. Jacob's beach down there. This is how you deliver things to St. Jacob's
beach. According to Tom St. Jacob's beach is
the best beach around. This is an old elevator that used to belong to Hotel
Belvedere, it's an abandoned hotel here. The elevator used to go down to the
beach. And this cat has been treated. They gave her shots. As you can see the ear is
clipped. That's how you know? That's good to know.
Okay you can see the view of the old town from here, it's fairly amazing. It
is an abandoned hotel that looks like something from Mad Max and post
apocalyptic feel.
Shall we get this shot? You need this building
because Tyrian was standing over there, you're gonna see.
You're gonna recognize everything thanks to those buildings.
Being curious and loving abandoned places I had to take a look around.
This video by no means
covers all the places that we visited with Tom. He's a wealth of information
and an absolute joy to be around. Tom runs both Game of Thrones and just
history tours all around Dubrovnik. We even went all the way up to Ston to
see the Great Wall of Croatia. I would highly recommend you check out his link
in the description if you're planning a trip to Dubrovnik. Thank you for watching.
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Big love. Have a great week. And this sinkhole. And there you have it, folks!