Commercialization of Dubrovnik

It’s strange to walk around Dubrovnik if you’ve never watched Game of Thrones. It was such a huge pop culture phenomena that those of us who haven’t seen the show are few and far between. For the those who are unaware, the old city of Dubrovnik was the filming location for King’s Landing— one of the show’s main locations —and boy does the city capitalize on their pop culture connection. I knew going into my trip that Dubrovnik had gained in popularity among tourists. I just didn’t count on how popular. It felt like I couldn’t walk more then 20 feet without a shop boasting their GoT gear or overhearing a tour guide talk about being an extra on set. Tourists flock to the main thoroughfare of the Old City to fan over locales made notable by the show. Every so often you can hear an app from a nearby iPhone chant “shame, shame, shame,” while a tourist re-creates Cersei Lannister’s famous walk through a crowded street (I had to look this up, I’m not familiar with the show). Nearby Lokrum island — a short fairy ride away — even houses a replica of the infamous Iron Throne. On Lokrum Island, the masses wait their turn to sit on the Iron Throne and take pictures and posing themselves in an aloof manner — I will admit there’s some fun to it. But it can be a lot. There’s something a little heartbreaking at seeing an ancient place so transformed by pop culture. It’s understandable that the city would want to draw in the tourists by touting their Game of Thrones connection — but that connect leaves something to be desired.

Beyond the GoT draw, Dubrovnik is beautiful. The Old City is clearly the main draw, with ancient architecture and a tangible tie to the past. The walk along the old city walls is well worth it for the views alone, just be prepared to climb a lot of steps. As lovely as Dubrovnik is, it was definitely the most expensive city in Croatia that we spent time in. The food wasn’t nearly as good as in Split or Zagreb. For every nicer or unique restaurant there were tons one that catered towards tourists who seek the familiar foods of home.

I don’t know if I’ll go back to Dubrovnik. I highly enjoyed my time there, but I saw everything in the Old City that there was to see.

Awkwardness in Zadar

Well, we weren’t expecting this.

After a gorgeous day of hiking at the Plitvice Lakes National park, we were tired and a little sore. True we did not hike the more strenuous paths, but a good 5 miles and several hours later we are tired and happy to have the opportunity to relax at the pool/spa.

When we checked in at our hotel, which shall remain nameless, we were told we’d have free run of the spa services. Deciding to take full advantage — and sooth some aching muscles — we headed down there to see what was available to us. The brochure had mentioned a Hammam, several saunas and steam rooms and a whirlpools/hot tubes. After standing at the receptionist desk for a while with no one to answer our questions/ guide us through the rather large and secluded spa area so we decided to explore it ourselves. We found the hammam rather easily, but were disappointed in the lack of warmth in the relaxation pool and thus decided to move on. It wasn’t until 15 minutes into our exploration of the SPA area that we noticed something a little off.

The supposed “hot tubes” were lukewarm at best — which was a huge disappointment. But we also noticed a couple walking around “all natural.” We figured, ‘weird but it’s Europe and not shocked to see the rare person walking around nude' — until we noticed a running trend of people, mind you this is a coed SPA, in their birthday suits. Upon entering the meditation/relaxation lounge — which was just a number of queen sized mattresses on the floor — we found numerous people letting it all hang out. Being the super adult Americans that we are, we couldn’t stop giggling (apologies, we are just not used to this in the states). After a few more attempts at locating a sauna that was somewhat empty, we abandoned our hopes of finding a relaxing experience and left. Wasn’t until we left that we saw, on a small placard, that it was a nudist spa.