Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik travel guide, in your ear

A walled stone city on the Adriatic, Dubrovnik packs marble streets and Baroque churches inside 1,940 metres of mighty ramparts, once the proud little Republic of Ragusa, now a sea of red roofs above a turquoise sea.

  • 18 narrated stops
  • ~54 minutes of stories
  • 6 languages
  • Offline ready

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

What is the Gingerguide Dubrovnik tour?

Dubrovnik has 18 narrated sights on Gingerguide's self-guided audio walking tour. Plan about a full day to walk them all. The app is free to download, every city has a free preview, and the tour works offline in six languages.

It is a self-guided audio walking tour of Dubrovnik, Croatia, inside the Gingerguide travel guide app. The tour maps 18 sights and tells the story of each one in a two to three minute narration with a lifelike AI voice. When the story is not enough, ask the built-in AI guide about the place and keep the conversation going. Everything is available in six languages and works fully offline after a one-time download.

Which audio guide app is best for Dubrovnik?

It depends on the trip. For Dubrovnik, Gingerguide gives you all 18 sights on one offline map, narrated in six languages, with an AI guide to ask. Other apps are better for a single human-narrated walk, for museum guides, or for driving. We compared the main options honestly, with sources.

Compare audio guide apps for Europe →

The city

About Dubrovnik

The first thing to do in Dubrovnik is climb onto its walls. Nearly two kilometres of stone circle the old town, and from up here the whole city lies below you like a model: a solid field of terracotta roofs, split down the middle by one long polished street, and beyond the ramparts, in every direction, the flat blue Adriatic. There is no better introduction to a place built entirely of stone and pride.

For five hundred years this was not part of anyone's empire but a republic of its own, Ragusa, a merchant city-state that grew rich trading across the Mediterranean. It had no army worth the name, so it survived by cunning instead: paying tribute to sultans and kings, playing the great powers off against each other, and never selling the one thing it prized above all. That word, Libertas, liberty, is carved all over the town. Ragusa even outlawed the slave trade in 1416, centuries ahead of most of Europe.

The city you see is largely a rebuilt one. In 1667 a tremendous earthquake struck on a spring morning, toppling palaces and churches and killing thousands. Rather than scatter, the Ragusans rebuilt, and that is why the houses along the main street stand so uniform and calm, a whole town raised again to a single sober plan.

It has been tested since. In the winter of 1991, during Croatia's war of independence, the old town was shelled from the hills above, a UNESCO treasure under fire. The scars have been carefully mended, though if you look closely at the rooftops you can still tell the brighter new tiles from the old. Dubrovnik has a long habit of surviving.

Today it can feel almost too admired: cruise-ship crowds, film-set fame as King's Landing, selfie queues along the ramparts. But slip down a side stairway at dusk, when the day-trippers have gone and the limestone glows gold, and the old republic is still here, proud, self-possessed and impossibly beautiful above the sea.

The tour

What to see in Dubrovnik: all 18 stops

Every place below has its own narrated story in the app, and its own answers when you want more. Walk them in any order; the map shows what is around you.

  1. Pile Gate

    Dubrovnik's grand western entrance: cross the old drawbridge, pass through a Renaissance outer gate and a Gothic inner one, and step onto the gleaming Stradun with St Blaise watching overhead.

    historic · ~30 min visit

  2. Large Onofrio's Fountain (Velika Onofrijeva fontana)

    A great domed fountain with sixteen carved masks greets you just inside the Pile Gate, the grand outlet of a 15th-century aqueduct that still runs cold today.

    monument · ~15 min visit

  3. Franciscan Monastery (Franjevacki samostan)

    Step off the Stradun into a serene 14th-century cloister, then meet the Little Brothers' pharmacy, dispensing remedies on this very spot since 1317, among Europe's oldest.

    religious · ~30 min visit

  4. Stradun (Placa)

    Dubrovnik's gleaming main street runs arrow-straight through the Old Town, its pale limestone polished to a shine by six centuries of footsteps, and hiding a filled-in sea channel beneath.

    landmark · ~30 min visit

  5. Luza Square & Orlando's Column (Orlandov stup)

    The Republic's ceremonial heart, where a stone knight named Orlando has stood since about 1418, his carved forearm the official measuring stick of old Dubrovnik.

    square · ~20 min visit

  6. Sponza Palace (Palaca Sponza)

    The palace that shrugged off the 1667 earthquake, still wearing Dubrovnik's true pre-quake face, once customs house and mint, now the guardian of a thousand years of records.

    palace · ~45 min visit

  7. Church of St Blaise (Crkva svetog Vlaha)

    On the high altar of this Baroque church, a silver St Blaise holds a tiny model of Dubrovnik as it looked before the 1667 earthquake redrew the city.

    religious · ~30 min visit

  8. Rector's Palace (Knežev dvor)

    The head of state of the Republic of Ragusa ruled for exactly one month and could barely leave this palace, a fortress twice blown apart by its own gunpowder.

    palace · ~45 min visit

  9. Dubrovnik Cathedral (Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary)

    Dubrovnik's Baroque cathedral rose after the 1667 earthquake, its treasury guarding a jewelled golden casket that the faithful believe holds the skull of the city's patron, St Blaise.

    religious · ~30 min visit

  10. Gundulić Square (Gundulićeva poljana)

    Behind the cathedral, a morning market of lavender, figs and candied orange spreads around a bronze poet, Ivan Gundulić, forever reading to a square that empties by afternoon.

    square · ~20 min visit

  11. Dominican Monastery (Dominikanski samostan)

    A Dominican friary built into the city walls hides a serene late-Gothic cloister and a museum of Ragusan Renaissance paintings, guarded like a fortress by the Ploče Gate.

    religious · ~30 min visit

  12. Old Port (Stara luka / Gradska luka)

    Once the maritime heart of the Republic of Ragusa, this curved harbour still shelters fishing boats behind a mortarless medieval breakwater, between two great sea-facing fortresses.

    historic · ~30 min visit

  13. Fort St John

    The mighty fort at the mouth of the old harbour, once closed each night by a chain across the water, now home to the Maritime Museum and Aquarium.

    historic · ~30 min visit

  14. Walls of Dubrovnik

    Climb the polished stone and walk the full loop of Dubrovnik's ramparts, nearly two kilometres of towers, bastions and sea-blue views, the town's single most-walked sight.

    historic · ~30 min visit

  15. Minčeta Tower

    The great round tower crowning the walls' highest landward corner, Dubrovnik's emblem of defence, shaped by two Renaissance masters and later the eerie House of the Undying on screen.

    landmark · ~30 min visit

  16. Fort Lovrijenac

    Dubrovnik's Gibraltar: a triangular fortress on a sheer sea-cliff outside the walls, its seaward face twelve metres thick, its city-facing wall barely sixty centimetres, and a famous Game of Thrones Red Keep.

    castle · ~45 min visit

  17. Mount Srđ (Brdo Srđ)

    A red cable car or a switchback climb lifts you 412 metres above the old town, to a Napoleonic fort, a war museum, and all of Dubrovnik spread below.

    nature · ~60 min visit

  18. Lokrum Island (Otok Lokrum)

    A ten-minute boat ride reaches this forested reserve of peacocks, monastery ruins, a saltwater 'Dead Sea' for swimming, and, thanks to Game of Thrones, a replica Iron Throne.

    nature · ~60 min visit

Did you know?

Three things most visitors miss

Pile Gate

Every night for centuries the wooden drawbridge in front of Pile Gate was raised on chains and the keys carried off, physically locking Dubrovnik shut until the following morning.

Large Onofrio's Fountain (Velika Onofrijeva fontana)

The fountain looks austere today, but that is damage, not design. An ornate carved upper tier once crowned it, shaken to pieces by the great earthquake of 1667.

Franciscan Monastery (Franjevacki samostan)

A pharmacy has operated inside this friary since 1317, making it one of the oldest still working in Europe, though the popular boast that it is the very oldest is disputed.

Planning

Dubrovnik tour: questions and answers

How many days do you need in Dubrovnik?

To see Gingerguide's 18 narrated highlights of Dubrovnik on foot, plan about a full day. The tour is self-guided, so you set the pace: cover the whole route in a day or spread it across a trip. Each sight has a two to three minute story, roughly 54 minutes of audio in total.

What are the top things to see in Dubrovnik?

Gingerguide narrates 18 sights in Dubrovnik, starting with Pile Gate, Large Onofrio's Fountain (Velika Onofrijeva fontana), Franciscan Monastery (Franjevacki samostan), Stradun (Placa). Each one has its own audio story on a live map, and you can ask the built-in AI guide anything the story leaves open.

Do I need a tour guide in Dubrovnik?

Not a human one. Gingerguide covers Dubrovnik with 18 narrated sights, so you get the stories a guide would tell, at your own pace and on your own route. And if a story leaves you with a question, you can ask the built-in AI guide and discuss the place right there, the way you would with a guide.

How many stops does the Dubrovnik audio tour have?

The Dubrovnik guide covers 18 sights. Each one has a researched story of roughly three minutes, about 54 minutes of listening in total. You choose the order and the pace; the tour is self-guided.

Does the Dubrovnik tour work offline?

Yes. You can download Dubrovnik in the app, audio, photos, and offline map tiles included. After the download, the full tour works without an internet connection.

Which languages does the Dubrovnik guide support?

Every Dubrovnik narration is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. You can switch the language in the app at any time.

Is the Dubrovnik audio guide free?

The Gingerguide app is free to download, and Dubrovnik includes a free preview: you can see all 18 sights on the map at no cost. A premium subscription unlocks the full stories, audio narration, and the offline download.

Hear Dubrovnik tell its own story.

Preview all 18 Dubrovnik stops free in the Gingerguide app.

Updated:

Preview all 18 Dubrovnik stops free Get the app