Our Old Town
Dubrovnik walking tour taught us about the Stradun/Placa (the main pedestrian
promenade), the Sponza Palace (used as the customs house, trading center,
treasury, armory, bank, and school), the Clock Tower (over 100 feet tall, it
chimes at noon daily when its twin bronze figures ring the bell), Orlando's
Column (a stone pillar on which messages were published and sentences carried
out), the Church of St. Blaise (the patron saint of Dubrovnik), Onofrio's
Fountain (a water supply system with a huge central dome and 16 faucets in the
shape of heads), and the Franciscan Monastery (with its cloister and
still-operating pharmacy [the oldest in the world], and small museum of
pharmacy items, relics, and liturgical memorabilia)
Our guide Tom
recommended that we dine at Kopun Restaurant for lunch, which was excellent. We
ate outdoors on the restaurant’s umbrella-covered terrace that adjoins Poljana
Square, where the Church of St Ignatius and the Jesuit Collegium Ragusinum are
located. It is also a favorite spot for photographs on the "Game of
Thrones" tours. (We do not watch the series, but visitors seemed to be
reenacting scenes with swords and shield in front of key buildings.) The
Church of St Ignatius is single nave, with side chapels and a semicircular
divided apse, decorated by Baroque frescoes with scenes from the life of St.
Ignatius de Loyola; in addition, its belfry houses the oldest bell in
Dubrovnik, cast in 1355.
We enjoyed afternoon drinks on
the terrace at Klarisa Restoran. (Saint Klara Monastery was the best known of
eight women’s monasteries in the 13th century; girls of noble birth
were ordained as Franciscan sisters called Klarisas.) We then returned to the hotel to relax, enjoyed
the executive lounge happy hour, and then walked back to Old Town to dine al
fresco at Pizzeria Domenica.
No comments:
Post a Comment