Immediately after I had finished watching Game of Thrones season 4 finale I made a decision: this year I have to visit Dubrovnik and check some filming locations from the show. It’s not happening often that a popular show has so many locations near you (unless you live in L.A., of course).

For those who never heard of Dubrovnik: it’s a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea, in the region of Dalmatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean. According to CNN it’s also one of the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world, which makes it a very suitable location for some scenes from the show.

Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik (photo by Erik R.)

There are some organized Game of Thrones tours in Dubrovnik, but since they are quite expensive and I’ve also done some research I decided to make my own three day tour. During my stay in this lovely city I managed to find the majority of locations from HBO’s hit TV show and also explored one abandoned hotel.

In Game of Thrones Dubrovnik was used to represent the King’s Landing and for some locations with Daenerys Targaryen. Locations used in the show include St. Dominic street, Lokrum island, Knežev dvor and Sponza palace, Fort Lovrijenac, Fort Bokar, the Minčeta tower and the aforementioned abandoned hotel Belvedere. The production also used the nearby Trsteno arboretum.

Locations from inside and around city walls

On the first day in Dubrovnik I check the locations around and inside the Old Town. The city wasn’t crowded and I was reasonably prepared, so it was fairly easy. Here are some screen captures from filming locations.

King’s Landing harbor

King’s Landing (Source: MovieMaps)
King's Landing / Fort Lovrijenac (photo by Erik R.)
King’s Landing / Fort Lovrijenac (photo by Erik R.)
King’s Landing (Source: MovieMaps)
King's Landing (photo by Erik R.)
King’s Landing (photo by Erik R.)

St. Dominic street

St. Dominic street (Source: MovieMaps)
St. Dominik street (photo by Erik R.)
St. Dominic street (photo by Erik R.)

Pile gate

Pile gate (Source: MovieMaps)
Pile gate (photo by Erik R.)
Pile gate (photo by Erik R.)

Fort Bokar

Fort Bokar (Source: MovieMaps)
King's Landing / Fort Lovrijenac (photo by Erik R.)
Fort Bokar (photo by Erik R.)

Minčeta tower

On the second day in Dubrovnik I decided to take a walk on the city walls. The views were amazing and almost at the end of this pleasant walk you see the Minčeta tower. It was used as King’s Landing’s walls and also as the House of the Undying where Daenerys enters after her dragons are stolen.

The House of Undying (Source: MovieMaps)
Minčeta tower (photo by Erik R.)
Minčeta tower (photo by Erik R.)

Hotel Belvedere

For the third day in Dubrovnik I planned a very peculiar visit: hotel Belvedere. The infamous hotel has a short but very interesting history. It’s located some 2 kilometers south of the Old town and is positioned on the steep beach. It was built in the eighties and started receiving guests in 1986. This luxury hotel on 18 levels was forced to close just six years later, when became a target of Yugoslav army. During the first few months of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the hotel had served as a refugee shelter.

Hotel Belvedere (photo by Erik R.)
Hotel Belvedere (photo by Erik R.)

Today the hotel is abandoned and demolished and it’s not allowed to enter the building, even though there were several curious tourists around the hotel. The hotel was sold at the public auction a few months ago for slightly more than 12 million euros. The new owner is Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, also known as the man who possesses of one of the greatest private collections of Faberge’s eggs.

The hotel was used in the fourth season of Game of Thrones as the setting for the battle between prince Oberyn and The Mountain.

King's Landing / Hotel Belvedere (photo by Erik R.)
King’s Landing / Hotel Belvedere (2014, HBO, screen capture)

Due to the fact that the hotel is abandoned I was expecting to see the scene from the show. But after a steep descent down to the beach I saw something totally different: some local football fans painted the scene with the crest of Hajduk, the football club from another Croatian city Split.

Hotel Belvedere (photo by Erik R.)
Hotel Belvedere (photo by Erik R.)

You can also read a special post on my visit to hotel Belvedere.

Lokrum island

Of course I had to see the beautiful island of Lokrum that was used in the second season when Daenerys and her associates attend a party held by Xaro Xhoan Daxos in Qarth.

Qarth (Source: MovieMaps)
Lokrum island (photo by Erik R.)
Lokrum island (photo by Erik R.)

Trsteno arboretum

On my way home I made a stop at Trsteno arboretum, located a few miles northwest of Dubrovnik, which is the oldest arboretum in this part of the world. In the third season of the Game of Thrones the arboretum’s beautiful setting was used as a garden of King’s Landing palace.

Red Keep Pavilion (Source: MovieMaps)
Trsteno
Trsteno arboretum (photo by Erik R.)
Red Keep Pavilion (Source: MovieMaps)
Trsteno arboretum (photo by Erik R.)
Trsteno arboretum (photo by Erik R.)

If you happen to be in this part of the world you have to visit Dubrovnik, because it’s really amazing. I haven’t been on an official Game of Thrones tour, but it’s fairly easy to make your own tour. The old town of the city is rather small and all major attractions are either behind the walls or nearby.

There was one thing I noticed: I heard a lot of (foreign) tourists mentioning King’s Landing and Game of Thrones, some of them even whistled the main theme song. On the other hand I haven’t really seen a lot (in any) Game of Thrones merchandise. I’m not sure why that happened, maybe because of some licensing issues. Anyway, it looked like a lost opportunity for Dubrovnik.

 

23 Comments
  1. Thanks for this post. I’m going to Dubrovnik next week, and this is very helpful for my own GOT tour! :)

  2. Thanks for this post, im going to dubrovnik next July and will definitely make good use of this ;)
    I wonder if there is a way to get to Trsteno by public transport, and get back to dubrovnik the same day ? any ideas? thank you

  3. I wonder if car enter the Old City of Dubrovnik because most of the pictures I googled doesn’t show any sign of vehicles. How tourists enter the place? How’s their circulation? Thanks. Hope you can help.

  4. Hana – No, there are not vehicles in Old Town. You enter on foot through the city walls. It’s possible for vehicles to get in, but they are for special circumstances (emergencies, etc). My brother’s friend’s family owns a restaurant in Old Town and even to get their deliveries, everything is loaded onto carts and carried to the restaurant that way. Hope that answers your question.

  5. Thank you for this article. It’s truly one of the best and most comprehensive Game of thrones tour guide available :)

  6. Great work! There is very little info like this avail in DBV so without having read this would have been forced on to a tour. Thanks a lot!

  7. Thank you for the wonderful post! I will be doing a similar “self guided tour” also next year ! Great information and awesome pictures!

  8. You should charge for this :-) Thanks for taking the time to map these locations out. We used this as our guide after realizing that $180 tour ticket prices were WAY out of budget for us. Any big GoT fan will notice the scene locations right away – who needs a overpriced guide!

  9. I’m here now! Lots of GoT licensed merch in shops now :) thanks for this post.

  10. I just arrived and was pricing out the tours. $$$$$$$ thanks so much for this post. Great picture/scene matching too. As we’ve done a lot of Croatia already it’s hard not to turn your head and see a beautiful old castle , statue or entire preserved city from medieval times. I’ll be getting into the old town tomorrow and looking forward to see these spots myself in person. Long live the dragons!!!!

  11. Thank you so much for this, it was very helpful to plan my own game of thrones tour in dubrovnik. You saved me quite some money, i hope you had a nice trip!

  12. Thanks Erik. Your post is really helpful to accomplish our own tour. As someone stated above there are many licensed products now and they are quite overpriced I must say.

  13. Thanks so much for this. I’ve done a number of film/TV tours in various cities but they don’t always turn out to be value for money. I’m quite happy to do my own GoT tour when I visit Dubrovnik in August, so thank you!

  14. Thanks Eric, really helpful info. The steps at St Domonics have scaffolding at the moment. Great photos a stunning country. Thanks again.

  15. I only wish I’d seen this before going to Dubrovnik. My tour wasn’t all that pricey but a lot of talking and not a lot of information. Plus spent too much time waiting for 3 prima-donnas that help up everyone else. So, I would’ve been much better going on my own. There is a shop in the middle of the town that has a replica of the Iron Throne, you’re supposed to buy something there in order to be allowed to take a picture, but because I was on the tour, we were allowed to anyway, so that was very cool. The only other thing I would mention is that you have to pay to go into the fort and up on the wall, not a big expense (and you save by doing both), but they only take Croatian Kuna – not Euro, so be prepared.

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