Skip to content
The Life List

Travel

Walk the full loop of Dubrovnik's city walls

Dubrovnik's walls have never fallen to an army, only to earthquakes and, once, Napoleon's paperwork. Built and rebuilt between the seventh and seventeenth centuries, they run for 1,940 metres, a stone loop you can complete in under two hours if you don't stop for the view of the fishing boats bobbing below the Ploče gate. Go before nine, before the tour groups arrive with their selfie sticks and sunstroke. Time it right and you'll be back on Stradun by noon, just as Baro and Maro, the bronze bell-ringers atop the City Bell Tower, swing their hammers into the hour.

Practical

Cost
$35-40
Best time
Spring or autumn, and early morning any time of year
Difficulty
Moderate
Time it takes
90 minutes to 2 hours
What people get wrong
People start at midday in high summer and underestimate the heat and lack of shade on the exposed stretches; going right at opening time avoids both the sun and the worst of the crowds bunching on the narrow sections.
With
One other person

Add to your list Already done it

Also this

  • Wait for the train at the Slam Dunk crossing in Kamakura

    What you remember afterwards isn't the train, small and green, already leaving, but the waiting: the barrier bell, the specific hush of thirty strangers holding phones still — and behind it all, the sea doing nothing dramatic.

    Best time:Any season; clearest skies October–March, avoid the June rainy season

  • Cross Abbey Road on the white stripes like the Beatles

    A black cab slows behind you, the driver's face unreadable, while you and four strangers from Ohio try to walk in step across the white stripes without looking like you're trying.

    Best time:Any time of year, but early morning any day works best

  • Watch the sun clear the mountains from the Sun Gate above Machu Picchu

    At 5:30 in the morning the stone steps are still wet and there's no one else on the trail, just your headlamp and the sound of your own breathing at 2,700 metres.

    Best time:Dry season, May to September, for the best odds of clear skies

  • Photograph Table Mountain flat against the sky from Bloubergstrand

    From the car park at Bloubergstrand the mountain sits dead level on the horizon, as if someone had sliced the top off with a ruler.

    Best time:Autumn mornings (Apr–May) when the southeaster is calmer and cloud cover is less

  • Walk the torii tunnel at Fushimi Inari before the tour buses arrive

    The first gate is not what you expect: vermillion paint still tacky at the edges, and beneath it, stencilled in white, the name of a noodle company you have never heard of.

    Best time:Any time of year; spring and autumn give the mildest walking weather

More in Travel.