POSTCARD N.181 - CROATIA

Postcard sent on ?, received on the 9th JUne 2025.

Postcard image: Aerial view of Dubrovnik

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Another of Ravindra's stops on his European journey: Dubrovnik, Croatia. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravi!

One has to agree: Dubrovnik is a lovely place. Totally encircled by the city walls, built between the 8th and 16th centuries, which attain  25 metres at their highest points and can be as thick as 6 metres, the old city,  the part of Dubrovnik that gave it the notoriety it enjoys, greets the visitor with a vast and diverse group of edifications from the renaissance and baroque periods.

The relevance of the old walled city buildings, of which many were preserved in spite of a terrible earthquake in 1667  was acknowledged by the UNESCO, who declared it a World Heritage Site in 1979, well before the war in which Dubrovnik and its inhabitants were sadly involved during the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

During the conflict, Dubrovnik was heavily shelled what caused the destruction of a large percentage of one of the city's trademarks: its distinctive terracotta orange roof tiles, centuries old.

Finding such roof tiles for the reconstruction proved to be an difficult task, but luckily, it was discovered that this type of tiles were still being made in France, in Toulouse. As such, under the coordination of UNESCO, the  restoration of the buildings and roofs damaged by the war could be carried out, returning the city to its former glory.

Several shades of roof tiles are apparent to the viewer, some noticeably more on the red side of the orange spectre. When I visited Dubrovnik a number of years ago, someone told me that this is due to the fact that the newer tiles are darker than the original... if this is true or untrue I do not know, but it is a plausible explanation...

Dubrovnik, the Pearl of the Adriatic has in recent years been shown as an example of overtourism. It easy to understand why: it suffers from the same set of circumstances that afflict Venice or Santorini or so many other places... it falls prey to its own fame... with every new day, especially in the high summer season,  thousands  of visitors  pass through the arch of the Pile Gate, the main entrance into the old town, many driven by the social media fuelled curiosity of visiting one of places where Game of Thrones was filmed.

Still, crowds or no crowds, one has to agree: Dubrovnik is a lovely place!

On 28Jan2020 Croatian Post issued  a set of three stamps (in regular and self adhesive versions) highlighting some of the Natural Beauties of Croatia. Further to the C tariff stamp used on the postcard, illustrated with an image of Telašćica Nature Park, in the Adriatic Island of  Dugi Otok, the issued comprised a tariff A stamp, dedicated to Kopački Rit Nature Park, and a Tariff B stamp, showcasing the Blue Cave at Biševo.

The postmark is illegible but I suspect it hails from Dubrovnik too.