Big Onofrio's Fountain

Just inside the Pile Gate, at the start of the Stradun, sits Big Onofrio's Fountain — a large, sixteen-sided stone basin built between 1438 and 1440 as the endpoint of one of the more ambitious engineering projects the medieval city ever pulled off. In 1436, Dubrovnik's government commissioned an aqueduct to carry water by gravity alone from a spring near Šumet, about 12 kilometres away, into the city. The Neapolitan architect Onofrio della Cava designed both the aqueduct and the two fountains that mark its endpoints — this one, the larger of the pair, and a smaller version tucked near the old City Guard building.

Each of the fountain's sixteen sides originally had its own carved stone mask, or "maskeron," with a spout set into the mouth. The 1667 earthquake knocked out much of the decorative detail, so what survives today is plainer than the original — but the fountain still runs, and it supplied Dubrovnik's drinking water right up until a modern piped system was installed at the end of the 19th century.

These days it is less a utility and more a meeting point and a shady place to sit with the pigeons for a minute — and thanks to Dubrovnik's long run as a stand-in for King's Landing, plenty of visitors already know the surrounding streets from "Game of Thrones" before they ever set foot in Croatia. Since many gulet cruises from Dubrovnik call in here, it is an easy add-on to a morning walk through the Old Town before heading back to the boat.