Mount Srd

The hill behind Dubrovnik's Old Town is impossible to miss. Mount Srđ rises about 412 metres straight up from the coast, and its summit is the spot for the postcard shot of the walled city and the Adriatic beyond. The ridge is the seaward edge of the Dinaric Alps, and it is also, indirectly, where the city got its name: the Slavic word for oak produced dubrava, an oak wood, and from there Dubrovnik.

Three Ways to the Summit

Most people go up by the cable car, a four-minute ride that first opened in 1969 as the only one on the Adriatic coast. It was destroyed during the 1991 siege of Dubrovnik and stayed closed for nearly two decades before reopening in July 2010 with new cabins and double the old capacity. There's also a hiking trail from the Old Town for anyone who'd rather walk it. The lower station stands a few minutes outside the Ploče Gate at the eastern end of the Old Town, 38 metres above sea level, and the line runs 778 metres of track to an upper station at 405 metres, a vertical rise of 367 metres covered by two cabins carrying up to 32 passengers each. Walkers take the old zigzag path up the bare southern face, roughly an hour of steady climbing with almost no shade, which is why locals do it early or at dusk. A narrow asphalt road also reaches the plateau from the landward side, so taxis and minibuses can drive up.

Fort Imperial and the Napoleonic Years

At the top sits Fort Imperial, built by the French between 1806 and 1812 during the Napoleonic occupation and later expanded by the Austrians. Napoleon's troops had arrived in 1806 and formally abolished the Republic of Ragusa in 1808, closing more than four centuries in which Dubrovnik had governed itself as an independent maritime state. The fort's purpose was blunt: from Srđ an occupying force can see and shell every quarter of the walled city, and whoever holds the plateau effectively holds Dubrovnik. Austria inherited Dalmatia after Napoleon's fall and kept the fort in service, enlarging it over the following decades. A television mast was later raised beside it, among the first structures Yugoslav aircraft destroyed in 1991.

The Battle for Srđ, 6 December 1991

The fort's position, controlling the high ground above the city, made it a key defensive point again during the 1991-92 siege, when Yugoslav forces shelled the city from below while Croatian forces held the summit. The siege ran from 1 October 1991 to 31 May 1992. Its worst day was 6 December 1991, when a JNA assault backed by T-55 tanks and artillery opened on Fort Imperial at about 5:50 in the morning. A small Croatian garrison held out through the day; by two in the afternoon the attackers had withdrawn and the fort was still in Croatian hands. The same morning the Old Town below absorbed a bombardment that investigators later catalogued in detail: 232 82-millimetre and 364 120-millimetre mortar shells, dozens of rockets and 22 wire-guided missiles, killing 13 civilians and burning the library of the Inter-University Centre. Across the wider region 11,425 buildings were damaged and 886 destroyed, and inside the Old Town itself 55.9 per cent of buildings took damage, which is why Dubrovnik was placed on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger. Two JNA commanders were later convicted over the campaign at the tribunal in The Hague, Miodrag Jokić in 2004 and Pavle Strugar in 2008.

The Museum, the Cross and the Bare Slopes

The fort now houses the Museum of the Homeland War, with maps, artillery and video documenting that period, laid out through the fort's stone casemates rather than a purpose-built gallery. Beside it stands a large white stone cross, visible from well out at sea; the earlier cross was brought down in the December 1991 attack and a replacement was raised in 1997. The slopes below were once thick with oak, and with pine on the southern face, but repeated fires through the second half of the twentieth century and again during the war stripped the hillside almost bare. Replanting only began in earnest around 2008, which is why the ridge still reads as grey rock and low scrub when you approach from the water.

What You See from the Top

On a clear day the view stretches past the Old Town's red roofs to the Elafiti Islands offshore, and there's a restaurant at the summit for anyone who wants to linger over the sunset. Lokrum lies directly below the walls, and the coast runs south past Cavtat towards the mountains of Montenegro. Late afternoon gives the best light, since the city faces south-west and the limestone warms from grey to amber as the sun drops. If you're anchored in Dubrovnik's harbour for the day, Mount Srđ is best reached during a Dubrovnik gulet cruise stopover, a short taxi or cable car ride from the port.