Game of Thrones Filming Locations in Dubrovnik: King's Landing, Mapped

Dubrovnik played King's Landing for eight seasons, and it is the rare filming location that was already one of the most beautiful cities in Europe before a television crew arrived. The walls, the limestone streets polished to a shine, the fortress on its rock — none of it was built for the show, and all of it is still here.

This is a walking guide to the Game of Thrones filming locations in Dubrovnik, mapped so you can see which ones cluster inside the old town and which need transport. The short version: almost everything is within fifteen minutes on foot of the city walls, except Trsteno Arboretum, which is twenty kilometres up the coast and worth the trip anyway.

Fort Lovrijenac — the Red Keep

Start here, because Fort Lovrijenac is the one that looks most like itself on screen. The fortress stands on a 37-metre rock just outside the western walls and served as the Red Keep and as the tournament grounds where Joffrey holds court.

Climb it for the view back at the old town, which is the best in the city. Over the inner gate is an inscription that has nothing to do with television and outlasts it: Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro — freedom is not well sold for all the gold in the world. Dubrovnik bought its independence from larger powers for centuries, and meant it.

Entry is usually included with a city walls ticket. Check before you pay separately.

Pile Gate — the King's Landing riot

Pile Gate is the main western entrance to the old town and the gate the mob pours through in the riot that ends with the High Septon torn apart. It is also where every visitor and every cruise group enters the city, which makes it the busiest thirty metres in Croatia.

At eight in the morning you can stand on the drawbridge almost alone. At noon in August you will understand the riot scene from the inside.

Jesuit Stairs — the Walk of Shame

The baroque staircase sweeping down from the Church of St Ignatius is where Cersei's Walk of Shame begins, and it is consequently the most photographed flight of steps in the country. The stairs are a serious piece of eighteenth-century design in their own right, modelled on the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Expect people re-enacting the scene. Expect to be asked to take their photograph.

Gradac Park — the Purple Wedding

Joffrey's last meal was filmed in Gradac Park, a pine-shaded bluff west of the old town that almost no visitor finds. There are benches, shade and a view over the water, and it is ten minutes on foot from Pile Gate.

If you want one place in Dubrovnik in July where you can sit down without paying for it or queuing for it, this is the one.

Rector's Palace — Qarth

The seat of the Rector of the Republic of Ragusa became the atrium of the Spice King's palace in Qarth, where Daenerys is refused her ships. The courtyard at Rector's Palace is the reason to go: a cool arcaded square of pale stone, one of the finest Renaissance interiors on the Adriatic, and genuinely cool in August when nothing else is.

The museum inside tells the story of Dubrovnik as an independent maritime republic that outmanoeuvred Venice and the Ottomans for four hundred years. It is a better story than the one that brought you here.

Ethnographic Museum Rupe — Littlefinger's brothel

A sixteenth-century granary with fifteen enormous grain pits cut into the rock floor — rupe means holes — used as Littlefinger's establishment. The museum itself is good and almost always empty: folk costume, rural crafts, and the engineering of a city that kept fifteen hundred tonnes of grain underground against a siege.

The climb up to it thins the crowd considerably, which is most of its appeal.

Bokar Fortress and the city walls

Bokar is the round tower on the south-western corner, built to cover the Pile Gate approach, and used for Blackwater Bay — including Tyrion and Varys on the battlements before the battle. It is part of the city walls circuit rather than a separate ticket.

The walls are the single best thing to do in Dubrovnik whether or not you have seen an episode. Two kilometres, about two hours at a civilised pace, and no shade — go at opening or in the last two hours before close, and carry water.

Along the way you pass Minčeta Tower, the highest point of the walls, which appeared as the House of the Undying in Qarth.

Church of St Blaise and the Stradun

The baroque Church of St Blaise stands at the end of the Stradun, and its steps and square appear repeatedly as King's Landing street scenes. Inside, St Blaise holds a silver model of the city — a fifteenth-century figure that is the most accurate surviving record of Dubrovnik before the 1667 earthquake flattened it.

Most people walk past it three times a day without going in.

West Harbour and Lokrum

The West Harbour, below Lovrijenac, is Blackwater Bay in several sequences, and the small working harbour is a pleasant few minutes away from the crowds on the Stradun.

Offshore, Lokrum island played Qarth, where Daenerys attends the Spice King's garden party. The island is a fifteen-minute boat ride, has peacocks, a ruined Benedictine monastery, and a small salt lake known as the Dead Sea that is warmer than the open water. It also holds an Iron Throne replica, which is the only genuinely touristy thing on this list.

Trsteno Arboretum — the palace gardens

The gardens where Margaery and Olenna Tyrell do their scheming are at Trsteno Arboretum, the oldest arboretum in this part of Europe, laid out by a Dubrovnik noble family in the fifteenth century. Two 500-year-old plane trees stand at the entrance.

It is twenty kilometres north-west of the city — half an hour by car, about an hour on the local bus — and it is the one location here that needs planning rather than a walk. Pair it with Ston or the Pelješac wine road and it stops being a detour.

Walking it in one day

A sensible order, all on foot except the last two:

• Early. City walls at opening, taking in Bokar and Minčeta before the heat and the queues.

• Late morning. Down through Pile Gate, along the Stradun to St Blaise and Rector's Palace.

• Midday. Uphill to Rupe — it is quiet and it is indoors.

• Afternoon. Jesuit Stairs, then out to Lovrijenac, then Gradac Park to sit down.

• Separately. Lokrum by boat, and Trsteno by car or bus on another day.

If Westeros is the reason you came, you may also want the Northern Ireland filming locations — Winterfell, the Dark Hedges and the Iron Islands coast are a different trip and a very different landscape.

Practical notes

When. May, June and late September. July and August put several thousand cruise passengers into a walled town the size of a few city blocks, and the walls in midsummer are genuinely punishing.

Tickets. The city walls pass normally covers Lovrijenac. Buy it at the Pile entrance and start early; the circuit is one-way.

Tours. Guided Game of Thrones walks run several times a day and are good for the anecdotes and the stills-held-up-against-the-view trick. Everything on this list can be done without one, using the map above.

Respect. People live inside the walls. Several of the staircases in this guide are somebody's route home.