How do I self-guide the Game of Thrones locations in Dubrovnik?

Start at Fort Lovrijenac (Red Keep) before 08:30 when it opens. Walk to the Pile Gate and Stradun. Continue to the Jesuit Staircase (Walk of Shame), Gundulić Square market scenes, Minčeta Tower via the city walls, and finish at the Old Town harbour. The circuit takes 3–4 hours at a relaxed pace.

What time should I start the GoT self-guided walk in Dubrovnik?

07:00–08:00 is ideal. The city walls open at 08:00. Fort Lovrijenac opens with the walls. Starting at 07:30 lets you explore the Pile Gate area and Stradun before the morning crowds, then enter the fort at 08:00 when it opens.

Is there an official Game of Thrones walking map for Dubrovnik?

The Dubrovnik tourist office has produced GoT-themed maps in past seasons; availability varies year to year. Several apps (including some GoT-specific ones) offer GPS-guided routes. This guide provides the route in text form with enough detail to follow without a map.

Can I do the walk without paying for the city walls?

Yes. Fort Lovrijenac, the Stradun, Jesuit Staircase and Gundulić Square are all accessible without a walls ticket. Minčeta Tower requires the walls ticket. The abbreviated walk skipping the walls takes about 2 hours and covers 80% of the main King's Landing locations.

Where is the best photo spot for Fort Lovrijenac?

From the Bokar Tower on the city walls (included on the walls ticket), you get a direct view across the channel to Fort Lovrijenac with the sea behind it. From below, the path on the rocky promontory approaching the fort gate gives a strong low-angle shot of the walls. The fort's own battlements photograph the Old Town and sea behind.

How much of Dubrovnik looks like it did when they filmed GoT?

The Old Town itself is largely unchanged — no set dressing was needed for exterior filming. The limestone architecture, gate structures and street layout are identical to how they appeared in the show. The main difference is volume of tourists and modern signage, which the production team managed through early morning shooting schedules.

Is the Trsteno Arboretum included in this walking guide?

Trsteno (King's Landing gardens, seasons 3–4) is 20 km north of Dubrovnik and cannot be reached on foot. It requires a 30-minute bus journey (line 12 from the city). This guide covers the Old Town walking circuit; a separate section describes Trsteno as a half-day addition.

Are there GoT locations on the island of Lokrum visible from the Old Town?

Lokrum is visible from the Old Town harbour and city walls — it's the forested island about 600 metres offshore. You cannot see specific filming locations from the city; visiting the island requires the 15-minute ferry from the Old Town port.

Dubrovnik GoT Walking Guide: Self-Guided King's Landing

Dubrovnik’s Old Town is compact enough to walk from end to end in under fifteen minutes, yet dense enough with GoT filming locations that a thorough self-guided circuit takes three to four hours. This guide lays out a logical route — starting outside the walls at Fort Lovrijenac and working inward — with practical notes on what to look for at each stop and photography tips based on the specific angles used in production.

No guide is technically required to find these locations. What a guide adds is production context — the exact scene, the camera angle, the episode. This self-guided route compensates by providing that detail in text form, so you know what you are looking at when you arrive.

Before you start: essential preparation

Buy your city walls ticket in advance if you plan to include the full walls circuit. Tickets are available online and at the Pile or Ploče gate. In peak season, early-morning slots on the walls go quickly.

Bring water — the walk involves climbing, and Dubrovnik in summer is hot even at 08:00. There are drinking fountains inside the Old Town (the Onofrio Fountains, one at each end of the Stradun) but fewer outside the walls.

Download offline maps or a GoT-specific route before your trip. Mobile data coverage in Dubrovnik is reliable, but having offline maps as backup is good practice throughout Croatia.

Footwear: the Dubrovnik limestone pavement polishes to a near-mirror finish and becomes slippery when wet. Flat-soled or rubber-soled shoes are recommended. The cobbled streets and the city walls steps both require some care, particularly in morning dew or after rain.

Stop 1: Fort Lovrijenac — the Red Keep (08:00)

Begin your walk at Fort Lovrijenac before the Old Town fills. The fort is accessible via a path along the outer city wall from the Pile Gate — walk west along the waterfront from the gate and the fort entrance is on your left after a few minutes, perched above the sea.

What to look for: the fort’s gate inscription (Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro) appears in filming; the production left it deliberately visible. On the upper terrace, face back toward the city and you are approximately where Lannister family scenes were staged — the Old Town’s rooftops and the Adriatic provide the same backdrop visible in seasons 2–6.

Photography: the best external shot of the fort is from the Bokar Tower (on the city walls), looking west across the small channel. From inside, the upper battlements looking east give you the Old Town skyline that appeared in numerous establishing shots.

GoT episodes: Fort Lovrijenac appears in approximately 15–20 episodes across seasons 2–6. Key scenes: Joffrey’s name day tournament (held in the courtyard), various Red Keep exterior wide shots, Lannister guard sequences.

Time here: 30–45 minutes including the upper terrace views.

Stop 2: Pile Gate and the outer moat (08:45)

Return to the Pile Gate — the main western entrance to the Old Town — and spend a few minutes examining the gate complex. The double gateway (outer Renaissance arch, inner Gothic) with the drawbridge over the dry moat appeared in several King’s Landing arrival and departure scenes.

What to look for: the outer arch and the bridge approach. The Bokar Tower above the moat also featured in battle sequence establishment shots for the Battle of Blackwater.

Photography: the gate photographs best from a position slightly west on the approach road, with the morning light from the southeast illuminating the stone arch. In summer this means before 09:30 before backlit shadow takes over.

Time here: 10–15 minutes.

Stop 3: Stradun — King’s Landing streets (09:00)

Enter the Old Town through the Pile Gate and you are immediately on the Stradun — the 300-metre limestone pedestrian street that appeared in more GoT scenes than any other single location in Dubrovnik.

What to look for: walk the full length from west to east. The Onofrio Fountain at the western end (a 15th-century public fountain that still works) appeared in background shots. The mid-Stradun — the flat, mirror-polished stretch — is where Joffrey’s procession moved. Note the buildings on either side: their lower facades are shops, upper stories residential, exactly as they were when filming took place in the early 2010s.

Key side alleys: turn into the narrow passages running north from the Stradun. Ulica od Puča and the alley connecting to Prijeko Street both appeared in crowd and chase scenes. Prijeko Street itself (one block north, running parallel to the Stradun) is less polished than the main road and feels more genuinely medieval in character.

Photography: the Stradun is effectively impossible to photograph empty after 09:00 in July and August. At 07:30–08:00, it is possible. The shot is better from the eastern (Luža) end looking west, with the Pile Gate visible at the far end as the natural focal point.

GoT episodes: multiple seasons 2–8. Key scenes: Joffrey’s procession, street mob scenes, Cersei’s walk beginning.

Time here: 20–30 minutes including side alleys.

Stop 4: Gundulić Square — market scenes (09:30)

From the Stradun, walk south through one of the perpendicular alleys to reach Gundulić Square (Gundulićeva Poljana) — a modest square named for the Baroque poet Ivan Gundulić, whose bronze statue stands in the centre. In the mornings this square hosts a small produce market selling local fruit, vegetables, honey and lavender.

In GoT, the square and surrounding alleys were used for market scenes in King’s Landing — crowd shots, trading sequences and street-level atmosphere. It is a secondary location that most self-guided visitors walk past unaware.

Photography: the morning market stalls and produce are excellent subjects regardless of GoT interest. By midday the market winds down.

Time here: 15–20 minutes.

Stop 5: Jesuit Staircase — the Walk of Shame (09:50)

The most famous GoT site in Dubrovnik after Fort Lovrijenac. Walk south from Gundulić Square to find the wide Baroque staircase leading up to the Church of St Ignatius — the Ulica od Sigurate.

In season five, episode ten, this staircase hosted Cersei’s Walk of Shame. The production filmed here over several days using a closed section of the Old Town and several hundred extras. The staircase’s Baroque proportions — wide, dramatic, framed by the church at the top — made it the ideal location for a scene requiring a long, exposed descent through a crowd.

What to look for: the full length of the staircase from the bottom is the key viewpoint. From the top, looking down, you have approximately the camera’s perspective during the scene. The church facade at the top is worth entering — St Ignatius has significant Baroque interior painting.

Photography: the staircase is not crowded early in the morning and photographs well from the bottom looking up, or from the upper landing looking down. A wide lens captures the full width of the steps. By 10:30 in summer there is significant foot traffic.

GoT episodes: Season 5, episode 10 primarily. The sequence is one of the most technically elaborate filmed in Croatia — seven minutes of continuous shooting requiring extensive crowd management.

Time here: 20–30 minutes including the church.

Stop 6: Cathedral area and the harbour (10:20)

Walk east from the Jesuit Staircase through the lanes to the Cathedral of the Assumption and then to Luža Square at the eastern end of the Stradun. The Clock Tower and the Rector’s Palace (now a museum) are here.

The Rector’s Palace — a beautiful Gothic-Renaissance building — provided architectural reference for several King’s Landing interiors, though interior filming was done in studio sets. The harbour area visible from Luža Square appeared in various episodes showing King’s Landing from the sea.

Walk down to the Old Town harbour (Gradska luka) — a small working harbour with fishing boats and the ferry to Lokrum. In GoT, this harbour appeared as King’s Landing’s docks. The view back toward the Old Town walls from the harbour entrance is one of the most photographed angles in Dubrovnik.

Time here: 20–30 minutes.

Optional: City walls and Minčeta Tower (10:50)

If you have purchased a city walls ticket, now is the time to walk the circuit. The walls open at 08:00; by 10:50 you can walk the first sections before the peak midday heat arrives.

The walls circuit is about 2 km and takes 1.5–2 hours. Walking counterclockwise from Pile Gate, you reach the Minčeta Tower at roughly the halfway point — the highest point of the walls and the filming location for the House of the Undying exterior in season 2. The tower’s interior staircase leads to the top; the views over the Old Town are exceptional.

Along the western and southern sections of the walls, you walk above and past Fort Lovrijenac (visible across the channel), above the sea cliffs and above the harbour. Multiple wall sections appeared in King’s Landing battlements and patrol scenes.

Photography during the wall walk: the view from the southern wall section looking north over the Old Town rooftops is the classic Dubrovnik photograph. The view from the Minčeta area looking south over the city and sea is slightly less photographed but equally strong. Both are better in morning light (walking counterclockwise puts you in better light on the walls).

Time here: 1.5–2 hours.

Adding a guided tour to this route

This self-guided route covers the principal King’s Landing sites efficiently. What it cannot provide is the episode-specific production detail and secondary location knowledge that a specialist guide carries.

The complete GoT tour runs approximately 2–2.5 hours and covers several locations and angles that this self-guided route does not explicitly identify — particularly some of the secondary street-level filming spots in the alleys north of the Stradun.

If you complete this self-guided walk first (starting at 07:00) and then join a guided tour at 10:00, you get the best of both: the uncrowded early-morning photography conditions on the self-guided portion, plus the guided content and episode context in the mid-morning.

Beyond the Old Town: Trsteno Arboretum

Trsteno, 20 km north of Dubrovnik along the coastal road, served as the King’s Landing gardens in seasons 3 and 4 — the green space within the Red Keep where Sansa Stark walked with Olenna and Margaery Tyrell. The garden is set around a 15th-century noble estate with ancient plane trees, a Renaissance fountain and formal plantings.

Bus 12 from Dubrovnik bus station (near Pile Gate) runs to Trsteno, taking approximately 30 minutes. Return buses run on a set schedule — check the times before you go, as the service is not especially frequent. The arboretum opens in the morning; allow 1–1.5 hours to walk the garden properly.

Practical note: Trsteno is best combined with Dubrovnik as a morning excursion (before the city crowds build) or a late-afternoon visit. It is almost always significantly quieter than the Old Town at any time of day.

Lokrum island: Quarth

For Lokrum (Quarth in season 2), the ferry runs regularly from the Old Town harbour throughout the day in season (April–October). The crossing takes about 15 minutes; a nature reserve entrance fee applies on the island. The GoT filming done on Lokrum was limited — mainly season 2 Quarth exterior scenes. The island’s main draws are its botanical garden, saltwater lake, ruined monastery and swimming from rocky shores.

A Lokrum visit works well as an afternoon addition after completing the Old Town GoT circuit in the morning.

The GoT tour with optional Lokrum island combines the Old Town walking content with a guided Lokrum visit in a single booking — convenient if you want the full Dubrovnik GoT experience without organising two separate activities.

Frequently asked questions about Dubrovnik Game of Thrones walking guide

What time should I start the GoT self-guided walk in Dubrovnik?
07:00–08:00 is ideal. The city walls open at 08:00. Fort Lovrijenac opens with the walls. Starting at 07:30 lets you explore the Pile Gate area and Stradun before the morning crowds, then enter the fort at 08:00 when it opens.
Is there an official Game of Thrones walking map for Dubrovnik?
The Dubrovnik tourist office has produced GoT-themed maps in past seasons; availability varies year to year. Several apps (including some GoT-specific ones) offer GPS-guided routes. This guide provides the route in text form with enough detail to follow without a map.
Can I do the walk without paying for the city walls?
Yes. Fort Lovrijenac, the Stradun, Jesuit Staircase and Gundulić Square are all accessible without a walls ticket. Minčeta Tower requires the walls ticket. The abbreviated walk skipping the walls takes about 2 hours and covers 80% of the main King's Landing locations.
Where is the best photo spot for Fort Lovrijenac?
From the Bokar Tower on the city walls (included on the walls ticket), you get a direct view across the channel to Fort Lovrijenac with the sea behind it. From below, the path on the rocky promontory approaching the fort gate gives a strong low-angle shot of the walls. The fort's own battlements photograph the Old Town and sea behind.
How much of Dubrovnik looks like it did when they filmed GoT?
The Old Town itself is largely unchanged — no set dressing was needed for exterior filming. The limestone architecture, gate structures and street layout are identical to how they appeared in the show. The main difference is volume of tourists and modern signage, which the production team managed through early morning shooting schedules.
Is the Trsteno Arboretum included in this walking guide?
Trsteno (King's Landing gardens, seasons 3–4) is 20 km north of Dubrovnik and cannot be reached on foot. It requires a 30-minute bus journey (line 12 from the city). This guide covers the Old Town walking circuit; a separate section describes Trsteno as a half-day addition.
Are there GoT locations on the island of Lokrum visible from the Old Town?
Lokrum is visible from the Old Town harbour and city walls — it's the forested island about 600 metres offshore. You cannot see specific filming locations from the city; visiting the island requires the 15-minute ferry from the Old Town port.