It was tipping it down and, as beautiful as Dubrovnik old town is, we were a bit sick of being so wet! We went looking for somewhere to dry off and found two beautiful places. The first was a wine bar, tiny in size and decorated with hundreds of used corks. It was elegant enough to feel special, but not too upmarket that we felt out of place in our rain gear. The atmosphere was really friendly and after a couple of glasses, we felt brave enough to head back out into the rain.
Running across to the Rector’s Palace, we didn’t know quite what to expect, but the beautiful building was a gem, with lots of rooms filled with old furniture, paintings and trinkets. It gave us a real sense of Dubrovnik’s history and it was fascinating to read about the uses for the building and it’s customs (for example, the Rector couldn’t leave the building without permission of the Senate – as big as the building was, I’d have gone a little stir-crazy!). The building even had a dungeon, which was suitably dark and claustrophobic- an interesting contrast to the fancy rooms above.
The main hall’s ornate twisting staircase boasted an open roof over the centre of the square, which meant that the rain poured down through the middle of the building, leaving dry pathways around the edges of the walls. As we started up the stairs, thunder rolled out and we stopped on the landings to take in the scene. It may have been the wine from earlier, but there was something so powerful about the rain cascading down over the edge of the staircase as the lightning flashed above us. It may not have been the most picturesque place we visited on the trip, but it certainly created a memory that will stay with me for a long time.
Being up high, we were able to look out over the city, getting a sense of the gloriously polished stone floors through to the terricotta rooftops of people’s homes. It was raining on and off as we made our way round the walls and we quickly realised that all of that stone flooring, whilst pretty, was incredibly slippy in Converse! If you plan to walk the walls, make sure you bring some grippy shoes incase of rain – nobody wants to slide down the walkway on their bum in front of lots of other tourists (we saw at least two people do this and I was a close third, only saved by my death-grip on the wall).
Walking around the walls along the coastline, the scenery was stunning, made all the more beautiful when it was framed by the small square portholes built into brick. Luckily the rain stopped as we headed round to Fort Lovrijenac and we stopped to take some pictures of the cove. The waves were crashing over the rocks and with the rain clouds starting to drift away, the scenery was incredibly powerful. 
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