accommodation search in Dubrovnik
 

We will be in Dubrovnik (in late May) for five nights and I'm looking for hotel or apartment. Not knowing the city, what is a conveniently located neighborhood or district? We'll be exploring the city on foot and/or public transportation. The hotel-booking sites say a place is located "X miles from city center." Where is the city center? Do we want to be close to it to have the convenience? We're not interested in the fancy resort-like places up in the hills because after our time in DUB, we will be island hopping on a small boat for six days. It's the city we want to see, not lounge around a pool or go to the beach. Any suggestions will be appreciated!

You want to stay near the old town. Use a booking site like Booking.com to start out with and use the map feature to see exactly where places are. The old town has gates to enter; you may reference a particular gate. On my first trip to Dubrovnik, I stayed right outside the Pile gate, in a little neighborhood across the street from the Hilton Imperial. I found this area convenient - a five minute walk into the old town through the Pile gate, with no steps. (Dubrovnik is built on the side of a hill. Some pedestrian streets are steep climbs up steps. Some apartments may be up a bunch of steps.)

But many people stay inside the old town itself. It may cost more, and it might be noisy in there, but it is convenient. Depends on budget and preference. For reference, the Buza Bar (a MUST stop in my opinion, at sunset, for the view!) is on the outside wall of the old town. If you stay somewhere close to that, you are inside the walls of the town! The Irish Pub Karaka (I'm just seeing that on a Google map now, didn't actually visit) is in the heart of the old town, off the main Stradun. Find these in a Google map. Then the map on Booking.com may make more sense.

Note that you'll find very few proper hotels in the Dubrovnik old town area. Mostly you'll find apartments and B&B's or "sobe" (private rooms, sometimes with private bathrooms too). This is common in Croatia and not something to avoid. I stayed in a soba just outside Pile, as I said above, and it was a great location. Many people stay at private apartments.

FYI (before this thread is moved to the Europe forum where it belongs), five nights is a lot of time in Dubrovnik, which is lovely but also fairly small - and overrun with cruise ship tourists most days. It's much quieter at night and wonderful. But unless you plan some day trips out of town a few days, five nights may be too many there, especially if you aren't interested in "pool or beach time." Common day trips include a visit to Mostar, Bosnia and a visit down to Montenegro. I'd recommend either one or even both.

Andrew has given you a lot of great advice! I’ll just reiterate that looking within or near the city walls should be convenient for the city itself – and city center would be within that very small area. Anything on the hill above the city will involve stairs. MANY stairs. BTW, there are TWO Buza Bars, each of which is worth visiting, IMO.

Whether staying within the city center is convenient for your purposes is another question entirely, as it sounds like what you need is access to a small boat harbor.

And as Andrew notes, 5 days is a LOT for Dubrovnik. IME, most people find 1.5 days sufficient for the city itself.

Moved to the Europe forum

BTW, do you know that you can get good estimates of walking times on google maps? That might prove useful to you as you decide what is / is not a reasonable location for your purposes.

Thank you, Andrew and KJA - all very helpful information! That gives me some focus now. Actually, we'll have four useful days in the city; we arrive late in the afternoon on the first day/night after a 15+ hour flight and will want to sleep ASAP! This way we can take our time and not feel rushed. I also just learned about the botanical garden on Lokrum, which could take the better part of a day, in case we run out of other things to do.
(Sorry about the misplacement of my post - I haven't been to TravelTalk Forum for several years and the navigation has changed.)

Sounds good. FYI, my personal jet lag coping strategy is not to go to bed until regular bedtime local time - so if I arrived at 6PM after a long day of flying, I'd still stick it out til say 9PM if possible to try to get my body on local time as soon as possible!

Lokrum is lovely, and visiting it was part of what I did during 1.5 days in Dubrovnik. ;-)

Yeah, that looks like a decent spot. I stayed across the street a little closer to the ocean near Pile too. I liked being over there.

Andrew - Yes, eat and sleep according to local time. I do that once I get on the airplane 9and set my watch accordingly).
Cindyjo's apt looks lovely and convenient. I like the "you are here" map - the best I've seen. It's more space than what we'll need but will keep it in mind in case we share with friends who will be coming to DUB a day or two after us - we'll be joining the same tour on June 1.
KJA - glad to have the endorsement of Lokrum.

If you are considering accommodation inside the city walls be aware that it is a pedestrian zone with many steps. This means that you won’t have much fun dragging your luggage trough crowds of tourists on your arrival and departure and probably won’t get much sleep if you are a light sleeper.
I would say that accommodation inside the city walls is suitable for those who want to be in the centre of all the fuzz and are travelling light.

In my opinion best option is somewhere around the city walls - Ploce area or Pile area.

However, staying in other parts of Dubrovnik is also a good option. Lapad area (around Lapad bay) is nice place to stay with good public bus connections (10 min to the old town) and you have a lovely pedestrian street with restaurants etc. Advantage of this area is also the price.

The Lapad area is definitely cheaper than staying inside or just outside the old town walls, especially if you have a car to park. I've stayed both in Lapad (had a car) and right outside the Pile Gate (no car) on separate trips. Without a car, I definitely preferred staying near the Pile Gate. The short walk into the old town was easy, and there were many restaurant options (many quite touristy though). Dubrovnik is just lovely at night when the day trippers leave and it's so much more quiet and peaceful. Everyone who visits Dubrovnik should try to visit at night not just in the daytime when it's so packed with tour groups, and when you are staying such a short walk away, that's easy to do.

There is fairly late bus service back to Lapad, though. But, it's not quite the same feeling staying there. Lapad is OK, but it feels less special, a little boring.

Hi Bobbe,
We stayed at a lovely apartment mere walking distance from the Walled City last May - and no steps! The host's name is Stiljepo but he is happy to be called Steve. The apartment details are:
Apartment Dubrovnik - Private Accommodation in Dubrovnik

Highly recommend!

Thanks, everyone, for all your suggestions! We have a place - Apartment Kesovija thru Booking.com. it's about 1 mile from Pile Gate (we are walkers!), also near bus trans and other conveniences. Only $60 a night - but cash only. We are excited and looking forward to our trip!