There is one very old but very atractive city situated in small country, in Croatia. That town is Dubrovnik. It has long and interesting history.
Small description of Dubrovnik
There are many beautiful places in the world, but the people of Dubrovnik claim their city to be the most beautiful. The warm, southern climate, the spacious blue sky, the emerald green and dark blue crystal clear sea depths touching the rocky shore and spilling into numerous coves and bays, onto sandy beaches and steep reefs decorated with the lushest Mediterranean and subtropical flora.
Dubrovnik is bathed in a sea of sun, beacause it is situated in mild Mediterranean climate. There are over 250 sunny days per year, with an average annual temperature of 17°C. The average summer sea temperature is about 21°C. The swimming season in the sea begins in April, sometimes even earlier, and lasts to late October and later. Dubrovnik and its surrounding areas cover the southernmost region of the Republic of Croatia and its Dalmatian province, from Neum in the west to Sutorina and Ponte Ostre in the east.
This long, narrow coastal belt under the karst Dinaric mountains and low mountain peaks spreads to the east in and includes Snijeznica Mountain and its mountainous region, and this is its most inland point. One side borders with Herzegovina, the other with Montenegro, with the border line following the mountain peaks and at certain points coming to within a few hundred metres of the sea .
History of Dubrovnik
The City of Dubrovnik is under UNESCO protection. Several thousand years before Christ, by some estimates 6000 years and 2000-3000 years by others, the area near Dubrovnik was inhabited. The existence of the city was lost in the cloudy course of history, legends are interwoven with historical facts and there are no preserved documents from those ancient times or there are so few that historians and archaeologists are left with the massive task of bringing these many assumptions on the life near Dubrovnik to light. One thing is certain - Dubrovnik is an old city, standing on its stone cliffs for at least 14 centuries.
Before Dubrovnik, there was a much older city, Epidaurum, which developed in the area of where Cavtat is today, 18 kilometres southeast of Dubrovnik. Until the time of its demise in the 7th century, Epidaurum existed for at least 10 and perhaps as many as 12 centuries. Some historians have stated that the Greeks founded the colony as early as the 7th century before Christ. In the clash between the epoch and the people, Epidaurum, the city of antiquity, was erased from the map, and its small number of inhabitants sought refuge in the neighbouring regions, today's Zupa Dubrovacka, where the fortified cities of Spilan and Gradac (Burnum) were, and the rocky islet Laus, also inhabited, which thus became the first city core of old Dubrovnik. The rapid settlement of Laus was the beginning of development of a new city, today's Dubrovnik (in the 7th century) which would, on that small rocky area, grow deep roots and build a glorious and heroic history in the stormy centuries to follow.
During the 7th century, the Slavic tribes, among them the superior Croats, had already set up permanent residence along the majority of the eastern Adriatic coast, with the exception of a few fortified Roman cities, which were more and more becoming ethnic islands in the flood of the Slavic population. In comparison to the development of cities with a Roman population, a settlement was developing near Ragusium, at the foothills of Mount Srd, which received the Croatian name Dubrovnik. The name came from the oak forests which even today are called "dubrave" today. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the sea strait between the two settlements became shallower due to alleviation and in the end was dried up. When the two settlements, already joined together, were fortified and strengthened within the same city walls at the end of 12th century, the result was Dubrovnik Old Town, an urban centre preserved to the present day.
