Srđ

Where it sits. Srđ is the bare limestone ridge that rises directly behind Dubrovnik's old town to 412 metres, the last wall of the Dinaric range before the Adriatic. The city is pressed between it and the sea, which is the whole explanation of Dubrovnik's history: a defensible strip with no hinterland, forced to live by trade. From the summit the walled town is laid out as a plan drawing — the ring of walls, the straight line of Stradun cutting it in two, the round drum of Minčeta at the top corner, Lovrijenac on its rock to the west, Lokrum floating offshore. Northwest the Elaphiti islands string out toward Pelješac; southeast the coast runs toward the Konavle valley and the mountains of Montenegro.

Fort Imperial. The rectangular fort on the summit was built between 1806 and 1812 during the French occupation, under Marshal Marmont, to command both the city and the road inland. It is a plain, heavy, two-storey block around a courtyard, with casemates and a cistern, and it was still a working military position in living memory. On 6 December 1991, during the siege of Dubrovnik, a small Croatian force held it against a determined assault by the Yugoslav People's Army while the old town below took the heaviest shelling of the entire war. The fort now houses the Museum of the Croatian War of Independence, which uses the rooms to lay out the siege month by month with photographs, maps, weapons and the improvised equipment the defenders used. It is a sober, unsentimental museum and it reframes the view from the roof completely.

On screen — what is and is not true. No scene of Game of Thrones was filmed on Srđ. The summit belongs in a King's Landing itinerary for a different reason: it is the only place from which the geography the series edited together can be understood as one thing. Looking down, the relationship between Lovrijenac and the western walls that stand in for the Red Keep, the Minčeta drum used as the House of the Undying, the Jesuit staircase on its high terrace and the harbour below becomes obvious in a way it never is at street level. It also makes plain how much of the screen city was added: the vast Red Keep on its bluff, the Great Sept's dome, the sprawl of shanties beyond the walls — none of it exists, and the ridge shows exactly where the digital city was grafted onto the real one.

The cable car. A cable car has run from Ploče to the ridge since 1969. It was destroyed in 1991 and reopened in July 2010; the line is around 780 metres long and the ride takes roughly four minutes, climbing from just above the old town to the summit terrace. The lower station stands on Petra Krešimira IV Street, a short walk uphill from the Ploče gate. At the top there is a viewing terrace, a restaurant and a small shop, and a short walk west along the ridge reaches the large white cross, first raised in 1935, destroyed by shelling, and rebuilt after the war.

Walking up instead. The alternative is the Serpentina, a zigzag path following the Napoleonic-era supply road that switchbacks up the face of the ridge from the edge of the modern city. It is roughly an hour of steady climbing, entirely without shade, on loose stone and old cobbles, and it should not be attempted in the middle of a summer day or without at least a litre of water per person. The reward is that the view opens gradually rather than all at once, and that the path is usually empty. Stay on the marked route: the ground either side is rough karst and was cleared of wartime ordnance only in the years after the fighting.

Getting there and timing. Beyond the cable car and the footpath, a narrow road from the Adriatic highway reaches the summit and a few tour buses use it. Sunset is the popular hour and the terrace fills accordingly; arriving forty minutes early secures a rail position on the western side, where the light crosses the roofs. Photographers should note that the classic frame of the old town is shot from slightly below the top station rather than from the terrace itself. The lift and terrace are step-free, but the fort and museum involve stairs and uneven stone, and the ridge is exposed — there is no shelter at all if the weather turns, and the bura can arrive within the hour.