Dubrovnik is a city in southern Croatia fronting the Adriatic Sea. It’s known for its distinctive Old Town, encircled with massive stone walls completed in the 16th century. Its well-preserved buildings range from baroque St. Blaise Church to Renaissance Sponza Palace and Gothic Rector’s Palace, now a history museum. Paved with limestone, the pedestrianized Stradun (or Placa) is lined with shops and restaurants.

Nothing can prepare you for your first sight of Dubrovnik. Lying 216 km (135 miles) southeast of Split and commanding a jaw-dropping coastal location, it is one of the world's most beautiful fortified cities. Its massive stone ramparts and fortress towers curve around a tiny harbor, enclosing graduated ridges of sun-bleached orange-tiled roofs, copper domes, and elegant bell towers. Your imagination will run wild picturing what it looked like seven centuries ago when the walls were built, without any suburbs or highways around it, just this magnificent stone city rising out of the sea.

Although the shelling of Dubrovnik in 1991 horrified the world, the city has bounced back with vigor to enchant visitors again. Marvel at the interplay of light on the old stone buildings; trace the peaks and troughs of Dubrovnik's past in museums replete with art and artefacts; take the cable car up to Mt Srd; exhaust yourself climbing up and down narrow lanes – then plunge into the azure sea.

You won’t go thirsty in Dubrovnik – the city has swanky lounge bars, Irish pubs, bars clinging to cliffs, sophisticated wine bars and lots and lots of Croatian-style cafe-bars. And that’s just the old town. There’s some great diving around Dubrovnik, including at the wreck of the Taranto, an 1899 Italian merchant ship that hit a mine during WWII.