Gradac Park

If you want to know where Dubrovnik's residents go to escape the tourists, this is it. Gradac Park sits just west of the Pile Gate on a wooded hillside above the sea, and it is the kind of place that never appears on the top-ten lists because it has nothing to sell. No entrance fee, no gift shop, no audio guide. Just shaded paths through Mediterranean pines and cypress trees, benches overlooking the Adriatic, and views of Fort Lovrijenac that rival anything you'd see from the city walls — for free.

The park was established in the late 19th century on land that had been used as gardens for centuries before that. Mature Aleppo pines provide dense shade even in the height of summer, when the Old Town below is an oven of reflected heat and packed bodies. Locals come here to walk dogs, read, have picnics, and generally pretend that a million tourists aren't swarming their city half a kilometre away. It is blissfully quiet.

The western edge of the park offers what many consider the definitive view of Fort Lovrijenac — the fortress framed by pine branches with the sea crashing against the rocks below. In the early morning or late afternoon, the light is extraordinary. During the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, an open-air cinema screens films among the trees, which is about as atmospheric as outdoor cinema gets.

There's also a small beach at the base of the park — rocky, not sandy, in the Croatian way — that is far less crowded than Banje Beach on the other side of the Old Town. The water is clean, deep, and clear. Gradac is not glamorous. It is not Instagrammable in the way the walls or Buža are. It is just a very good park, and sometimes that's exactly what you need.