I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls

That U2 song lyric ran through my head a lot when I was in Dubrovnik. I did a lap and a half of the 500-year-old city walls that surround the Old Town. Long ago the walls held off the Venetians (from the sea, I think) and then the Ottomans (mostly from the land). In the 1990s, they were less effective against Serbian mortars.

It was a little too crowded, commercial, and ‘touristy’ for my taste, but all those folks come here for good reason. You’ll climb up and down a lot of steps, but the views of the orange rooftops and blue Adriatic waters are worth every step (and the 40 Euro fee!). Lots of history, lots of basketball courts.

For me it was a landing and launching point for a trip through some less-developed parts of the region, and an intro to the area’s tumultuous history. More to come from the Balkans.

Many countries have some sort of tribute to unknown soldiers killed in the nation’s historical wars. Greece’s is in downtown Athens, right next to their Parliament building. As the sculpture on the wall behind it reminds us, Greek warriors have been fighting wars for a very long time. So when the Greeks think about their historical, noble warriors, they may well be thinking about the Trojan War, or about the 300 Greek “Spartans” who fought at Thermopolea 2500 years ago. Apparently today it’s quite an honor for a Greek soldier to don the traditional uniform and do the high-stepping ceremonial march. At 8am on a weekday, I was pretty much the only person there to watch this changing of the guard.