Visiting the Seven Kingdoms (Dubrovnik 2)
In this blog, I am going to discuss our trip to Dubrovnik, to check the filming locations from Game of Thrones! I've already spoke about the Old City and the various locations we found there, so in this post I am going to speak about the locations around the Old City, including the car park where they filmed the Purple Wedding, and the island of Lokrum and how it stood in for Qarth in Season 2!
So onto the purple wedding! As you can see in the picture above, the purple wedding was filmed in a park on a hillside which overlooks the Old City in Dubrovnik. The park is called Gradac Park and is a long gardens with a large circular area to it's side. In the middle of this space it has a quaint pond which was used in the show. It's space and beautiful trees make it perfect for filming a large production, such as the Purple Wedding. They built a massive set which then carried on into the car park of the gardens. With the huge set being shipped in, you can't really see much trace of the wedding but it is still very cool to know that we were standing directly on the spot where one of our favourite characters died!
Away from Game of Thrones, it's certainly worth walkng west up along the coastline from Gradac Park, and about a 20 minute walk away you will find yourself at Dubrovnik Harbour. The Harbour is relatively new but you can catch a ferry to one of the islands off Dubrovnik, which is away from a lot of the tourism of the Old City. Alternatively you can catch a ferry from the Old City Harbour which is to the East, and go to Lokrum which is the beautiful Island were a lot of the Qarth scenes were filmed in Season 2. The ferry's leave every 30 minutes in the Summer months and it costs 40kn, which is about 5 euros or £4. The journey only takes about 15-20 minutes but it's another good way of seeing the Old City from the outside with it's large beautiful walls.
Lokrum Island is fantastic! It's mainly used for the Daenerys scenes in Qarth, especially the ones were Dany is walking around with Jorah or the Spice King. The Botanical Gardens in the middle of the Island is where you can see the party scenes were Dany is invited to meet the different inhabitants of Qarth.
Lokrum is full of luschious vegetation and beautiful flowers and trees but strangely also many peacocks! The peacocks are free to roam around the Island which can be strange, and noisy!
You can also see the road that Dany, Jorah Mormont and Jhogo, one of Dany's bloodriders go to find her Dragons at the end of Season 2 when they have been stolen by the Warlocks in Qarth.
