Half an hour by boat from Dubrovnik, with a painter's birthplace, a jurist's library and a white marble mausoleum by Meštrović on the hill. Most people stay in Cavtat and visit Dubrovnik, which is the right way round.
Checked: 25 August 2026
Cavtat sits on a small bay south of Dubrovnik, half an hour away by boat and twenty minutes from the airport. It is what Dubrovnik was before the cruise ships: a waterfront of palms and fishing boats where nothing is in a hurry. Three interiors and one walk fill a day, and the boat back leaves late.
- 09:00Coffee on the riva
The palm-shaded waterfront lines up cafés, fishing boats and yachts, with Dubrovnik a short boat ride away. Order at a table by the water and watch the first boats leave; this is the town's whole rhythm in one place.
- 10:00The rector's palace and Bogišić's library
The old rector's palace on the waterfront holds the world of the jurist Baltazar Bogišić, who left his home town a vast library, rare manuscripts, coins and prints. A specific and unhurried kind of museum.
- 11:30The house where Bukovac grew up
Croatia's greatest painter was born here, and the walls he covered with imaginary scenes as a boy are still there. Room after room of his portraits and sunlit canvases, in the house that produced them.
- 15:00Up to the Meštrović mausoleum
Climb to the cemetery of Saint Roch for a snow-white chapel that Ivan Meštrović built for the Račić shipping family, who died out within a few years. It is the one thing in Cavtat that stops people talking.
- 17:00Round the Rat peninsula
A shaded loop under pines and cypresses with the sea flashing through the branches, hidden bathing rocks and benches along the way. An hour at an easy pace, and the light is best at the end of the day.
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