Sublime beauty in the shadows of war

In Trogir a challenging climb up the steep and narrow stairs of a church tower was recompensed with a panoramic view of the red-roofed city and the jade-colored sea, but soon there was a surcharge to pay: the harrowing descent back down the tower's steep stairs had my legs trembling all the way.

Also from Split, we took a three-hour bus trip into Bosnia and Herzegovina before reaching Dubrovnik in Croatia. Border checks between the two countries of the former Yugoslavia are strict, as evidenced by a group of tourists from Taiwan on our bus who had not brought their passports with them and had to get off the bus.

The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, after visiting the city in 1929, is widely quoted as having said: "Those who seek paradise on Earth should come and see Dubrovnik." Lord Byron called it "the pearl of the Adriatic", and in more recent times Game of Thrones, the same show that has made use of nearby Split, has done Dubrovnik proud by creating for the series a realm called King's Landing.

In Dubrovnik our penny-wise team-leader decided that if money was to be splashed out anywhere it should be here, so we decided to stay in a seaside apartment costing 90 euros ($100) a night.

The landlord picked us up from the bus station and drove us there, and then to a nearby supermarket so we could buy some supplies. This man was in his late 70s, someone who had been a sailor for 30 years before owning a ship.

"I was a captain," he beamed, adding that he had been to more than 80 countries, and that he had visited Hong Kong in the 1970s and 80s. This reminiscing old salt told of how much he missed Josip Broz Tito, who led Yugoslavia for more than 35 years until his death in 1980.

"Things were much better when Tito was there," he said. "Now everything costs a lot. Hospitals are especially expensive."

The bleak undertones of this nostalgia, coming from someone who had obviously seen a lot of the world, surprised us Chinese, who, even as he was sailing the seven seas, were growing up in a country that was opening up to the world and was beginning to blossom economically. Whatever, it is true that in Croatia public transport and using toilets and other public services are expensive.

On the other hand, Dubrovnik seemed to be thriving in the fresh air of a free economy, its main avenue teeming with tourists from around the world looking up in awe at the government buildings and churches on both sides, all of which were built of limestone more than 20 meters tall.

Dubrovnik was first built in the 7th century by war refugees from the north. Having run hundreds of kilometers along the coast, they built the six-meter-wide walls around their new home city. From then it thrived on its maritime trade and was an independent state until the early 19th century.

The balcony of our swish hotel offered us exactly what the picture that graces the cover of the Lonely Planet Croatia travel guide had promised us: the grand old city spread out along the coast.

That sparkling view greeted us at breakfast time every morning, before we headed out for the day, one activity being to climb the city's walls not only in sunshine but during a storm as well. Shrouded in dark storm clouds Dubrovnik comes across as a colossal castle rising from the sea.