Come Explore King’s Landing (Dubrovnik) During Game of Thrones Season 4 Filming

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This is Fort Lovrjenac. With a little bit of CGI, it becomes the Red Keep. Down below is Blackwater Bay.

Do you watch Game of Thrones on HBO? Kev and I love the books by Gorge R. R. Martin as well as the television series based on them, so an added bonus to our recent trip to Dubrovnik (arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world) was that we knew we might recognize some of the locations from the show. Are you a fan? Then this post is for you!

The walls of Old Town Dubrovnik; that's Fort Bokar in the front.

Dubrovnik’s Old Town is a medieval walled city located on the coast of Croatia, and since season two it has been used for various locations in Game of Thrones — most notably as a stand-in for the capital city of King’s Landing. If you watch the show, then you’ll no doubt recognize some of these views and locations. Most of the pictures are thumbnails, so if you click them, you should be rewarded with a much larger image.

Warning: There is a possible spoiler toward the end of the post accompanied by a couple of pictures, so proceed with extreme caution if you haven’t already finished season three. I have posted it a bit lower on the page out of respect for those who aren’t yet caught up.

Standing on the top of Fort Lovrjenac, you'll get an eerie sense of deja vu.

Before visiting Dubrovnik, we were aware that portions of Game of Thrones were filmed there; we just had no idea when the filming occurred. We certainly didn’t expect to show up and run into any of the actors or crew … but that is exactly what happened.

Someone is putting together a set nearby!

Kev and I got to watch sets being prepared, and we were also able to watch filming as it occurred. If you’ve never been on a set before, here’s my best impression of the experience: there is a whole lot of time spent on set up with actors and extras milling about in order to get a minute or two caught on film. I don’t know that I would have the patience to do any part of the process on a daily basis, but I thought the mini experience we had was fascinating!

We got to see Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, in costume hanging around waiting to film her scene — there’s no way that you can miss her with that distinctive hairdo!

We did our best to stay out of the way and be respectful, and since there was supposed to be no shooting on the set, we considered ourselves lucky to get any shots of the stars at all. In fact, I got told to put my camera away when we were looking down at the set from the city wall next to Fort Minceta … embarrassing!

Speaking of Fort Minceta; do you remember when Daenerys Targaryen entered the house of the Undying? That was the circular Fort Minceta she walked around in the finale of season two before gaining entry.

Take a look at this picture …

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… what you’re not seeing is that the two chairs at the top of the stairs to the right were soon to be occupied by Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister). It took me a moment to recognize Nikolaj, as his hair was longer and generally unkept for much of season three. It is now cut, and he looks much better than he has in some time. Alas, we didn’t get any pictures of him, but we did see him in full Jaime Lannister regalia, and later in cargo shorts and a henly shirt when he was off for the day.

After filming was done, Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister) walked by us and a few others who had gathered to watch the action. He was incredibly nice, and he took a moment to greet his fans and say hello. Since he plays one of Kev’s and my favorite characters in the book (and on the show), it was kind of a big deal for us. Kev snapped a pic of him as he was walking away …

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Here are a bunch of photos taken from various locations around the Old City. Don’t be surprised if you recognize places where scenes were filmed. The possible spoilers follow this gallery, so consider yourself warned if you haven’t watched to the end of season three!

 

Possible spoilers ahead …!!

 

 

 

One of the odder things we saw from afar was what appeared to be a body lying crumpled on a strip of grass. We had noticed film crew movement there previously when we had walked the wall’s perimeter, so we knew that it was related to the show. I snapped a couple of pictures with my Nokia Lumia 1020 from our vantage point, which was several hundred yards away.

Not much to see, right? Well, it wasn’t, until I blew the photos up …

Am I correct that we’re looking at Robb Stark’s headless body lying next to the severed head of his dire wolf, Grey Wind? That was pretty sobering, as “the Red Wedding” was one of the most brutal episodes since Eddard Stark’s execution in season one. I thought that Grey Wind (on the show, at least) was a lighter colored wolf, but this picture has me convinced that I saw what thought I saw.

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Robb Stark’s body and Grey Wind’s head attached together in a horrifying scene from season three. Picture courtesy of fanpop

When you watch Game of Thrones season 4, keep your eye out for the locations and scenes you saw in this post. I’m dreading the scene that will show Robb’s desecrated body, but I’m looking forward to seeing the second part of book three, A Storm of Swords, gets played out.

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About the Author

Judie Lipsett Stanford
Judie is the co-owner and Editor-in-Chief of Gear Diary, which she founded in September 2006. She started in 1999 writing software reviews at the now-defunct smaller.com; from mid-2000 through 2006, she wrote hardware reviews for and co-edited at The Gadgeteer. A recipient of the Sigma Kappa Colby Award for Technology, Judie is best known for her device-agnostic approach, deep-dive reviews, and enjoyment of exploring the latest tech, gadgets, and gear.

3 Comments on "Come Explore King’s Landing (Dubrovnik) During Game of Thrones Season 4 Filming"

  1. These pictures are amazing. If I didn’t have one of Sony’s new “camera in a lens” devices coming I would be picking one up tomorrow!!

    • I’ll touch on it a bit more in a separate article, but with the exception of a couple of photos taken by Kev on his Leica, every picture in this post was taken with my Nokia Lumia 1020. =)

  2. What a great post! Great pictures, too. Can’t believe your luck.

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