Living in King’s Landing: The Blessing and Curse of Dubrovnik’s Game of Thrones Identity

By the time the Uber driver cracked the inevitable “city of dragons” joke just minutes after picking me up at Henri Coandă Airport, I’d already braced myself for the Game of Thrones effect.

The curse — or perhaps crown — of living in Dubrovnik is that you’re no longer from a historic Mediterranean city with centuries of culture, diplomacy, and stone-paved stubbornness. No. You’re from King’s bloody Landing.

“So, you must be a Game of Thrones fan,” I replied, with the forced enthusiasm of someone who’s been asked if they’ve ever met the Queen because they’re from England.

Taxi drivers, in my experience, are the unfiltered TripAdvisor reviews of the world. They’re part philosopher, part weather forecaster, and part geopolitical analyst — all while doing 60km/h through a roundabout while updating their playlist. And I love them for it.

Bucharest, as it turns out, is a city that drives like Paris in rush hour, only if the drivers had all previously trained on Grand Theft Auto. But that twenty-minute demolition derby gave me a window into the soul of the Romanian capital.

“Yes, we have tourists,” my driver said. “But nothing like you guys with your cruise ships and parking disasters.”

He said “you guys” in the tone people use when discussing something mildly grotesque but profitable.

I was impressed by the accuracy of his knowledge.

Parking in Dubrovnik in August is a spiritual exercise in futility.

“Have you been to Dubrovnik?” I asked. “Oh no,” he replied. “I’d love to go. Just not in summer when you’re all suffocating from the tourist crush.”

Ironically, I wasn’t in Romania for a holiday. I was in the self-proclaimed “Paris of the East” (a nickname more to do with Haussmann-style boulevards than exhaust fumes and existentialism) to host a podcast about — wait for it — destination branding.

Romania was a new country ticked off my vague personal goal of “one new nation a year.” It did not disappoint. As my driver had pointed out, it has indeed blossomed. EU-funded construction projects were visible on nearly every corner, signposted with that familiar blue banner of European dreams. Romania, along with Bulgaria, seems to be one of the more cheerful chapters in the EU’s recent family photo album.

Of course, the post-communist residue still lingers.

You can smell it in the architecture, feel it in the bureaucracy, and see it in the still-sharp divide between the designer-label crowd and the pensioners selling onions on the pavement.

But in many ways, Bucharest is a functioning, evolving European capital. But what fascinated me — what always fascinates me — is the sheer staying power of a city’s brand.

I’d barely walked into the hotel lobby when the receptionist greeted me with, “Oh, you live in King’s Landing.” Followed, inevitably, by “You must be glad to get away from the tourist crowds.”

The repetition was so uncanny I wondered whether there’s a daily Romanian government-issued script: In case of guest from Dubrovnik, please refer to dragons and mass tourism. Smile. Offer keycard.

This is what I mean by destination branding being like an oil tanker. It’s slow to turn. Painfully slow. Once a city gets a label — whether it’s the romantic fog of London, the alternative edge of Berlin, or the dragon-infested alleys of Dubrovnik — it takes decades, not years, to change it. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Back in Dubrovnik, we’ve become curators of our own illusion. The authentic parts of the city — the green markets, the little coves, the grumpy locals — get glossed over in favour of the Instagrammable, the cinematic, the storybook-perfect. And when you try to explain that Dubrovnik is more than dragons and cruise ships, you get a polite nod and another question about where Cersei stood when she did the shame walk.

This is the problem when fiction becomes more powerful than fact. The Game of Thrones brand is so strong that it’s eclipsed the very place that hosted it. Try telling someone we were a maritime republic for 500 years and brokered peace between empires. No one cares.

They just want to know if the Iron Throne is real.

There’s still time to change course. But it takes political courage, thoughtful planning, and the will to put residents before revenue. Or at least to find a balance between the two.

Read more Englishman in Dubrovnik…well, if you really want to

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About the author

Mark Thomas (aka Englez u Dubrovniku) is the editor of The Dubrovnik Times. He was born and educated in the UK and moved to live in Dubrovnik in 1998. He works across a whole range of media, from a daily radio show to TV and in print. Thomas is fluent in Croatian and this column is available in Croatia on the website – Dubrovnik Vjesnik