Stradun

The Stradun is the wide, limestone-paved street that cuts through the center of Dubrovnik, stretching from the Pile Gate to the old port. Before the thirteenth century, this space was a marshy channel separating two islands. Ragusa, the original settlement, filled in the water to connect those islands into one city. When a catastrophic earthquake leveled the town in sixteen sixty-seven, the republic council mandated that all houses follow a uniform design, creating the matching stone facades that still line the promenade today.