Franjo Tuđman Bridge
Designed in 1989, halted mid-build by the Croatian War of Independence, and opened in May 2002 — the cables here are also a peace dividend.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Dubrovnik offline.
A 141.5-metre A-shaped pylon rises over Rijeka Dubrovačka at Dubrovnik's western gate. University of Zagreb engineers rebuilt what war interrupted, producing a 518-metre cable-stayed crossing that most visitors simply drive across — which makes pausing to look back toward Port of Gruž feel like catching something everyone else missed.
What to look for
- The A-shaped pylon at 141.5 m — one leg has an internal hatch with rungs climbing all the way to the top for anchor maintenance
- 38 cable stays fanning from the pylon, each a bundle of steel wires sheathed in protective polyethylene pipes
- The western girder's changing depth: 3.25 m at the abutment, swelling to 8.22 m at the pier — visible from below near the Gruž shore
Carries D8 road into Dubrovnik from the west; the clearest ground-level view of the pylon is from the Port of Gruž waterfront, a short walk from the ferry terminal.
Franjo Tuđman Bridge is one of 12 sights worth the detour in Dubrovnik, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dubrovnik pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dubrovnik
- Walls of DubrovnikWalk an unbroken 1,940-metre circuit of medieval stone — up to 25 metres above the old city — that held Ragusa independent for centuries.
- Rector's PalaceFour disasters over two centuries — fire, a gunpowder explosion, and two earthquakes — rebuilt this palace each time in a different style and left the evidence in plain sight.
- Dubrovnik CathedralA Baroque church rebuilt from the rubble of Dubrovnik's 1667 earthquake — its foundations partly funded by Richard the Lionheart, who owed a votive for surviving a shipwreck off Lokrum on his way home from the Third Crusade.
- StradunEvery building on this 300-metre limestone street was rebuilt to a government blueprint after the 1667 earthquake — and it shows.
- Sponza PalaceA stone arch inside warns every merchant: "When I measure goods, God measures with me."
- Franciscan Church & MonasteryThe 1667 earthquake flattened the church. One portal from 1498 made it through — and carved into it is a miniature of everything that didn't.