Tristeno - Garden of Tranquility

Trsteno Arboretum Pathway

We loved Dubrovnik, but in the middle of a June day, it’s hot and crowded. When we’d left Canada, the last thing our daughter had said to us was: ‘You must go to the Trsteno Arboretum.’ So, taking her advice, we drove the less than 30 minutes north along the coast and found this haven of peace and tranquility.

I hadn’t expected it to be busy, but I’d imagined we’d see a few people wandering through the tree-lined, dappled pathways, but when we pulled up and parked, ours was the only vehicle there. We bought our tickets from the gatehouse and headed past the large ‘No Smoking’ signs and down the pathway towards the sea. We saw only one other couple while we were there.

It’s an historic site, first laid out in the 15^th Century, when the Gozze family asked sea-going captains to bring back as many seeds as they could find, then planted them along the avenues. The garden is spread out on a cliff, high above the sea. Reaching the cliff edge, we looked down on the Trsteno Pier sheltering a small, inviting harbour surrounded by warm stone cottages, and a crystal blue sea. The garden itself is full of trees and flowers; their fragrance fills the air.

Olive Press

A stone house in the centre of the Arboretum sits draped with bright pink/purple bougainvillea. Several outbuildings including a small chapel and an olive byre stand close. The latter contains several elderly olive presses and a lot of dust – we could only imagine this place in full operation. Of course, our daughter had wanted us to visit Trsteno because it’s featured in Game of Thrones – it’s the Tyrell Garden of the Red Keep. A key element of that is Neptune’s Fountain, where it was time to relax and watch the spouting nymphs. This fountain, reconstructed in 1736 after an earthquake, is fed from an aqueduct built to irrigate the Arboretum in 1492, and it’s still in use.

The Largest Tree in Europe?

Later we drove down to the Pier – where locals were swimming in the harbour; we would have loved to join them. The road there and back was winding, and narrow – I had to back-up a few times to let others pass, and turning round at the end of the road took a nail-biting 10 point turn, on the edge of the dock…

The Neptune Fountain

Beside the highway to Dubrovnik, high above the main arboretum site, stand two plane trees, the most celebrated inhabitants of Trsteno. These huge trees are more than 500 years old. The larger one, which stands closer to the highway, may be the largest tree in Europe, and this tree is considered to have saved Dubrovnik from Napoleon. In 1806 the French were on the march, intending to capture Dubrovnik but they were stopped when a huge limb fell from the tree and blocked their path. It took the army engineers two days to dismember and remove it; just enough time for the leaders of Dubrovnik to negotiate with the Emperor and save their city. I wanted to get up close to the trunk but these days the site is surrounded by a large fence bearing dire warnings of falling branches - stone pillars support many of its major limbs.

We were so awestruck that we had to go into the bar opposite for an Ojusko (beer) before we could drive back to Dubrovnik and face the crowds again. It prolonged the tranquility for a few moments, at least.

Trsteno Pier from the Arboretum