For a change of pace, follow the street opposite the cathedral's main door past several down-in-the-mouth side streets to St. John's Fortress and the aquarium and maritime museum. Instead of jumping into the sea, you can step back and take a close look at the ocean. Located in Tvrdava Sv. Ivana (St. John's Fortress) next to the old port, the Dubrovnik Aquarium has a large array of indigenous fish and ocean dwellers on display in its 27 tanks.

The Maritime Museum is full of artifacts like scale models of famous ships, surprisingly accurate ancient maps, knives, dueling pistols, antique coins, and other booty.

The Aquarium pumps more than 4,000 cubic feet of seawater through 31 tanks. Occupants include spiny lobsters, eels, sea horses, octopi, and the most popular resident: a 53-year-old loggerhead turtle. Despite the sheer amount of curiosities packed into the two museums, it only takes an hour or two to see both.

The building now occupied by the Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik was originally conceived and built as the showcase residential mansion of Dubrovnik ship owner Bo�o Banac, and was put up between 1935 and 1939.

It was designed by the well-known Croatian architects Lavoslav Horvat and Harold Bilini.