Banje Beach

This guide to Banje Beach in Dubrovnik starts with a waiter pouring Plavac Mali beside sand that was trucked in and raked over the real pebbles underneath. It follows the beach through old photographs from the nineteen thirties, fifties and sixties, tracing how the same curve of shoreline outside the Ploce Gate has held the same crowd for decades even as its appetite changed. By day the restaurant here pours Posip and Malvasija Dubrovacka alongside handmade pasta and grilled fish; after dark the loungers light up with torches and a resident DJ. Sit at the water's edge and you can feel both versions of the beach at once.