Lokrum

This guide to Lokrum island near Dubrovnik traces the stone tower renamed for Archduke Maximilian, the young Habsburg who bought the island in 1859 with his wife Charlotte's dowry and finished the fortress crowning its ridge before an ambitious turn in his career carried him far from it. You'll follow him from island retreat to an unfamiliar throne abroad, and hear the older island legend first: monks evicted from Lokrum's Benedictine monastery who are said to have circled it by candlelight, cursing anyone who claimed it for pleasure. Maximilian built his mansion over their old cloister anyway, laid out gardens, and let peacocks loose among the trees. Climb toward the tower and see how much of that old cloister still shows through.