Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is possibly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.  For someone like me who is enamoured by both mountains and water, Dubrovnik is the perfect place, as it has both.  Riding down the coast from Split, the visitor is treated to amazing views of the Adriatic sea, and mountains and islands that follow the coastline. 

Dubrovnik itself is spectacular, with exceptional beauty wherever you look.   It's an old city, and at one time actually rivalled Venice for dominance of the Adriatic. 

For most people, especially us Jews, when we refer to "after the war," we're talking about World War II, now more than 65 years in the past.  When people in Dubrovnik refer to after the war, they're talking about something that happened not even 20 years ago.  So important is the city to the tourist trade here in Croatia, that already, the city has been restored to splendour after taking a beating during a 7 month long siege in 1991.  Original methods can be seen to restore parts of the old city, in part because it is a UNESCO heritage site.

I took a walk around the city walls (for about 10 Euros), and you can see how fearsome the city's defenses are.  And while they have been tested in recent memory (Dubrovnik was seiged but never taken), today they serve as tourist attractions.  In fact the Pile Gate, which is designed to bottleneck opposing armies should they try to storm the city, now creates bottlenecks of tourists trying to come into the old city.

All in all, I really do love this city, but again, I don't think I would come back in the summer.