Dubrovnik

Work is fun, especially if you can go to beautiful places like Dubrovnik in Croatia, a.k.a. King's Landing! I was invited to speak at a conference on sustainable urban mobility and it just happened to be in an amazing hotel by the beach - not that I have anything against that kind of work.

In spite of the full programme I managed to have a walk around the Old Town of Dubrovnik, a Unesco World Heritage Site and now famous as the filming location for Game of Thrones' King's Landing. Unfortuantely I didn't see any filming going on but the new season is coming out soon and I can't wait. When I was strolling through the beautiful cobbled streets I could perfectly imagine Cersei's "Walk of Shame" scene - although the city is definitely nicer and less sinister than in the series.

Being in Dubrovnik, which is in the very South of Croatia and close to the border with Bosnia & Herzegovina as well as Montenegro, I remembered our great trip to Montenegro in 2015 and what I loved about this region. Sunshine, beautiful coastline, good infrastructure, pretty towns, tasty food (yum, burek!), and on top of that very cheap. Well, Croatia is actually not that cheap and Dubrovnik in the summer must be awful because of all the cruise ships coming in, but in the shoulder season it was perfect.

I returned home with a renewed love for the Western Balkans and this was definitely not the last trip in that region.

PS: I'm still working on the "Delft" cardigan I started last year. The issue with the shortage of dark blue yarn is not solved yet and even my Plan B (unraveling the sleeves I already knit and re-knitting them in a contrasting colour pattern to save yarn) doesn't give me enough leftover yarn to finish the bodice. The project is resting once again until I manage to get hold of more yarn.