Dubrovnik

Close to forty years after my last visit, William and I returned to Dubrovnik this morning. Driving up along the coast, entering Croatia and the EU was a breeze (contrary to my fears that the new EU Entry/Exit System would cause delays). With not a cloud anywhere to be seen, we walked through the old town, which brought back lots of childhood memories even as the number of tourists made clear that these were no longer the sunset years of Yugoslavia.

At Banje Beach, we were suddenly alone, with only a Canadian couple from Winnipeg testifying that the water was absolutely lovely, which it was. As a Scandinavian, it is truly unfathomable how afraid people seem to be of cold water, which is particularly strange when the water is not even cold (the coldest my watch registered was 20 degrees). But I am not complaining, as this meant that we got to have the beach more or less to ourselves. After a while, the SUP rental people arrived, and we were able to go for half an hour of paddling for €10 each.

While we would have loved to stay longer, reality back on Sweden's west coast was calling, with the removal company arriving tomorrow morning. To keep cars away from the old town, Dubrovnik has introduced a scheme under which unauthorised vehicles entering the restricted zone are automatically detected by cameras, with fines potentially exceeding €1,600 for rental cars. I find this a very good initiative, even if it meant that we had to walk a couple of kilometres uphill to get back to our rental car. Then it was less than an hour's drive to the airport, where we returned the Fiat Panda without a scratch but with 299 kilometres more on the clock than when we picked it up. All in all, an incredible holiday.