We're not sure how any of them afford it but it seems in Summer Dubrovnik is infested with tourists - and in Winter it's alive with cats. It's lucky we're cat-people - much more so than people-people to be honest. We are finding it hard to comprehend how this tiny jewelbox of a walled city can even begin to cope when 10,000 people descend off cruise ships in one day (and it happens day after day after day!) It's comfortably busy at the moment by our standards - though many restaurants close in the off season, so those who are open look busier by comparison. In any event, once more visiting in the off-season has paid dividends. First off, our comfortable 2 bedroom apartment right in the walled city, with almost no stairs by local standards is only €450 for 10 nights... we checked for 10 nights in August - the pinnacle of the high season - €1450! Yowser! Secondly, the Mediterranean climate is positively tropical - we left Ireland to freezing temperatures (some days it didn't go over 2 degrees - with the 'feels like' in the minuses). We have had a couple of days around 7 degress here - but it has now warmed up to a balmy 17 degrees! Hard to believe Ireland, UK and northern Europe are suffering airport closures and transport chaos due to snow and ice and we are sitting without a heater on.

We flew in on a stunningly sunny day and were treated to postcard views out the window of the plane - it really put the city and it's famous walls into context. When we look at the photo now we can even pin point the exact position of our apartment. Having been up relatively early in Zagreb last Wednesday (6.30 am!), starvation was obviously imminent when we reached Dubrovnik about 1.30 pm and thanks to our in-depth Tripadvisor research we had a cheap-eats joint to visit just around the corner. Now 120 kunas (say A$24/€16) was big money in Zagreb - restaurant, waiters, glorious risotto or luscious pasta and a large crispy pizza - with wine and beer - could all be had for said 120... which is why we ate out 7 nights in a row (unheard of). Here in Zagreb it didn't even cover 2 burgers, chips and 2 drinks... and Presa is one of the cheapest and most well regarded little eateries in Dubrovnik. But that's OK - we have a kitchen, 3 local supermarkets on hand and we know how to use them. Not to mention another little market that features 5 steel vats of vino - 10-15 kunas per litre - BYO litre bottle. Yee haa - have just finished a litre of cabernet - top end - 15 kunas. It was perfectly drinkable pizza/pasta wine for a grand total of A$3/€2. Suspect that's where the restaurants fill up for their 'house wine' offerings - at 25 kunas for a 125ml glass. After lunch we had a stroll around our immediate neighbourhood - far too many jewellery shops was our initial thought. The weather by and large has been cloudy, bit of rain here and there but our first day (and the day we walked the ancient walls) were out of the box, blue sky days. Our first afternoon led into a stunning indigo & pink sunset - a magic way to finish the day indeed.

Thursday saw us exploring the walled city to stock up on groceries. We also patronised the (very) small old town green market - some fresh rocket from somebody's back garden turned out great in with pesto, mushrooms and spinach ravioli. It was good to have a chill out day as we kicked off our Dubrovnik cards first thing Friday morning. The first stop on the agenda was the Fransciscan monastery with it's small Pharmacy museum. The Franciscans arrived in the area in 1234 and this monastery was built inside the walls in 1317. The original pharmacy was designed not just for the friars but also as a public pharmacy and the income provided for the monks' material needs. There is still a pharmacy operating there today - in fact it is the third oldest operating pharmacy in the world. The cloister at the monastery, though small was exquisite and we can see how it is used for respite from the heat and crowds during the intense summer months. Aside from the pharmacy museum, there is a collection of ecclesiatical items and art inside the monastery though for us the most poignant exhibit was the hole in the wall from a mortar shell - inficted during the bombing of Dubrovnik on 6 Dec 1991. That was my first stressful year at university back in Wellington, NZ and despite international condemnation for the destruction of parts of the UNESCO walled city and the deaths of many civilians, I have no recollection of it - I'll blame the final exams. We actually arrived in on the 6th - not realising the significance of the day until that evening when several memorial displays were held - including an audiovisual display with projections on one of the main houses on Stradun/Placa, the main street. It showed the house burning down from an incendiary bomb and played the sound of planes roaring overhead as they dropped the bombs. Quite a contrast to the Christmas lights and markets around town - though, when we think about it, not really. The Serbs and Montenegrins would have been bombing Christmas for real in 1991. Anyway - a very solemn day in Dubrovnik and brought home to us again when we saw the mortar hole in the wall of the monastery. Following the monastery we visited the Marin Drzic House (he was a poet and playwright at the peak of his career when Shakespeare was born - considered to be Croatia's Shakespeare). Next stop took us up quite a few of Dubrovnik's famous stairs to the Rupe Museum - it is one of many granaries from the 16th century when grain was just as valuable as ammunition as there was no way to survive a siege without food. Rupe actually means 'hole' and refers to the massive underground wells carved out of stone and coated with a waterproof material. The state's reserves of wheat, barley and millet were stored at a stable 17 degrees year round. The Ethnographical museum within the old granary was interesting enough - clothes, tools, agriculture etc - just swamped by 100+ kiddies on a school tour. From there is was a quick nip around the Natural History Museum before we headed home for a late lunch and a snooze - all those museums were hard work. We heard some great music coming from the main square about 6 pm so trundled out for a look (the joys of being right in the centre of things). Turned out it was the sound check for Friday's winter festival concert due to start at 9 pm. The guy singing is world famous in Croatia and was their entrant in this year's Eurovision Song Contest - Jaques Houdek - or Mr Voice as he's known locally. We enjoyed the sound check so much we went down again at 9 pm and listened for an hour or more - he didn't finish until 11 but we listened to the rest from the apartment (albeit a bit muffled!) Having had a bit of a sleep in and slow start (it was raining after all), Saturday morning saw us eventually head to the Ravelin Fortress - part of Dubrovnik's mighty walls. It now contains archeological finds from the area - many stone relics of churches that fell to one or the other of the major earthquakes that have hit over the years - the worst being in 1667 when almost the entire city was destroyed and 5000 were killed. The most interesting part of the museum was actually a small exhibition of Roman gold earrings - on loan from the Zagreb Archeological Museum - it felt like we were catching up on something we missed out on in Zagreb. We headed into the Dominican Monastery for a stroll around the cloister (lots of renovation/reconstruction going on) and decided against paying to visit the museum. We insted referred to our 'included' museums and moved on to the Maritime Museum which is housed in St John's Fort (just to add to the confusion, also called St Ivan's Fort). Same place just on the other side of the Old Port. This museum was really very good. It was well set out and truly demonstrated what a great trading and seafaring nation the Republic of Dubrovnik once was - particularly enjoyed seeing the Venetian glass salvaged from various ship wrecks. Our final couple of stops were short - a quick look around a small art gallery (Dulčić-Masle-Pulitika Gallery - named in honour of 3 Croatian artists it almost takes as long to say as it does to visit) and we revisited the Sponza Palace. Currently displaying a photographic exhibition, the palace was built between 1516 and 1522 and was one of the few buildings to survive the earthquake of 1667. It's survival and thus the ability of the Republic of Dubrovnik to continue civil administration in the wake the tragedy ensured the survival of the republic. It's considered a fine example of how much of old Dubrovnik might have looked prior to the earthquake. It has served many public functions over the years including being the customs house and there is a Latin inscription inside - FALLERE NOSTRAVETANT; ET FALL PONDERE: MEQVE PONDERO CVM MERCES PONDERAT IPSE DEUS (We are forbidden to cheat or falsify measures, and when I weigh goods, God himself is weighing them with me). Sponza comes from the Latin 'Spongia' or the spot where rainwater was collected - a former use of the area it was built on. We were chock-full of history by then and wandered down the main street, Stradun, before making lunch at home and relaxing away the rest of the afternoon. There was another 9 pm concert - another world-famous in Croatia legend who's career has spanned 30 years. Didn't turn us on and we came home almost immediately. Fact that it was raining probably didn't help his cause. We needed an early night anyways as (drum roll please), Sunday was going to be a) FINE! and b) the day we were going to walk the walls of Dubrovnik - the absolute, Numero Uno, Number 1 thing to do in this part of the world.

Happy to say the forecast was 100% correct and Sunday dawned bright and clear with blue skies and sunshine going on forever. With a bit of canny investigative work (interrogated the apartment owner's brother-in-law who lives next door), we started at the Ploce city gate with very few stairs compared to the 'main' starting point at Pile gate. This strategy paid off big time! We didn't even see anyone else on the walls for the first 30 minutes of the walk - magic to be able to take pictures as the only people up there. Some consider the cost to be too high - 150 kunas (A$30 / €20) - but every cent is returned to the walls for ongoing maintenance - which face it, with a record 10,000 walkers in one day last summer - would be extreme. The walk itself was fabulous and we're fitter than we realised. Eventually home for lunch after record-breaking photography endeavours then we headed out of the city walls to the fort-next-door - Fort St Lawrence or Fort Lovrijenac. This is usually 50 kunas but included in our walls ticket on the same day. Even higher than the walls and a great spot to look back at our day's accomplishment. The final concert of the weekend was that evening. We just listened from the apartment - tired but happy.

As it turns out we were still tired (and happy) on Monday, so we devoted the day to researching day trips from Dubrovnik and drinking wine from the 'vat-joint' down the road. In the height of the season there would be tour companies tripping over themselves to sell us day tours, but most seem to have evaporated into puffs of smoke. We managed to find a reputable business that actually wanted to do business and have figured we want to go to Montenegro (the towns of Kotor and Budva) and also Bosnia-Herzegovina (the Kravice waterfalls and Mostar - famous for its old bridge). The challenge of course is that we are two people and group tours run with a minimum of 4. And paying for 4 seats for two bottoms would make this a bit more expensive an endeavour (although still economical when you think of it as 2 x overseas trips to foreign countries. Albeit in a car and not actually over any seas and if we actually booked a two person private tour... then that would cost around 8 seats...). Plan of attack? Wait and see...

Well Tuesday dawned cloudy and breezy and we ticked off the final inclusion on our Dubrovnik Cards - the Modern Art Gallery. Small but perfectly formed collection in a large (and perfectly formed) building just a 15 minute waterfront walk from the apartment. We fell in love with Romanian artists last year and Croatia also seems to have some very agreeable painters - there's a new exhibition opening on Thursday evening, so might have to trundle back for a look.

We snuck into the tour office on our way back through town and were ecstatic to find a pair of Australians just then paying for a day tour to Montenegro - Woo Hoo!!! Only needed to pay for the two of us and we're off to Montenegro on Wednesday - another country, here we come!