The Croatians have been busy rebuilding stuff that the Yugoslavians bombed during the war. Nowhere is this more evident than in Dubrovnik. When you walk into any of the gates to the walled old city there are maps showing where buildings were hit by bombs and shrapnel, and where buildings burnt down. We did the walk around the top of the city wall which gives a great view of the city. It is also clear the extent that repairs had to be done, as there is a distinct difference between the old tiled roofs and the ones that have been repaired. We're not 100% up to speed with what the war was about, and why the Croatians were involved, but we plan to try and find out...eventually. If anyone wants to drop us an email briefly explaining it that would be cool, and save us searching it out or getting beat up by locals when we ask them.

When we got off the ferry in Dubrovnik we were accosted by about 30 people offering us accomodation, which we expected, and we planned to take one of them up on their offer, but it was pretty full on. At one point we had been chatting to a couple of the old ladies, then they started arguing with each other in Croatian so we just snuck off to find someone else. We ended up in a great room with a terrace overlooking the port. We were pretty much living in a house with an old lady who spoke no English. She was very interested in every meal we cooked in her kitchen (nachos, pasta, omelette) and tried to help. She even did our dishes for us. It was great.

The beach was really nice here. Fairly pebbly, but the water was really warm and clear. Not a sea urchin in sight. The old town was pretty typical of the stuff we've seen over the last month or so, nice little alleys and churches everywhere. The wall walk was probably the highlight though. A great way to look around the whole town.

We've decided that it's too hard to get to Greece, and we've heard that Montenegro is nice, so we're headed to Budva in Montenegro next. Then we plan to go to Bosnia and have a look at Sarejevo (which everyone says is really great) and probably Mostar too before we catch our plane in Split.