Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik. Did I mention Dubrovnik? You don’t need to go anywhere else in Croatia, just go straight to Dubrovnik.

Again, I walked across the border where I managed to find a taxi. On the road to Dubrovnik, we saw a broken-down rental car, so we stopped. The man, who was Scottish, said the car wouldn’t start. The taxi driver, who didn’t speak any English, pointed to the car and said “diesel!” Upon hearing this, the Scot realized he’d put regular gas into his diesel rental car, which is why it wasn’t starting. His wife looked at him like this was his 800th mistake of their trip. My taxi driver said “no problem” and drove away. Then he got on his cell phone and called someone. I heard him say “Blah blah blah benzina, blah blah blah diesel, blah blah blah kaput.” Then he nodded at me, indicating they would be rescued.

I spent four lovely days there, bumped into a few thousand Americans (they’re buying up all the real estate), went sea kayaking around an island, took a day and went to Bosnia and enjoyed hanging out in this wonderful old city. Felt a bit like being back in Jerusalem. I stayed with a lovely oldish woman named Mellie, who rented me a room, blew cigarette smoke in my face, and told me stories of the war. Eighty percent of the town was shelled – almost all the roofs are new. Even though it’s overrun by Americans and the restaurants are mediocre, it’s a very special place.

This weekend there will simultaneous partying involving parades, masked mischief, beads, babes, and drinking going on all over the nominally catholic world. To get the skinny, take a gander at the latest episode of The Map, where Liza runs down some of the world’s top Carnival spots, and hits up a German “Karneval” party right here in New York. For some extra goodness, take a look at other carnival videos from our archive. Here’s a clip about Rio’s Samba school parade, and a list of the cities most famed for their pre-Lent madness:



– Basel, Switzerland
– Binche, Belgium
– Cologne, Germany
– Mobile, Alabama
– New Orleans, Louisiana
– Patras, Greece
– Port of Spain, Trinidad
– Rijeka, Croatia
– Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Sitges, Spain
– Viareggio, Italy
– Venice, Italy

Endless Europe is a web-based reality series, chronicling the adventures of two backpackers and two crew members who did an eight-week jaunt across Europe this July and August. The three Canadians and one American, none older than 23, made the classic post-college circuit of party capitals like London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Prague, as well as newer destinations like Tallinn and Dubrovnik, and hit up the World Cup in Germany for good measure. There’s a map of their whole trip here. The series debuted on October 1, and, to date, there are 12 episodes on their website, EndlessEurope, that cover the crew’s travels to the UK and Germany (you can see the first seven right here on Travelistic). The site was initially used to generate interest in the project through a contest to choose the two hosts, and now has downloadable versions of each episode, and bios and blogs for each of the cast members, where you can get a preview of the mishaps and drunken hijinks to come.