After a flight from Dubrovnik to Stansted we are now on our 11th and final train of our travels.

It has obviously been much quicker to fly most of the journey home but we both feel it has been so much more interesting to travel the slow way and see and experience more closely the countries we have visited.

In London we only just managed to squeeze passed a hungry looking dinosaur to pick up the train north.

What has been going on in the UK since we’ve been away?!

On Sunday evening we were enticed into the Church Rosario for a performance of the Dubrovnik Chamber Duo. Pero Škobalj on guitar and Jakov Kakarigi on the flute and piccolo played a programme including music by Dowland, Bach, Mozart, Carulli and Albeniz. The guitarist was excellent and won a standing ovation for the beauty and passion of his playing.

Today, a last wander within the old city was filled with more music and visual art. A choir of children sang a song of the sea on the steps of St Blaise Church; in the gallery of Naive Art the wooden sculpture of a woman and child had the intimacy of a pieta; whilst in Bunin Square an artist was preparing large boards to advertise an exhibition ‘Skriveni Trečento’ (hidden 14th century art).

I had chatted with the artist about our similar respect for Mary Magdalen and was about to leave when a figure in costume walked past; a nice completion of the circle of audio visual art as I am pretty sure he was playing the role of a character from the TV production of Game of Thrones which had partly been filmed here in Dubrovnik.

We spent the day on the water aboard a small boat sailing to three of the Elaphite islands. The Elaphites is a small archipelago consisting of several islands stretching northwest of Dubrovnik, in the Adriatic sea.

On Lopud we enjoyed a good walk across the island to the eastern beach of Šunj. The walk gave us time to enjoy the birdsong, forest path, wildflowers and bright yellow and orange butterflies. Unlike most of Croatia’s beaches which are stoney, this was a sandy beach with great swimming on offer.

Our second island was Šipan the largest of the Elaphiti Islands, where we had time to wander a little and watch a sea kayak group coming back in to shore.

The third island we stopped at was Koločep. It was quiet and very peaceful. Koločep is the southernmost inhabited island in Croatia and is locally known as Kalamota.

The Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik is an airy, limestone building with a generosity of space for displaying the work of early 20th century Croatian artists as well as artists of today.

My attention was grabbed by a colourist painting, Fire on the Island by Ivo Dulčić (1970). It took my thoughts thousands of miles away to the rivers of molten lava flowing down the streets of Hawaii.

It was a delight to meet up with more of Ivan Meštrović’s sculptures in the form of A Vestal, a rather contemplative piece (1917) in the midst of war, and Distant Sounds (1918) an intimate portrayal of the power of music for the soul.

Swifts are high on the wing here, and we took the hint and sought high vantage points from which to view Dubrovnik and the backdrop of the Dalmatian mountains.

From Fort Imperial, high on the hill behind the city, we had a bird’s eye view of the layout of streets and buildings contained within the 9th century defensive walls.

We watched sobering footage of the early 90’s defence of the city at the Homeland War Museum housed within the fort. The holding of the fort by largely local military and police was a hugely significant event in the overall outcome of the war.

This morning our walk along the massive city walls brought us closer to the rooftops and gardens of those who live in this beautiful place … including the dogs, cats, birds and geckos for whom Dubrovnik is also sanctuary and home.

May this city remain a place of peace.

The four and a half hour sailing from Split to Dubrovnik, calling in at the islands of Brač, Hvar, Korčula and Mljet, was the most lovely journey under a sunny sky.

We were both excited to see Dubrovnik and our first sight of the impressive walls of the city was only bettered when we entered through Pile Gate and saw the stunning white stone of the buildings and streets of the old city before us.

After the extensive damage it received during the homeland war in 1991-92, the city has been restored with much care. It is a beautiful place with a relaxed and open feel.

We found our room in one of the steep, stepped streets in the north east quarter of the city. A long wander inside the ramparts offered us views of hidden lanes and courtyards including a basketball court with some guys getting a bit of shooting practice. We reckoned their view of the ramparts and the Adriatic constituted the best view from any basketball courts we had ever seen!

This was a day to practice stillness; for seeing the life around, for feeling the warmth of the sun and the breeze off the water; a day for swimming, reading, gentle walking and for saying ‘hvala’ and ‘doviđenja’ to Split.

The Cathedral of Sveti Duje, occupying what was once Emperor Diacletion’s Mausoleum, was inaugurated in the 8th century as a Christian church and became a cathedral in the mid 10th century.

The sweeping views over the port and palace from the adjoining bell tower are worth the climb. At the bottom of the tower there is a stone relief depicting Mary giving Jesus a bath. I don’t recall ever seeing such an image before.

In the baptistery nearby, once a Temple of Jupiter, there is a fine panel relief of the Croatian King Zvonimir, an impressively carved stone ceiling and a powerful bronze of John the Baptist sculpted by Ivan Meštrović.

Later in the day we watched a storm roll in with roaring thunder and magnificent lightning. The gentle Adriatic we view from where we are staying was suddenly a snarl of crashing waves.

We took a ferry to the small island of Trogir, founded in the 3rd century BCE by Greek settlers and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

The pace of life on the island was aptly portrayed by the tortoises in the cloister garden of the Dominican church. Caught up in this slow rhythm we lingered over coffee and lunch with friends and then explored the particularly narrow streets of the old town with their hidden courtyards and beautiful balconied buildings.

We loved the glorious Venetian style architecture of the Primary school with its pale Dalmatian limestone. In order for the school to accommodate the number of children on the island there are two shifts a day. The first shift starts at 8 o’clock in the morning and finishes between 12.30 and 1pm. The afternoon shift starts at 2pm and finishes at 7pm. Teachers work shifts too!

The day began wending our way through the narrow streets of what used to be the Roman emperor Diocletian’s palace in Split, built for his retirement in 305AD. It is said we have him to thank for being the originator of the concept of retirement.

The palace was abandoned at the end of the Ancient Roman era and within its walls a town developed. The buildings of that time are pretty much what you see today.

From the 7th century the town became a sanctuary for those fleeing conflict or persecution in the surrounding area.

We loved the tiny chapel built into the sentries’ walkway above the Golden Gate. It is beautifully simple with a lovely acoustic (we sang Ubi Caritas a chant from the Taizé community).

We admired the recycling of the head of one of the twelve black granite sphinges from ancient Egypt that once guarded the emperor’s tomb but which had been purloined to poke out of the wall of someone’s kitchen!