It is going to be a wet and windy week in Dubrovnik with forecasters predicting southerly winds bringing with them rain and clouds.

After the recent warm and sunny weather, which saw temperatures in the mid twenties, it looks like now Dubrovnik will have its winter coat on. Not a week to forget your umbrella.

Check out the gallery from this weekend by Niksa Duper

The bumper year for the Dubrovnik City Walls is continuing with news that in the first ten months of 2016 one million and eighty thousand tickets for city walls were sold. This is a healthy increase of 11.5 percent when compared to the same period from last year and it is expected that by the end of 2016 1.1 million visitors will have walked the iconic walls, making them by far the most popular attraction in Dubrovnik.

And the society that cares for and controls the walls aren’t resting on their laurels. The secretary of the Association of the Friends of Dubrovnik Antiquities, Niko Kapetanic, has announced that a “new” section of the walls will soon be opened. A walkway from the Minceta Fortress, the highest point on the walls, to the Bokar Fort overlooking the bay of Pile will soon be opened. Works on this new promenade will take around 18 months and the total investment is around 5.5 million Kuna. With this new route guests will be able to experience a different view of the walls.

The number of visitors to the Ston Walls and the Sokol Grad fortress in Konavle has also increased this year. Both of these historic landmarks are also controlled by the society. More than 50,000 people have bought tickets for the walls of Ston in the first ten months of this year, a huge 25 percent increase over last year. And the Sokol Grad fortress has seen 8,000 visitors since the beginning of the year.

Minceta Fortress to have new connection to Bokar Fort 

The Dubrovnik rowing club “Neptun” were followed on their daily training route up the Ombla River by unexpected guests. A group of dolphins tracked the small boat up the river and playfully jumped out of the water right next to the boat.

The skipper seemed quite undeterred by the dolphins interest and is even heard chatting to the dolphins on the video.

IKEA is set to open its second store in Croatia. The Swedish retail chain opened their first store in Croatia near Zagreb in 2014 and now they have confirmed that the second store will be opened in Split.

According to a statement from the company the store in Split should be opened in 2017, however this will not be a classic IKEA store but more of a showroom where customers will be able to order and pick up goods. It is suggested in the press that IKEA will open this showroom in the City Centre One shopping centre in Split.

Whilst shoppers in southern Croatia will be disappointed that they won’t have a classic IKEA store at least they won’t have to drive to the Croatian capital to shop.

Speaking to the Croatian newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija the PR manager of IKEA, Igor Stefanac, commented that “We are opening a delivery centre or ‘pick-up point’, a place where shoppers can order, pay for and pick up their goods. Just under half of the 2,500 m2 space will be used a showroom for the products to inspire customers and visitors.”

If you were planning on visiting Dubrovnik over the winter to experience the Dubrovnik Winter Festival 2016 you might want to change your travel arrangements, the festival has been cancelled.

“The Dubrovnik Winter Festival 2016 will be cancelled, not because I want to, but because of a decision by the Ministry of Culture,” explained the Mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahusic, today at a press conference. Adding that the Ministry of Culture had forbidden the placement of the large tent in front of the St. Blaise Church and the catering stands that lined the Stradun last year. The 2016 Dubrovnik Winter Festival has already been heavily publicized and marketed and had promised to be just as successful as previous years, but all of this work seems like it has been for nothing.

“The festival had brought a smile back to the faces of the citizens and tourists to Dubrovnik in the winter months and returned life to the Old City of Dubrovnik,” commented the mayor, clearly upset with the decision from the ministry. “This year we started preparing as early as March on the festival. We had planned a religious and artistic element to the festival and respected all the ideas from others,” added the mayor.

The Ministry of Culture have banned the festive catering stands along the Stradun in the historic Old City of Dubrovnik as they believe that cooking oil will damage and even block the drains. They did however allow the stands that didn’t prepare food to be installed on the Stradun and had suggested that the food stands be moved out of the Old City.

“In Gruz and Lapad we will do what we can, but the winter festival has been cancelled because no scheduled content on the Stradun and around St. Blaise could be included so there is just no point,” concluded the mayor.

Croatia’s leading marina company ACI Marina has just posted their financial figures for the first nine months of this year and they show a huge profit of 33.2 million Kuna. Even though this total might seem impressive it is in fact a seven percent decrease in net profit when compared to the same period from 2015.

From January to until the end of September ACI Marinas recorded revenue of 165.3 million Kuna, which is around the same amount as in 2015. However spending has increased, possibly due to the opening of the new marina near Dubrovnik in Slano, and the total expenditure was 132.1 million Kuna.

The second highest earning marina in Croatia was ACI Marina Dubrovnik, which raised 18.3 million Kuna in the first nine months of this year. At the top of the earnings list was ACI Marina Split with 18.7 million Kuna.

It would appear that the preparations for the filming of the next blockbuster in Dubrovnik are underway. This afternoon in the Old City of Dubrovnik what appeared to be staff from the production company were spotted measuring all the buildings along the main street in the city, the Stradun. Is this the first signs that the next movie to be shot in Dubrovnik, “Robin Hood: Origins,” produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, will be filmed on the Stradun.

The last Hollywood blockbuster to be filmed in the city was the eighth episode of Star Wars and that proved a headache for the production team and security on such a public street. Filming of Robin Hood in Dubrovnik is planned for early 2017 and a handful of Oscar winners will star, including Jamie Foxx.

Robin Hood: Origins follows the return of Robin Hood fighting in the Crusades and finding that Sherwood Forest is rife with corruption. Robin Hood then forms a band of outlaws and sets about riding the forest of evil, a classic Robin Hood tale but with a twist.

Today it would appeared that the “early” planners for the film were measuring the buildings with a laser and comparing them to notes they had already.

For the first time in the tourism history of Dubrovnik the city has recorded the arrival of the millionth guest! Today in the Hotel Valamar Lacroma Dubrovnik Mirica and Zlatko Matoic from Sesvete, near Zagreb, became the millionth tourists in Dubrovnik this year.

In a gala ceremony to mark this landmark the Mayor of Dubrovnik, Andro Vlahusic, commented that “In 2008, just eight years ago, Dubrovnik recorded 512,000 tourist arrivals, now this year we are celebrating one million.” He added that the city has twice been awarded his year as the champion of tourism and thanked the tourist board and everyone who works in the tourism industry for their hard work.

The couple were presented with gifts from the city, the tourist board as well as a four-night stay in the Hotel Valamar Lacroma for next year. “We decided to come to Dubrovnik for a couple of days as a break and to say that we are surprised to be the millionth tourists is an understatement,” said Mirica Matoic.

The Director of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board, Romana Vlasic, added that “We have never recorded a million tourists in the city before and are overjoyed that this has occurred in the same year that we have won two important tourism awards. As the Valamar group has achieved an impressive number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays it seems logical that this landmark was reached in their hotel.”