Don’t leave home without your umbrella this weekend. After weeks of warm and stable weather the autumn rains are here. The whole weekend will be wet and grey as a southerly wind has brought with it clouds and storms. Temperatures today will reach 16 degrees and on Sunday around 18 degrees, but it will be weekend to enjoy indoors.

Next week, with less than a month left until Christmas, the sunshine and clearer weather will return to Dubrovnik. The start of the week will be cloudy but by Tuesday the sunshine should return and temperatures will hit 15 degrees.

World famous Diego Maradona, accompanied by his girlfriend Rocio Oliva, is in Zagreb to support Argentina in the Davis Cup final. The former football superstar is surprisingly a passionate tennis fan!

While watching the match between Federico Delbonis and Marin Cilic, Maradona was really showing his emotions – he got 'wild' when Delbonis fought back against the Croatian number one. When he tied the match at two sets all. Maradona jumped of joy, but then he suddenly went quiet when Cilic was better in the fifth, decisive set.

For those who don't know Diego Armando Maradona is an Argentine retired professional footballer. He has served as a manager and coach at various clubs as well as the national team of Argentina. Many in the sport, including football writers, players, and fans, regard Maradona as the greatest football player of all time. He was joint FIFA Player of the 20th Century with Pelé.

                                                                                                                                                       Photos by: Tonci Vlasic

Children Winter Festival Orlandino has started today and made Dubrovnik shine outside the City Walls -  in the Gruz Park. The children programme of the Dubrovnik Winter Festival was opened by Mayor of Dubrovnik Andro Vlahusic, accompanied by the performance of primary school students.

- For children this is great fun! – commented Vlahusic.

This year ‘Orlandino’ brings workshops, special holiday film screenings, cake party, Christmas tale with fifteen hundred gifts and much more. The ice skating rink and amusement park were also opened today and will stay that way until January 8.

Most of us have once Googled ''what to see...'' for various countries all over the world. Reddit user nnikolov30 has published a map, based on Google data, which shows the suggestions that you get once you write ''What to see'' in the search engine. 

For example, you must see Sagrada Familia in Spain, Eiffel Tower in France, Church of St. John in Macedonia and in Croatia you shouldn't miss Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the oldest national parks in Southeast Europe and the largest national park in Croatia. In 1979, Plitvice Lakes National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage register.
If you wonder what to see in some other countries just look at the map.

Even the bad weather didn't put off shoppers and tourists to the Old City of Dubrovnik today. The Dubrovnik Winter Festival is in full swing and with a month left until Christmas Day the festive stands along to Stradun are doing a roaring trade.

Today was the first day of rain, although temperatures still reached 18 degrees, since the festival opened and it seemed that the poor weather hadn’t bothered shoppers from visiting the stands.

Check out the rainy day in Dubrovnik photo gallery from Zeljko Tutnjevic

                                                                                                                                                     Photos Zeljko Tutnjevic 

Shopping fever hit Dubrovnik today as Black Friday attracted thousands of shoppers with huge discounts. The American shopping phenomena of Black Friday became popular in Croatia a few years ago but now most shops have got into the swing of this day of sales and offer healthy discounts. TV commercials have been running for the past few days advertising special offers to mark the day.

Every shop in the main shopping centre in Dubrovnik, SUB City, had their own discounts, from 20 to 70 percent. And the chance to save money brought masses of shoppers to the centre. Just the traffic jams to get into the centre stretched for a few hundred metres and it was a challenge to fins an empty space. “This is one of the busiest days of the years so far, the cars keep coming and coming,” commented one of the centre’s security guards. It seems that Black Friday is also now a Croatian shopping tradition.

SUB City has a busy Black Friday 

According to estimates by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), in December this year Croatian citizens will spend a little more than 12 billion Kunas or half a billion more than in December 2015.

Tomislava Ravlic, the assistant director of the HGK Trade sector, commented that products that are frequently bought during the Christmas and New Year holidays are mostly toys and childrens items as well as footwear, clothing and electronic equipment. She also added that the most intensive shopping period is between the 19th and the 24th of December.

''The figures in the last two years show that there is an increase in purchases paid with credit cards in the last quarter. On the other hand, the European trends show that citizens are increasingly turning to domestic products, and therefore I would like to invite everybody to buy Croatian products”, added Ravlic, inviting consumers to give priority to Croatian products and retailers to offer as many local products as possible.

She explained that with the purchase of Croatian products consumption would be encouraged as it is, with exports and investments, one of the most important factors in launching a new business cycle.

The General Director of Dubrovnik Airport, Roko Tolic, has been named the manager of the year for 2016, in the category of public companies, by the Croatian Association of Managers and Entrepreneurs, CROMA.

Along with Tolic another Dubrovnik director is also on the award list for this prestigious recognition, Mario Raic, the Director of the iconic Dubrovnik restaurant group Nautika Ltd. Raic will pick up the best young manager for 2016.

The award ceremony will be held today in the Zagreb hotel, Westin Hotel, at the 26th annual meeting of the CROMA. This will be the 24th time that the Croatian Association of Managers and Entrepreneurs have honoured the most successful managers and entrepreneurs in the category of large, medium, small, public and foreign companies, as well as the prize for the best project managers.

Congratulations to our two Dubrovnik winners.