A picture I snapped while in Dubrovnik, Croatia last summer appears on page 158 of the Aug. 2007 issue of Travel + Leisure, on newsstands near you. It's a cropped version of the pic below of the Buza bar which hangs on the side of the cliffs outside the city walls. I've had a few pics in magazines before, but they were mostly cycling pictures in odd European magazines I'd never heard of. This one comes with a paycheck which counts at some sort of mini-milestone.

I don't get anything if you buy the magazine, but I picked up a copy for posterity's sake and it looks to be a useful issue for travelers as it features their annual World's Best Awards.

I highly recommend Dubrovnik. I meant to write about it after the trip but I was having too much fun just traveling, and then I got back and school started, and now it resides in my brain as a happy memory, one that triggers a smile whenever I jab it. Dubrovnik is the choice for Europeans when they want to get away for a vacation and hide from the hordes or summer tourists descending on their hometowns.

Derek and I had just finished our Eastern European travels when I left for Dubrovnik where I was to meet up with Jason and family. On arriving at my hotel, I took a bus into town. Jason and I'd loosely agreed over e-mail to meet at an Internet bar outside city walls. Even so, there's something special when it works out in a foreign country, when you can't just call each other up over a cell phone (is this how we had to meet up in the days before mobile phones?).

I was walking up to the cafe when a newly shorn Jason called out to me on the sidewalk. He'd already been there a night or two, and the first stop he took me was Buza bar. We sat down on the balcony (if you look at my photo below, we were sitting at the open table that's just above the guy in the blue shirt on the steps) to catch up over a beer. The Buza is rumored to be a favorite of folks like Bill Gates when they're in town. Looking out on the ocean with the crisp air brushing past my face, an ancient castle city above my head, and an ice cold Eastern European lager in my hand, I couldn't help but think it was one of the truly epic bars in the world.

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