I met Jesus and Father Christmas in Dubrovnik

I found this (large) painting of Christ in an out of the way gallery up a small side street, on the floor at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Jan and I were the only people in the gallery. It stopped me in my tracks as I gazed into those eyes full of love, but which seem to express the agony of the cross.
I found Father Christmas in one of the main streets, outside The Christmas Shop. It was full of tourists, as indeed was the whole old town. The sign around his neck told me there were 166 days to Christmas.
I think the graffiti on a wall at the top of some steps overlooking the town probably sum up how I feel about Dubrovnik.
We sought sanctuary outside the city walls in a quiet cafe/bar by the sea. For the second day in succession I've chatted to American tourists. In spite of heavy US involvement in helping to stop the Balkan wars of the 1990's, including the siege of Dubrovnik, both were largely ignorant of what happened here. I tried to share pastor Jeton's (from the church we will  be coming alongside next week in Kosova) remarkable journey of forgiveness for those who murdered his father - along with hundreds of others - in an ethnic cleansing massacre 20 years ago. Neither was interested, sadly.
Picturesque, though.

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