iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Munich Layover #1 Got 4–5 hours between flights in Munich? Take the S8 into town. Walk around Viktualienmarkt, Hackenviertel and Glockenbach, stop for a good coffee, see the Isar, then head back to the airport. It’s enough for a taste of the city.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Valpolicella through Allegrini: the 2025 Classico, 2024 Superiore, La Grola 2023, Amarone 2021 and Giovanni Allegrini Recioto 2021. A great progression from fresh, cherry-driven Corvina to the depth of appassimento, and a reminder of how much the territory shapes the style.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Un aperçu du réseau de l’aéroport de Luxembourg au S2 2026. Porto reste la 1ère destination malgré le retrait de TAP, tandis que Nice affiche la plus forte croissance du Top 10. L’Espagne dépasse par ailleurs le Portugal et devient le 1er marché international de Findel.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Between the end of World War I and the outbreak of World War II, something went badly wrong. The political, economic and social aftermath was never properly stabilised, helping extremism take hold. Have we really learned how to build peace after war?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The Mecca defence pact may prove significant. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan will treat an attack on one as an attack on all, deepening defence ties between three regional powers. The US remains central. But Mecca suggests they want more options of their own.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Lufthansa is moving away from the CRJ. SWISS is temporarily parking its A220-100s. Meanwhile, Embraer, Airbus or ATR keep producing some good aircraft for regional routes. Are the big airline groups slowly leaving a gap in short-haul regional flying? Opportunity for new entries?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Love staying Accor. Sofitel, Fairmont, Mgallery when you find them. But Nice? Valencia? You get Mercure or Novotel. And it’s just… not the same. You feel the difference immediately. Eventually you stop trying and book someone else instead.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

What would a Luxembourg–New York flight change? For Luxair, it would open a different market. For Luxembourg, could better access to New York strengthen links with US investors and financial institutions? And can the economics make it sustainable? Or Star Alliance strategy?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Romania’s railway revival is visible. New Alstom and PESA trains are entering service, while EU-funded projects are modernising major rail corridors. The bigger test is bureaucracy and political continuity. Can Romania turn this investment into a genuinely modern rail network?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Imagine the world as a theatre with several stages running at once. Each tells a different story: different history, different actors, different consequences. The spotlight moves. The conflicts continue.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

4 a.m. in Bucharest. Cafés are still full. Smoke hangs in the air, glasses are still clinking, clubs are emptying, and more than a few drivers seem to think red lights are optional. Somewhere between midnight and sunrise, this city simply refuses to call it a night.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Delays happen. What shouldn't happen is airports being overwhelmed by crowds everyone knew were coming. Saw the same story in Tivat and Heraklion this summer: long queues, too few staff, frustrated passengers.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Kotor cable car pulls you to 1348 meters in ten minutes. From the top: Byzantine fortifications, hiking routes most tourists miss, views across Kotor, Tivat and the bay. This is infrastructure done right. Study it.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Savina Rose is a good choice in Crna Gora. Better structure than the “classic of the beaches” Whispering Angel. Not sure when comparing with Minuty? Grab it if you see it.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Montenegro’s tourist board counts Serbs, Brits, Germans. What it doesn’t advertise: only 12,000 Russians are officially registered, real estimates run to 100,000, most renewing their 30-day stamp with a border hop to Belgrade. Interesting mix, and interesting how it’s evolving.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Everyone’s debating who the next “Asian Tiger” is. Wrong question. Morocco isn’t repeating the export-industrialization playbook, it’s building something narrower: automotive, aerospace, batteries, layered onto agriculture that still swings with the rain. I’m in on Morocco, reform risk and all.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Chardonnay from Storia di Pietra, Mirac, up at 670 metres above Kotor bay. Family winery, vines planted higher than most in the region bother going. Five months on the lees, still tight, still young. Worth the drive up from the coast?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Week-end de villages en Champagne. Hautvillers, où travaillait Dom Pérignon. Verzy, grand cru, un monde à part, l’un des tout premiers terroirs achetés par la Veuve Clicquot elle-même. Et Le Gallais, dans le clos du château qu’elle a fait construire, à quelques kilomètres de là.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Luxembourg has plenty of good restaurants. What it’s missing is somewhere to just sit outside with a coffee or a glass of wine and not feel like you’re supposed to order dinner. Paris does this better, a terrace and one espresso can stretch for two hours without anyone minding.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Lost count of how many concerts are on in Luxembourg this month. Tax substance, love of music, probably both, who’s to say. Every venue from Rockhal to den Atelier seems to have something on, and the neighbours keep showing up too.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

J’ai parcouru la cave aujourd’hui. Surtout du Bordeaux, avec beaucoup de seconds vins comme Giscours et Beychevelle, les millésimes 2020 et 2021 faisant l’essentiel. C’est le genre de cave qu’on construit quand on achète du vin pour le boire plutôt que pour le montrer.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Revu “L’Été 36” ce soir. Et comme toujours, Nice refait surface. Les vieilles pierres, la lumière, ce charme un peu fatigué qui reste quand même. Je sais que j’y serais déçu, la Promenade envahie, la ville qui grince. Mais les bons souvenirs, eux, ne grincent pas.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Luxembourg, a country of 700,000 people, fluent in four languages and positioned between Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris, could be setting the agenda for the next decade of European governance, climate finance or digital regulation. Instead it watches. Vision costs political capital.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

France, 42°C in Bordeaux, schools shut across half the country, people dying in makeshift heatwave relief centers. Last year, similarly. The year before that. Scientists have been saying it for years, every summer, same warning. The trend is hard to ignore.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Beautiful resorts, crumbling infrastructure. Greece, Albania, parts of Italy taking tourism for granted while the money flows in. Goodwill and good weather are not a business model.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Vill Gléck, Lëtzebuerg. 🇱🇺 Flags out, streets calm. And somewhere between the celebration, a thought about what it actually takes to keep this place worth living in.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

SpaceX carries a $350 billion valuation on the back of government contracts and Starlink subscriptions. The products that would actually justify that number remain firmly in the pipeline. Which is to say, nowhere near a revenue line. The engineering is genuine but the valuation?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Three Macedonian bottles I’d open again without thinking. A crisp white from Kir Yianni, a proper pale rosé from La Tour Melas, and Alpha Estate’s single-vineyard Hedgehog — yes, that’s the name. All 2025. All doing exactly what summer wine should do.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Halkidiki draws a different crowd than the islands. It is still mostly for the Balkans, Greeks and regulars. The water is the same. The feeling isn’t.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Taking trains in the Balkans and Eastern Europe is a good reminder that many of us live in a bubble. We like to talk about the potential of rail. But most of the time, the reality is rude people, aging infrastructure, and a system far from the idealized version people imagine online.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

A weekend in Valencia was enough to understand why people keep coming back. The old centre, the Turia gardens, the City of Arts and Sciences and the long beaches somehow fit together better than they should. My only real challenge was surviving the amount of aioli served with almost everything.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Dans une petite salle, encore avec le goût du crémant, Les Rayons et les Ombres m’a surtout frappé par ces scènes où l’on continue à boire du champagne pendant que la guerre est là, comme si le confort pouvait tenir lieu de morale, et Dujardin joue cette ambiguïté avec une aisance assez troublante.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Early May, following Via Mosel between vineyards and villages where the link between wine and place actually holds. At Jeff Konsbruck, I had a crémant, balanced, fresh, easy to drink there, with the vines just in front. Prost!

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

A lot of AI specialists talk about extinction as if the future can still be imagined with today’s human mind. But that may be the real limit. AI will probably bring amazing and horrible things, just not necessarily the ones our human minds are currently able to picture.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

We were at dinner with friends and they picked this Gevrey-Chambertin Jeunes-Rois from Frédéric Magnien. Didn’t know what to expect but it turned out to be a very good call. Clean, precise Pinot Noir and one of those bottles that disappears faster than planned.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Mircea Lucescu… I remember that strange chaos when Rapid won the title. Then watching Serie A just because a Romanian was on Inter’s bench. Later, seeing the respect he had in Turkey and Ukraine. And that hug from Hakan Çalhanoğlu in his last match in Istanbul… it said everything.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Ce matin dans les bouchons, sous une chaleur déjà lourde, la poussière flotte et la fumée s’attarde comme un voile. Entre les voitures, des silhouettes passent, certaines rient, d’autres attendent sans hâte. Gabon, Cameroun ou Côte d’Ivoire, peu importe, la scène se répète.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Found this Château Le Coteau Margaux 2019 Cuvée Graveline at the airport and took it home out of curiosity. A small family estate still run independently in the heart of Margaux. Opened it later with a friend and it delivered that classic Margaux elegance.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

I walked through Luxembourg city centre while the sun was still out. I expected the usual calm, but I mostly noticed protests, tense groups and fewer relaxed faces. Maybe the city is changing, maybe it was just one evening, but I left with a strange feeling.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Château Pichon Baron Pauillac 2020. From young vines at Pichon Baron and Tour Pibran. Mostly Merlot with Cabernet Sauvignon aged 12 months in barrel and made to show fruit earlier than the grand vin. Had it at a fancy restaurant with friends and a filet de boeuf.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Watching Spielberg’s film Munich, about Israel’s covert response to the 1972 attack, I was struck by how it frames revenge as state policy carried out by intelligence services. With tensions around Iran now moving from threats to strikes, the film feels less like history and more like a manual.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

The war around Iran was never going to stay contained. Tehran striking Gulf countries that host US forces is not shocking. What is the purpose? Escalation, miscalculation, or a warning to neighbours who rely on Washington and Israel for protection? The region just became far less predictable.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

GovSatCom 2026 in Luxembourg. Less abstract talk about “future capabilities”, more focus on what needs to work in practice: secure links, interoperability, resilience. For Luxembourg, hosting this every year is not ceremonial. It shows how deeply space and security are now tied to its positioning.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

First time in Köln. February weekend. Brunch at Whites was the highlight. Mondial Hotel efficient in a very German way. Café Reichard exactly what you expect facing the Dom. 4711 surprisingly interesting. Fancy dinner near the cathedral, correct but forgettable. Mostly just walking.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I grew up with Michael Schumacher on Sundays, so visiting his collection at Motorworld Köln felt different. The cars are just there, static but amazing. Seeing the helmets up close makes you realise how much of your sense of competition and focus was shaped by those races.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

It’s strange how quickly parts of Europe stall under fairly normal winter conditions. Snow and freezing temperatures are not exceptional events. They used to slow things down, not expose how thin the margins are. What changed in the way we organise and run things?

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Walked through Belair under the snow tonight. The streets were empty, the houses perfectly aligned, the playground ship looking slightly absurd in all that white. Everything neat, everything controlled, everything quieter than usual. Ganz roueg. Even the silence here feels well organised.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Schumacher-Knepper Elysium from Wintrange in Luxembourg shows what the Mosel can actually do with red. A blend of Merlot and Pinotage aged 13 months in oak. I followed the domaine’s advice and waited five years and tonight it meets a proper boeuf bourguignon. Dat huet sech gelount.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Being a matchmaker in Luxembourg is mostly asking “wait, how do you two not already know each other?” Between brunch in Limpertsberg, afterworks in Clausen, and someone’s ex working in Kirchberg, the city does half the job for you. The other half is pretending it’s all destiny.

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Dejan @frombalkantoletz.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Just finished The Fund about Ray Dalio and I’m mostly annoyed at myself. Picked it for the title expecting insight into markets. Instead it’s largely corporate dysfunction and personality drama. Strong journalism maybe, but not the finance depth I was looking for.

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