Contents: (1) Model of a lateral quantum dot system (2) Thermally-activated conduction: onset of the Coulomb blockade oscillations and Coulomb blockade peaks at low temperature (3) Activationless transport through a blockaded quantum dot: inelastic and elastic co-tunneling (4) Kondo regime in transport through a quantum dot: effective low-energy Hamiltonian; linear response; weak coupling regime; strong coupling regime; beyond linear response; splitting of the Kondo peak in a magnetic field; Kondo effect in quantum dots with large spin.