Aquatika Freshwater Aquarium Prepares Special Program for this Weekend
May 21, 2021 - A special program was prepared by the Aquatika Freshwater Aquarium Karlovac every day this weekend, to celebrate different but special occasions.
Turistickeprice.hr reports that, to mark the Day of the Natura 2000 ecological network, which is celebrated today, the Croatia Nature Protection Day on Saturday, May 22, and the World Turtle Day, on Sunday, May 23, the Public Institution Aquatika Freshwater Aquarium Karlovac have prepared a special program.
Credit: Aquatika Freshwater Aquarium Karlovac Facebook Page
Natura 2000 is an ecological network made up of areas across the European Union inhabited by animal and plant species that are endangered, vulnerable, or on the verge of extinction for various reasons. The European Union has established the Natura 2000 ecological network, and all members of the European Union are obliged to protect such endangered habitats and animal species.
The goal of the ecological network is to preserve or restore favorable conditions for more than a thousand endangered and rare species and for about 230 natural and pre-natural habitat types. This ecological network includes about 20% of the territory of the European Union, or about 27,500 areas, which makes it the largest system of preserved areas in the world. The Natura 2000 site has its own special day, and it is May 21st. On this day, in 1992, the European Habitats Directive and the LIFE Program were approved. With the Birds Directive, they form the basis for the European Natura 2000 network.
To commemorate the day the United Nations adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992, May 22 is celebrated as International Day for Biological Diversity. All signatory countries to the Convention, including Croatia, have committed themselves to take the measures necessary for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. This day is also celebrated in Croatia as Nature Protection Day.
On the Aquatika Square and on the promenade created within the project "Encounter with the River", the Karlovac Freshwater Aquarium is organizing an event as part of the "Spring in Karlovac" event. Thus, on Saturday, May 22, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., educational animation for children will be organized on Aquatika Square. The topic will be the biological diversity of our rivers and nature protection. On the promenade, three educators with two holograms and a stand with promotional materials will promote the ecological network Natura 2000 and educate visitors.
Credit: Aquatika Freshwater Aquarium Karlovac Facebook Page
Aquatika will mark another important day, World Turtle Day on Sunday. On that occasion, they will have turtle feeding with education about their life habits, as well as the artistic expression on the topic of turtles.
For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
Split-Dalmatia County Tourism Workers' Vaccination On June 5
May 21, 2021 - The fight against COVID-19 continues before the start of the season, and it is time for Split-Dalmatia County tourism workers' vaccination.
As reported by hrturizam.hr, the Split-Dalmatia County Institute of Public Health invites all tourism workers who have been vaccinated with the first dose of vaccine on May 8 and 15 to come for vaccination on June 5, by the hour they were ordered for their first time.
It is important to note that a gap is required between two doses of vaccine three to six weeks so that all employees who received the first dose of vaccine in the above terms can come for the second dose of the vaccine.
All tourism staff who did not receive the first dose of vaccine can also come that day at the Spaladium Arena from 13:00 to 14:00.
“Vaccination of tourism workers is of great importance for achieving the health security of the destination. This is the most challenging tourist year so far and the responsibility for the achieved results is on each individual, so we invite all tourism workers to be part of the joint creation of the image of Split as a safe tourist destination," said Alijana Vukšić, director of the Split Tourist Board.
According to koronavirus.hr, 25.7% of the total population of Split-Dalmatia county has received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 7.8% have received both doses as of May 20th.
Apart from the tourism workers, all citizens or residents of Croatia can be vaccinated against COVID-19. Vaccines are not intended for children under 16 or 18 years of age, and the vaccination age depends on the type of vaccine. However, due to the higher risk of developing more severe forms of COVID-19 disease, preference is given to people with chronic diseases and the elderly. These include people with respiratory, cardiovascular, malignant, kidney diseases, diabetes, and immunodeficiencies.
You can apply for vaccination by reporting to your family doctor, via the website cijepise.zdravlje.hr, by calling the toll-free number 0800 0011, and through county public health institutes.
For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of testing centers and vaccination points up and down the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.
Ban Josip Jelačić Death Anniversary Commemorated This Weekend in Zaprešić
May 21, 2021 - Yesterday marked the Ban Josip Jelačić death anniversary, and the Zaprešić Tourism Board has prepared a series of activities to celebrate its most famous inhabitant.
The 162nd anniversary of the death of Ban Josip Jelačić will be marked by the Tourist Board of the City of Zaprešić on Saturday and Sunday, May 22 and 23, with a special and interesting program for all generations.
As turistickeprice.hr reports, the program that celebrates the Ban Josip Jelačić death anniversary will be held in the New Palace of Ban Jelačić, and all visitors will have the opportunity to meet the Ban, the Jelačić family, and New Palace through themed guided tours and interesting stories brought to them by costumed characters from the Ban era.
In addition to interesting walks, the Tourist Board is organizing a new fun-educational workshop for boys and girls. Through play, fun, and education, and under the watchful eye of the animators, they will spend one typical day on Ban’s estate. While the children will explore the property, parents can relax and enjoy the beautiful ambiance of the Jelačić New Palace.
Credit: Zaprešić Tourist Board
This will be an opportunity for the Tourist Board of the City of Zaprešić on Saturday, May 22, to present an educational and entertaining guide for the youngest visitors of the New Palace, as well as the project "Come to Zaprešić". And the performance of the Honorary Company of the Tie Regiment, which will present its program with horses and honor guards, is especially pleasing.
Sunday also brings a guided walk through the streets of the ‘‘City of Zaprešić Love; they also make them from the pages of the novel”, and reveals interesting details of Zaprešić's love stories. In addition to the already well-known tours of the New Courts, don't miss two new guided themed walks called "The Night When the Sky Wept for the Ban" and "Walk through the Ban's Legacy".
During the weekend of May 22 and 23, the Museum and the Tourist Information Center will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and admission to the Matija Skurjeni Museum will be free for all visitors.
On Saturday, May 22, the Tie Regiment will pay tribute to Ban Jelačić by laying wreaths and candles, and the Zaprešić Tourist Board invites all visitors to pay homage to the Ban with flowers and candles, thus expressing gratitude and respect for the great of Croatian history.
For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
Osijek to Get Underpass, 13 Buses in Bid to Improve Public Transport System
ZAGREB, 21 May 2021 - Agreements on EU-funded grants for the construction of an underpass and for the procurement of 13 new buses for public transportation system in Osijek were signed on Friday in that eastern Croatian city.
In attendance at the ceremony was Prime Minister Andrej Plenković who said that the 93-million-kuna underpass in S. Leopolda Bogdana Mandića Street would reduce traffic jams in that part of the city.As high as 85% of this investment will be covered by the European Union's funds while the remaining 15% will be covered by the state budget.
Also, 32 million kuna will be set aside for the procurement of 13 new buses for public transportation. The 85% of the amount is also covered by funds from the EU.
All these projects are part of our policy which we have been pursuing since 2016 as part of the "Slavonia, Baranja and Srijem" project, and we have contracted 17.7 billion kuna under that programme, Plenković said.
The outgoing mayor Ivan Vrkić said that during his two mayoral terms, HRK 1.6 billion had been invested in Osijek since Croatia joined the European Union.
(€1 = HRK 7.508080)
For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
Green Activists, Some Opposition MPs Slam Low Carbon Transition Strategy
ZAGREB, 21 May 2021 - Several activists of the Green Action gathered outside the national parliament on Friday to express their dissatisfaction with the strategy for low carbon development, which was presented to lawmakers on Friday morning.
The document which was today on the parliament's agenda has neither vision nor ambition. We consider it a failure, said the Green Action NGO leader Luka Tomac.
Tomac said that the scientific community had been warning for 20 years that Croatia had 10 years to make a turnaround in its climate policy, however, the document showed that the government was not inclined to make such plans and postponed the climate action for the period after 2030.
Activist Marija Mileta said that the strategy envisaged investments, import, and further development of fossil fuels even until 2050.
Opposition lawmakers say the document is outdated
During the parliamentary debate on the document, lawmakers from the Opposition parties said that the strategy was outdated.
Some said that the strategy lacked the courage to make headway.
For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
PM Says COVID Travel Pass Important for Croatia as a Tourist Destination
ZAGREB, 21 May 2021 - Agreement on introducing an EU-wide COVID travel pass was welcomed by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Friday, who said that Croatia strongly pushed for the agreement on this document designed to facilitate free movement for work and tourism across the bloc.
The European Parliament confirmed on Thursday that a deal had been reached between the EP, Portugal which is the current chair of the Council of the EU and the European Commission on EU Digital COVID certificate the travel pass with the EU's 27 member states.
The certificate will include information about vaccination, tests, and recovery from the disease. EU citizens will be able to obtain the pass if they have, at least, one of the three elements.
The official name of the travel pass will be "EU Digital COVID certificate" and it will have a physical and digital version and will work through a QR code.
Applying those certificates is very important for Croatia, notably for its tourist trade, Plenković said today in Osijek.
The regulation about certificates is set to take effect in early July.
Plenković said that the COVID-19 epidemic was slowly ebbing away in Croatia.
He said that Croatia was ready to handle the technical processing of the data concerning the recovery, vaccination, and negative tests.
Those with one vaccine dose will be able to apply for the pass. But only vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will be accepted. As of today, the vaccines green-lighted by the European Medicines Agency are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson).
For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of testing centres and vaccination points up and down the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.
Children up to Age 12 to Enter Croatia Without Negative Test - Jutarnji List
ZAGREB, 21 May 2021 - Children up to the age of 12 will be able to travel to Croatia without a negative test to coronavirus, which is now required for children over the age of seven, Jutarnji List daily said on Friday.
The decision of the national COVID-19 crisis management team to allow as of April all vaccinated persons to cross the border without quarantine or testing was very important for domestic tourism, but as the season approaches, the sector is aware that there are still many obstacles to achieving significant tourist turnover.
The most significant obstacle refers to children aged 7-16 entering the country. They cannot be vaccinated because the vaccines have so far been registered for persons over the age of 16, and yet they are not in the group of people who would be exempted from quarantine or getting a PCR test.
According to domestic regulations, all children up to the age of seven are exempted from the obligation to present a test, a certificate of recovery from COVID-19 or a certificate of vaccination when crossing the border, which will make it much more difficult or expensive for all foreign tourists with older children to come to Croatia in the summer.
Several domestic tourist associations have sent an initiative to the Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ) about ten days ago to exempt all children under the age of 12 from the obligation to get tested when crossing the border to make it easier for tourists to enter the country this season.
Last year, according to data from the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ), children aged 7-16 generated 890,000 arrivals and slightly over seven million overnight stays, which is 16% of the 43,000,000 overnight stays generated by foreign tourists last year.
Children aged 7-16 account for a sixth of the overnight stays generated by foreign tourists in Croatia, and taking into account that those children have two parents accompanying them, the implications for domestic tourism, if the conditions do not change, could be drastic, Jutarnji List said.
For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centers up and down the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and choose your preferred language.
Croatia's Coronavirus Update: 525 New Cases, 28 Deaths, 948 Recoveries
ZAGREB, 21 May (Hina) - Of 5,829 tests performed for coronavirus in Croatia in the last 24 hours, 525 (9%) have returned positive, the national COVID-19 crisis management team reported on Friday.
The COVID-related death toll has risen by 28 to 7,856.
Currently, there are 4,633 active cases including 1,331 hospitalised patients of whom 131 are placed on ventilators.
Also, 16,591 people are self-isolating.
Since the first registered case of the infection with coronavirus on 25 Februar 2020, nearly 1.96 million tests for coronavirus have been performed. They have shown that 353,217 people have caught the virus, and of them, 340,728 have recovered to date, including 948 recoveries in the last 24 hours.
Since the start of the implementation of the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan, more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been administered.
Thus, 1,149,941 people have been given at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine and of them 357,412 have been fully vaccinated.
The share of the inoculated population is 28.3%, and when it comes to the adult population, 34.2% of them have got vaccinated to date.
For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centers up and down the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and choose your preferred language.
Checking in with Dubrovnik Digital Nomads-in-Residence – Nomad Partners
May 21, 2021 – We have been covering the Dubrovnik Digital Nomads-in-Residence program for some time now, focusing on the digital nomads themselves. We’ve decided to catch up with the nomad partners as well and find out about their Dubrovnik experience.
The Dubrovnik Digital Nomads-in-Residence program gathered ten digital nomads from various corners of the world. They have been working hard to give their input in an effort to create a strategic direction for Dubrovnik. This program was created by Saltwater Nomads in partnership with Total Croatia News, with crucial help from the City of Dubrovnik and Dubrovnik Tourist Board. During the four-week-long program, design thinking workshops are used to define the perfect image of a digital nomad-friendly Dubrovnik.
With all the emphasis on what digital nomads need in a destination, it is easy to forget many of them do not travel alone. Six of the nomads in the DNiR program have their partners with them. Whether or not a destination is attractive to their partners will undoubtedly play an important role in the decision to move there. We’ve gathered our digital nomad partners and did short interviews with all of them. It was very interesting to hear their stories. Much like the digital nomads themselves, their partners are a very diverse group. Some of them are digital nomads themselves, while some are using the time in Croatia to rest and re-charge. All of them love being in Dubrovnik, but all of them also have their comments on how to improve the offer.
The Interviews
Nicki is a digital nomad as well as his partner Kaisu who is one of the digital nomads in residence. He is often seen at the Lazareti co-working space making sure he stays on top of his work while staying in Dubrovnik
"...in determining whether to go somewhere or not, for us it's always about: Is there something to do? Is there a community? Is there something we can learn from? Is it an inspiring place?"
Jeff is here with his wife Marlee and they are both digital nomads in the broadcasting industry. Their needs are similar, but they also want to spend quality time in a nice location when working remotely.
"...meeting the people has been the highlight. Getting to know someone other just - 'Hi, How are you? Here are the keys to your home.- We've actually gotten to know people and spend time and talk...
Mira is a student from Hungary, so she doesn’t get to work much while in Dubrovnik. She needs plenty of activities and enjoys exploring the destination she finds herself in. Emi is also from Hungary. She is a digital nomad with a job that requires specific conditions in her place of remote work.
"For me, the challenge has been getting around in the public transportation. That's an everyday challenge."
"I have different requirements than some other digital nomads. Because I teach online, so I need a quiet room. That is actually something not everybody needs."
Pete comes all the way from sunny California and is enjoying his stay in Dubrovnik. The nature of his work doesn’t allow him to work remotely. So, his main focus is on exploring the area and enjoying his stay in Croatia.
"...some of the challenges, especially when your partner is working, you are kind of just left on your own. But, luckily, Dubrovnik has great things to do. So, I've been kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving, eating a whole bunch..."
Sam is a writer and a digital nomad, just like his wife Charlie. They are flexible and determined to enjoy the digital nomad lifestyle. But being a digital nomad couple often means having different requirements than when you are an individual traveller.
"...because we are a couple we like doing things independently as well. So, for the people that are here in the co-living space, you've instantly got that community together. Whereas being a couple, we obviously like a bit of our own time as well."
With all these different views and opinions, it seems catering to all of them is not an easy task. However, if you already have beautiful areas and friendly people in your community, most other items on the wish list are quite manageable. It is safe to say all of them have one thing in common. They are happy in Dubrovnik and want to be a part of the community.
Saltwater Nomads' Tanja Polegubic on Dubrovnik Digital Nomad-in-Residence Program
Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Frankovic on Digital Nomads, US Flights, 2021 Season
Winners announcement video:
Learn more about the Dubrovnik Digital Nomads-in-Residence program.
Donald Tusk in Rovinj: "Croatia is Ready to Restart Tourism''
May 21, 2021 - As the season approaches and tourists start to arrive, a message comes from the European People's Party's Donald Tusk in Rovinj, Istria.
As reported by nacional.hr, Donald Tusk, who served as President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019 and as the 14th Prime Minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014, is currently enjoying the early days of sun in Croatia with his family. Through his Twitter profile, the most famous Polish politician internationally announced his visit to the popular Istrian destination of Rovinj. The sight of Donald Tusk in Rovinj is likely to give this destination hope for the summer ahead.
Tourism in the Istrian peninsula has proven that it can defy the obstacles caused by the pandemic, not only at its worst during the past year but also in recent months, prior to the start of the rapidly approaching summer season. Istria saw, with surprise, local and foreign tourists arrive not only during Easter but also during the first weekend of May, thus exceeding their expectations in the face of the complicated situation that tourism has been going through in the country in the last year.
All this highlights the advantages of the peninsula of being better connected with the European continent, providing the opportunity for all those tourists to travel by car. It also sends out a powerful message about the willingness of many tourists to enjoy the sea and the beaches before they get crowded, and especially in the present context of social distancing. As the vaccination process in Croatia continues its course and the numbers of infections continue to decline, it seems that the results are beginning to appear.
Given this hopeful precedent, there is reason enough in Istria to believe that the approaching summer season may bring life back to hotels, restaurants, private accommodation, and more. And one of the people who believes that it is time to face the coming months with optimism is nothing less than the Polish representative in the European People's Party (EPP), Donald Tusk.
In Rovinj with my family. Croatia ?? is ready to restart tourism and welcome all guests. We are all in love with Istria. pic.twitter.com/G1UOwMqOmk
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtuskEPP) May 20, 2021
"Croatia is ready to restart tourism and to receive guests. We are all in love with Istria ", reads the announcement of Donald Tusk in Rovinj on Twitter, accompanied by a photo of him enjoying an Istrian sunset with his family.
For more information on what the City of Rovinj can offer you on your next visit, such as sights, hotels, beaches, food, or drink, be sure to check out Total Croatia's Rovinj in a Page 2021, HERE.
Follow the latest on flights to Croatia HERE and the latest travel updates and COVID-19 news from Croatia HERE.
For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
