Travel

July 9, 2019 - The Croatian wine scene welcomed its first resident Master of Wine in 2014, as Jo Ahearne MW moved from London to Hvar. Since then her wines from Hvar grape varieties have been a hit nationally and internationally. Here is how you can taste them.  It’s been just under five years since Australian-trained winemaker and Master of Wine Jo Ahearne first came to Hvar to start her eponymous winery Ahearne Vino. And what a five years it’s been - her Plavac Mali, ‘South Side’, was voted number five in Decanter magazine’s top Balkan red wines; her rosé,…

July 9, 2018 - An early start for TCN for one of the must-do things of a summer on the island of Hvar - harvesting lavender.  There are a few constants in my annual calendar - Christmas, my birthday, and a phone call from Croatian paparazzi, Jadran Lazic, each year in early July.  "This year's harvest will be on Tuesday, July 9, at 06:00." Of all the things this Manchester boy did not expect to do when he moved to Dalmatia, getting up at 5am and harvesting lavender was right up there.  Jadran first took me to his slice of…

In the first five months of 2019, Croatia welcomed 171 or 18 percent more international cruise ships than in the same period last year, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Furthermore, Croatia also welcomed a 19 percent increase in passengers or 247,500 passengers in the first five months of 2019, reports T.portal on July 8, 2019. Croatia saw 43 or 3 more cruise ships which traveled to Croatia on round trips than in the first five months of 2018 - and they also stayed longer than last year, for 386 days or a 25.3 percent increase.  The…

Tesla Power of Lights is the name of the event that is to be held on July 9, as a part of the celebration of the 163rd anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, a genius inventor who was born in Smiljan, a village near Gospić in 1856. The event Tesla Power of Lights will be held on Gospić's main square after the sunset (the expected start is around 9 pm), so that the spectacle of lights thrown in Tesla's honor can be more visible.  The spectacle aims to show to the visitors all of those remarkable things Tesla invented…

We all love to hate cash and credit card payments, as well as the ENC system currently used to pay the fees when using Croatian highways. Now Krešimir Žabec writes for Jutarnji list about the selected replacement systems, which will be presented to the public this week - and introduced on the roads in 2022. The two systems replacing the current setup will be the Dedicated Short-Range Communications system (DSRC) and Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR). The system was proposed to the Ministry of Traffic by the Spanish consulting firm IDOM, after they've performed an analysis of the situation. The…

After the Chinese company CRBC started working on the new Pelješac bridge in July last year, and after all of the 148 permanent (+ 2 test) pillars have been installed at their sites, in the last couple of days the construction of the bridge has finally surfaced! Večernji list brings the story and a gallery of photos by Hrvatske ceste (Croatian roads), of how it's possible to see the structure of the bridge above the sea level, as the work on the foundation slabs has started, and those are the first sections of the bridge that will be above water.…

In the first half of the year, just like in June, Split has achieved record results in tourist traffic and confirmed that it would once again be a hit destination in 2019. Namely, in the first six months of this year, Split welcomed 325,456 arrivals, which is 11 percent more than last year, and 848,235 overnight stays, which is 14 percent better than last year, reports Dalmatinski Portal on July 8, 2019. According to the data from the eVisitor system, Split was at the very top of Croatia for growth in tourist traffic in this year’s pre-season. It is particularly…

July 8, 2019 - After a period of intense heat, storms have returned to Croatia, with hail doing particular damage in the north-east of the country. As reported last night on TCN, parts of Croatia were given a severe and sudden change in the weather after the recent hot spell. In Rijeka, just after midday, for example, the temperature dropped 8 degrees Celcius in 20 minutes, during which time there was a torrential downpour.  Things were a lot worse in other parts of the country, as Index reports, particularly in the east, where large hail stones damaged roofs in Vukovar…

As Morski writes on the 7th of July, 2019, after a very long time, a ship from Rijeka could soon sail on a new, certain line. It was five years ago, more precisely 2014, when the Liburnija vessel was sailing on this coastal route. Five years on from 2014, and certain things are very different indeed in many parts of and across many segments of life in Croatia, the market has been well and truly liberalised, which hasn't always been met with positivity, but that very same liberalised market now offers foreign ship companies the ability to maintain Croatian lines. This…

July 7, 2019 - The crazy weather of 2019 continues, as big storms come to Croatia. The latest travel advice.  It has been a very hot few days in Croatia, and the sun continues to shine where I am, on the island of Hvar.  But there has been a drastic change elsewhere in Croatia, with torrential rain, and even hail (check this video) hitting various parts of Croatia this afternoon. Radio Rijeka announced that the temperature in the city dropped 8 degrees in ten minutes between 12:20 and 12:30, during which time 20 litres of rain fell and winds got…