Travel

April 13, 2020 - How are small tourism businesses dealing with COVID-19 in Croatia? TCN's UNESCO correspondent on the changing realities in the two tourism businesses in Split which feed her.   It’s hard to say anything that’s not already all over the news about this unprecedented situation happening worldwide. In essence, we all follow the daily press conferences and updates on numbers of COVID-19. One thing is for sure, this Spring did not start the way any of us planned. We are all mostly working from home if we are working at all, limiting our social interactions, and avoiding leaving…

April 13, 2020 - Continuing her look at the UNESCO treasures of Croatia, Filipa Marusic enjoys some blissful self-isolation at Plitvice Lakes National Park.  This article will take a look into probably the best-known UNESCO World Heritage from Croatia – Plitvice Lakes. Plitvice Lakes is the oldest and largest National Park in Croatia. Its location is between Mala Kapela mountain in the west and northwest and Lička Plješivica mountain in the southeast. It is covering two counties – Lika-Senj county 90.7% surface and Karlovac county 9.3% surface, and the total park surface is 29 630,77 ha. The Plitvice Lakes became…

ZAGREB, April 12, 2020 - Austrian daily Kurier on Sunday wrote about the Croatian island of Šolta as the second home of Austrian tourists who, because of the COVID-19 epidemic, could not visit it now. "Our longing has a name, the small Dalmatian island of Šolta which rises to the surface from the infinite deep sea, and because of the coronavirus it is uncertain when it can be visited again," Kurier said. "The small Croatian island of Šolta between Split and Brač used to be our second home for two to three weeks at the end of summer, and the…

April 13, 2020 - Will travel vouchers save Croatian tourism? A look at how one travel agency's campaign is fighting to salvage the season.  HRTurizam writes that the tourism sector has been quietly talking about travel vouchers as one of the solutions to save this tourist season, i.e., to somehow activate tourism in the local population for at least some cash inflow and save what can be saved. Additionally, in Croatia, the "Week's Vacation is Worth It" campaign is ready, as well as a Cro card from the Ministry of Tourism, as projects that can be activated as soon as…

April 13, 2020 - Emirates has delayed its seasonal service between Zagreb and Dubai until July 2020.  After Ex Yu Aviation announced that American Airlines and Qatar Airways would suspend their seasonal services to Dubrovnik until 2021 due to the current coronavirus pandemic, our hope of a 2020 tourism season was dwindling.  However, is the recent announcement from Emirates reassuring? Namely, Ex Yu Aviation reports that Emirates has delayed the start date of its daily seasonal service between Dubai and Zagreb from May 1 to July 1, 2020, instead of suspending the service for an entire year, like the others…

April 12, 2020 - A spectacular aerial view of the final moments of Za Krizen 2020 in Jelsa on the island of Hvar. It has been quite an Easter weekend here in Jelsa with all the controversy of the Za Krizen procession taking place in the corona era.  Lots of opinions on both sides as to whether or not the procession - which has taken place every year for 500 years - should go ahead in the current situation.  Permission was given at Prime Ministerial level, and each of the six processions in Jelsa, Pitve, Vrisnik, Svirce, Vrbanj and Vrboska…

April 12, 2020 - As people look for escape from the mental stress brought on by the corona crisis, a new series on TCN with local expats in isolation, looking back at their top 10 experiences in Croatia so far. We start with Ionut Copoiu from Romania in Split.  I have had a LOT of emails and messages asking if TCN could write about something happier than the constant corona updates. I hear your pain, but with so much (sadly bad) news to report and limited resources due to the crisis, this is not so easy. But then I thought…

The few people who do not live here in Zagreb but who have somehow found themselves travelling through the city during these strange days can count the hotels that remain open on their fingertips. One of them is the popular Zagreb Westin Hotel. As Dora Koretic/Novac writes on the 12th of April, 2020, there are exactly seven of them, and the largest among them that, despite the coronavirus pandemic, is keeping its doors open to travellers is the aforementioned hotels on the once busy Savska cesta. Until recently, it was central place for travellers who have somewhat deeper pockets, boasting…

April 12, 2020 - Easter in Dubrovnik as you have never quite seen it - a lonely Easter egg on Stradun. Can you imagine how quickly the world will change if we humans stay caged up in our self-isolation homes for a few months more? After just a couple of weeks of lockdown in China, the air pollution above the country improved visibly. A couple of weeks without tourism in Venice, and the waters became clear again.  And in the Croatian symbol of overtourism - the Pearl of the Adriatic known as Dubrovnik aka Kings Landing, the rather unusual sight…

April 12, 2020 - There are 13,500 tourists registered in Croatia for Easter this year, and most of them are on Vir Island.  Dnevnik.hr reports that thousands of tourists will still spend Easter in Dalmatia this year. While some are hiding from the coronavirus, others are stuck here and unable to get back home. Most tourists, however, are on Vir Island. Namely, out of the 13,500 tourists registered across Croatia, there are currently 600 tourists on the still corona-free island. Barbara and Atila arrived in Croatia a month ago and have been staying in a weekend house on the island of…