January the 24th, 2023 - CNN is no stranger to Croatia or showering it with praise on a regular basis. This time, CNN has turn the spotlight onto parts of the Croatian coast which are not the gorgeous but rather predictable Dubrovnik and southern Dalmatian areas.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, despite the fact that the City of Dubrovnik and other parts of the extreme south of Dalmatia get more attention than the north of the Adriatic does, it is precisely up noth that you can find some of the most beautiful regions in all of Croatia. The Istrian peninsula, the Kvarner coastline and the surrounding islands reveal a different side of endlessly rich Croatian culture and history.

These parts of the Croatian coast offer visitors so much history - traces left behind by the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Venetian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and Italy. All of them influenced the architecture, language and gastronomy of this part of the Croatian coast, as reported by CNN.

Truffles, olive oil, wonderful juicy clams and mussels in Istria, lobsters in Kvarner, lamb from the island of Cres which is full of flavour... All of these delights pair fantastically with Istrian wine, as well as wine from the island of Krk.

If you aren't planning to explore ancient Roman ruins, Venetian villages or Habsburg cities, you can enjoy hundreds of parts of the long Istrian coast, the Opatija Riviera or Kvarner. After that, you can visit the islands of Krk, Cres, Losinj and Rab by ferry, CNN recommends to its loyal readers.

Istria

Tourists who visit the heart-shaped coast of the Istrian peninsula might wonder if they accidentally wandered into neighbouring Italy. Throughout its long history, Istria was part of the Roman, Venetian and Habsburg empires, and their legacy is visible absolutely everywhere.

In Pula, visitors can admire one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres in the entire world, and on the west coast sits the impossibly beautiful Rovinj. If you move away from the coastline, you'll find medieval villages, vineyards and forests full of hidden truffles. Above the vineyards rises the medieval town of Motovun, from where you can quickly reach Groznjan, where tourists can visit many open-air summer concerts. One of the most attractive ways to explore Istria is by hiking or cycling in Parenzana.

Opatija

When the Habsburgs discovered the mild climate of Opatija back during the 19th century, they turned that previously small fishing village into the cradle of Croatian tourism. Pastel Belle Epoque-style houses were soon built, and many of them became large hotels.

This elegant town can be seen from Angiolina Park, where the Croatian Museum of Tourism is located today. A walk along Lungomare - a promenade over eight kilometres long, is a great pleasure.

Rijeka

The largest Croatian port is not only a point for ferries to reach the surrounding islands. This cosmopolitan city – the European Capital of Culture back in 2020 – is worth a more honest visit. Korzo is the main part of the city, intended only for pedestrians, where you can walk past the Habsburg houses and drink coffee on one of the cafe's terraces.

If you want to travel even further back into history, climb the 528 steps to Trsat, a fortress from the 13th century with a view over the entire city and islands.

Krk

Along with the island of Cres, Krk is the largest Croatian island, connected to the mainland by a long bridge. Many tourists visit Baska in the south of the island, but Krk is full of beaches. The village of Vrbnik is a place where you can taste Zlahtina, white wine from Krk.

The City of Krk, which is also the largest settlement on the island, reveals the complex history of the region with its old town, which is home to a medieval fortress, a Roman monastery and Venetian houses with narrow alleys winding through it all. Look for the paths that can lead you to some hidden beaches.

Cres

The long and thin island of Cres winds around the western coast of Krk. It is a relatively untouched part of the Adriatic where sheep roam freely through the pastures. Here you can taste one of the most delicious cuts of lamb in all of Croatia. There are only a handful of settlements on Cres, including the small Venetian town of Cres or the much smaller Roman town of Osor.

This is a sleepy place, full of quiet pebbly coves, a small lake and, surprisingly, a vulture reserve. When you get tired of relaxing on the beaches in Valun or Lubenice, you can explore the almost 80 kilometres of hiking trails that will allow you to discover the wilderness of the interior of the island, as well as the enchanting beauty of the coast.

Losinj

Connected to the southwestern part of Cres by a suspension bridge, Losinj may not be that easy to get to, but it's definitely worth going. Full of wild plants, Losinj is a soothing and fragrant place, which you will discover by walking along the paths hidden among the pine trees.

Rab

The second royal dynasty made the island of Rab famous. Back in 1936, the unsuspecting British King Edward VIII and his lover at the time, and later wife Wallis Simpson, bathed naked in the waters of the Frknja peninsula and thus started a tradition of nudist beaches that has never disappeared.

There are at least twenty sandy beaches on this small island - which is quite a lot when you consider that you're in a country dominated by rocky and pebble bays. You can go hiking in Lopar and right there you will find some of the most beautiful beaches of all. It isn't only the crystal clear waters of Rab that delight blue-blooded tourists. The beautiful and fantastically preserved medieval architecture of the city of Rab is equally enchanting.

For more international coverage of the glorious and rich Croatian coast, make sure to check out our news section.

8 June, 2021 – CNN's Richard Quest is in Dubrovnik preparing his story on the city and Croatia's travel industry. He seems to still find time to have some fun in the process.

Big time celebrities are nothing new in Dubrovnik. Still, when one of them is travelling to actually do a report about the city, it inevitably raises plenty of interest. Richard Quest is a CNN International news anchor and editor. His show Quest Means Business is vastly popular.

Dubrovnik is hosting Mr. Quest for a few days as he is currently doing a piece on the state of city's tourism. Today, the local Tourism Board released some interesting photos from the filming in the city's historical centre. Lazareti, ancient quarantine complex just outside of the Old Town centre, is the home for Folklore Ensemble Lindo. This organisation preserves traditional folk songs and dances as well as historical costumes of the area. It is synonymous with Dubrovnik local culture. In the photographs Quest is seen visiting Lazareti and interviewing one of the members of Lindo. He also apparently joined in during the rehearsal as we've also seen him in full traditional costume.

 Photos Courtesy of Dubrovnik Tourist Board:

(With Dubrovnik Tourist Board director, Ana Hrnic)

Important Promotion at the Crucial Moment

It seems like the filming is going well and everybody is in high spirits, which only makes us more impatient to see the end story. We have reported earlier on the main topics of CNN's Dubrovnik story. The discussion will mainly revolve around the most important questions of the day for many citizens of Dubrovnik. These include lifting of COVID related restrictions in Croatia and the state of the travel industry.

With important topics like this, amazing backdrop of medieval Dubrovnik glistening in the sun, and Richard Quest in his full local costume, this promises to be a very interested promotion for Dubrovnik and Croatia. With the rise in the interest of travellers from American market, this is certainly the type of news Dubrovnik Tourist Board was hoping for at the beginning of the summer. Don't miss CNN's report from Dubrovnik on Thursday 10th of June.

For more news like this, make sure to follow our lifestyle section.

Are you looking to get to and from Dubrovnik this summer?

June the 6th, 2021 - CNN's Quest Means Business has interviewed Croatian PM Andrej Plenkovic and it is set to be shown in an emission lasting more than two hours from Croatia's southernmost city of Dubrovnik, the country's tourism Mecca.

As Jutarnji list/Ivanka Toma writes, the well-known CNN show Quest Means Business will be broadcast from Dubrovnik this Thursday, June the 10th, and one of the guests of the well-known journalist, Richard Quest, who is otherwise an expert on global economic trends, will be Croatian PM Andrej Plenkovic.

The show will last for about two and a half hours, and the focus will be primarily on opening up the country's borders and tourism after the pandemic. The main topics that Quest discussed with the Croatian PM are the topics of the show - the opening up of Croatian borders to tourists once again and the preparations and expectations from the tourist season, then the economic recovery, and plans for the country to finally join the Schengen zone as well as the Eurozone.

This conversation with Plenkovic was recorded earlier on in the Kvarner coastal town of Opatija.

The Croatian PM also gave an interview to Quest back at the beginning of September last year, when the topic was also tourism as one of the important Croatian economic branches that was affected tremendously by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In another interview given last year, Plenkovic commented on tourism figures, which had fallen less than they had a year earlier, and the nation's numerous measures to try to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Other guests of the Quest show were world leaders such as David Cameron (the former British PM) and Petr Necas from the Czech Republic, big names from the world of banking such as Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan Chase and Robert Zoellick, former World Bank President, then IMF Chief Christina Lagarde, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and influential people of several large American corporations.

The broadcasting of this typically very popular show in which economic topics are covered in a simple and accessible way from the beautiful city of Dubrovnik will certainly be a kind of promotion of Croatian tourism in its own way as things begin to gradually return to some sort of normality globally.

For more, make sure to follow our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, September 8, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told CNN on Monday that the decision to reopen Croatia to foreign tourists was a calculated risk.

This summer, an estimated seven million guests arrived in Croatia and the overnights are around 50 percent of the results in 2019, which was the record breaking year for the country's tourism sector, which makes up a fifth of the national GDP.

During his interview with the CNN Anchorman Richard Quest, Plenkovic was asked whether Croatia was now paying a price for its decision to reopen to holiday-makers, since there was now a spike in new COVID-19 numbers.

Plenkovic explained that at the onset of the coronaviorus pandemic, Croatia imposed a lockdown in order to protect its citizens, and later it started to gradually open to attract tourists.

"Naturally, it was a bit of calculated risk" the premier said admitting that the number of those who are infected have risen over the last couple of weeks, and a good thing is that Croatia still has a very low mortality rate, only 5-to-100,000 ratio, which is "much much much lower than in any other country in Europe, especially in western Europe."

"So, we have managed to combine both the health of our citizens, and the income coming from one of the most important branches of our economy, and that is tourism."

Plenkovic believes that some of Croatia's neighbours that decided to put his country on the red list should take into account the differentiated state of affairs considering the COVID epidemic broken down by counties and cities, rather than treating the entire Croatia as a high-risk place.

What we advocated to our neighbouring countries was to look at Croatia at the sub-national level, meaning that if there is a county or a particular city where we do have a certain outbreak, then the measures should be targeted towards people who were in that region. And this is what I was saying to our Slovenian colleagues, Hungarian, Austrian, or German, the Croatian PM said.

Plenkovic called for concerted action and measures at the European Union's level in response to the COVID pandemic.

"The pandemic has shown a crucial role of states," he said explaining that it was states and not some other actors that could have assisted citizens to be protected from this pandemic.

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