August 20, 2020 – Croatian coast a hit in August 2020 with international pop stars including Lepa Brena and Lily Allen

Croatia's coast has once again proved an irresistible draw to holidaying celebrities. The latest famous arrivals include regional pop megastar Lepa Brena and hit British singer Lily Allen.

Both Lepa Brena and Lily Allen have taken to their social media accounts over recent hours to announce their arrival in the country. Each has posted pictures of their vacations on the beautiful, sun-soaked coast of Dalmatia.

Lepa Brena, the revered originator of the massively popular regional pop-folk sound posted pictures from Mljet island, but Lily Allen has already travelled between Lastovo and Vis island. And while photos taken by Brena have been all about the beautiful Croatian scenery, Lily's have been smiling selfies as she thoroughly enjoys a break with her family. Here's how they saw Croatia through their social media on the first days of their visits.

Lepa Brena









Lily Allen

All images sourced from Instagram

Sandorf, a Croatian literary and publishing agency, recently opened a public call for artists to participate in their literary residency program "The Ulysses' Shelter", organized on the Mljet island.

This is the second cycle of the program, which is supported by Creative Europe, a European Union programme for the cultural and creative sectors, Mljet municipality and National park and numerous international partners from Slovenia, Greece, Serbia and Great Britain. The call is opened until November 9th, and writers and translators are encouraged to apply.

The first cycle in the project's first year focused on young but already acclaimed poets from Greece, Croatia and Slovenia. In the period between December of 2018 and September of 2019 the twelve young poets spent three weeks in each of the locations included in the project. Those were Mljet, Ljubljana in Slovenia and Larisa in Greece. The residence program included numerous events for the local public, including readings and writing workshops, as well as the informal get-togethers with the poets. Two new partners joined this year, Krokodil Association from Belgrade, Serbia and Literature Across Frontiers from Aberystwyth, Wales, and Croatian Ministry of Culture and Dubrovnik-Neretva County started supporting the project as well.

The literary residences this year will take place on Mljet, in Ljubljana, Larisa, Belgrade and several locations in Wales. The idea is to support the translational mobility of artists and the development of their audience and is aimed at young writers of prose or poetry, as well as the translators.

15 artists will be selected from the 5 European partner countries, and each partner will make a jury which will select 3 authors to participate in the second cycle of the Ulysses' Shelter program. You can find out more on www.tovar.hr website, dedicated to the program, on www.sandorf.hr website, or on the project's social media pages. 

Mljet has been given the responsibility of caring for Dubrovnik-Neretva County's very first firefighting boat, which has been procured thanks to EU funds.

As Morski writes on the 2nd of March, 2019, Dubrovnik-Neretva County prefect Nikola Dobroslavić handed over the first firefighting vessel in Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Dubrovnik's port on Friday. The vessel is named Sveti Florijan, named after the patron saint of Linz.

The vessel was handed over by the prefect to the mayor of Mljet, Đivo Marketa, who immediately presented and subsequently handed it over to commander of Mljet's fire brigade, to Mario Dabelić.

Prefect Nikola Dobroslavić stressed that this is an excellent example of good use of the money made available to Croatia from European Union funds.

''The ship is largely financed by EU funds through a project conducted by Dubrovnik-Neretva County. This is the first firefighting boat in our county, and JVP Mljet (Mljet fire brigade) will be responsible for it, but of course it will be available to the whole of this southern area. Another firefighting vessel is coming to the City of Dubrovnik soon and this is a significant addition to the safety and the possibility of interventions being made at sea. This ship will be used for firefighting on boats, as well as in some other emergency situations,'' stated Dobroslavić, among other things.

Sveti Florijan is the first firefighter in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, otherwise Croatia's southernmost county, area acquired by the southern Dalmatian county as part of the scope of the European project AdriaMORE, which is otherwise one of the projects currently being implemented by the Interreg Croatia-Italy cross-border program.

The project activities of Dubrovnik-Neretva County are worth around 350,000 kuna, of which 85 percent are being co-financed with the very welcome funds of the European Regional Development Fund, and the remaining 15 percent are financed by the county's own funds.

A shipbuilding contract, worth about 950,000 kuna, was signed last September with Damor d.o.o., and, as previously mentioned, the new firefighting vessel will be taken care of by Mljet's fire brigade and by Mljet Municipality.

Dubrovnik-Neretva County organised the ceremony as part of the activities on this year's International Civil Protection Day, which was marked on March the 1st.

Make sure to stay up to date by following our dedicated lifestyle page. If it's just Dubrovnik and southern Dalmatia you're interested in, give Total Dubrovnik a follow.

Ever been to NP Mljet? Lying not far from Croatia's southernmost city of Dubrovnik, Mljet national park, otherwise Croatia's most heavily forested island and unarguably among the most unusual, is a must visit place for those wanting a sense of peace. Photographers and nature lovers alike are also attracted in their droves to beautiful Mljet.

As Morski writes on the 11th of November, 2018, NP Mljet, the Republic of Croatia's and the Mediterranean's first properly protected marine area, is celebrating ts 58th birthday today! Established on this day back in 1960, NP Mljet has naturally become the target of numerous visitors from across the world who want to experience some of the Adriatic's pure and rich nature. This year also stands out as a record year for the number of visitors to NP Mljet.

In addition to a huge number of visitors, this year is also significant thanks to the arrival of the first of three electric catamarans for the transportation of visitors to NP Mljet's Great lake, and the signing of the Grant Agreement for a project for Mljet worth a massive 36,618,480,26 kuna. These resources will improve and enhance the popular national park's visitor infrastructure, and enrich the quality and quantity of touristic, educational and recreational content on the island.

The birthday celebrations of NP Mljet began back on October the 22nd with the opening of an exhibition of photographs in the Gallery of the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb. In addition to the exhibition, from October the 24th to the 31st, the Days of Open Doors and a special program for the visiting of NP Mljet for the passengers of the Krilo Star catamaran's final journey for 2018 were held. The celebrations will continue through November when an exhibition on the cultural heritage of NP Mljet opens far from Zagreb, on the island of Mljet itself, all on the occasion of the International Year of Cultural Heritage.

Happy birthday, Mljet National Park!

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It tends to happen at this time of year, at least it has over the last few, as the bura and the jugo winds beat the Dalmatian coast on a regular basis, bringing in all sorts of bizarre things on the strong currents to the Dalmatian coastline. It isn't unusual for innocent citizens simply taking a walk around the shoreline stumble upon rather large quantities of marijuana and other very drowned drugs.

Nobody is ever quite sure where the marijuana has really come from, and the assumption is usually that these illegal packages have simply ''lost their way'' on a journey between either Albania and Montenegro on their way to Italy, but alas, the phenomenon continues to begin to occur around November time.

As Morski writes on the 4th of November, 2018, citizens of Mljet and Orebic reported the rather surprising discovery of as much as 156 kilograms of marijuana floating in the sea. The now very wet packages of marijuana were picked up by the Dubrovnik-Neretva police at Orebić, Blato on Korčula, and on the island of Mljet on the basis of various reports from the residents of the aforementioned areas, both on the Dalmatian mainland and on nearby islands.

As is usually the case with such packages, the general assumption of the police is that the boxes of marijuana were initially on their way from either Albania or Montenegro towards their final destination of Italy, where they fell from their vessel and ended up being swept along to the Croatian coast by the current.

This is otherwise a very common sea route for drug smugglers, and the winds that typically hit the Croatian coast at this time of year can typically end up bringing these lost packages to the Croatian coast, according to a report from Dubrovacki Dnevnik.

An investigation is now being conducted to try to work out exactly where, and from whom, the drugs came from, as has been stated from the competent police administration, who thanked the citizens of the aforementioned locations for alerting them to the drug packages. The police have also asked for anyone else who comes across suspicious packages in the sea or washed up on the shore to alert them.

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Keeping on top of things and putting the environment first isn't always easy in the time in which we currently live, but a beach cleanup is a more than excellent way to start. In Croatia, such seabed and beach cleanup actions take place quite regularly up and down the coast, with the most emphasis being placed on the pre and post season.

During this somewhat turbulent time of year, it's typical for unstable weather conditions and strong winds and currents to wreak havoc to some degree or another, often bringing in unwanted rubbish from other parts of the coast, sometimes even dragging up piles of waste on currents from Albania to Dubrovnik.

Plastic pollution is an increasingly dangerous threat to the world's seas and oceans, and while various laws continue to be passed to either ban or at least limit the use of ''throw away'' plastic products, the issue remains a pressing one. A well organised beach cleanup is an excellent way to combat the problem.

As Morski writes on the 1st of November, 2018, beautiful Mljet has experienced a proverbial reincarnation this year, as 32 volunteers participated in a program to clean up as many as fifteen bays and coves on Mljet, which is otherwise one of the country's most breathtaking national parks, located not too far from Dubrovnik.

This year's volunteer program, developed by JUNP Mljet and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy through the EU Integration Project Natura 2000, was successfully completed, with 71 volunteers participating in all of the four volunteer programs.

For the first time, NP Mljet welcomed international volunteers from Lithuania, Australia, America, and neighbouring Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina to help clean up the national park's many bays and coves. Over 400 plastic bags, sewage, glass and various other types of waste was successfully removed from Mljet's shoreline.

Want to keep up with more news about how the environment is taken care of in Croatia and how you might be able to help? Make sure to follow Total Eco Croatia.

Love them or hate them, they're protected in Croatia and everyone needs to do their bit to help them.

It only took three decades, but, better late than never!

Putting the environment first on Mljet!

You can submit your application by September 15, 2017, via stotinka.hr website.