July the 26th, 2022 - The gorgeous Zagreb botanical garden has found itself ranked among the world's most beautiful gardens and parks by HouseFresh, which took to Tripadvisor reviews, one of the world's most popular ''go to'' websites for all things travel and leisure.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Tripadvisor has been used for many, many years by people from all over the world for various travel and tourism tips. Whether you're looking for a restaurant, accommodation, or a particular attraction, it is always good to read different opinions and views from all kinds of people, which will help you in your choice. This time, the best parks and gardens in the world were ranked by the platform, writes Pun Kufer.

Public parks and gardens are simply great places for just about everyone. Just think about it: huge areas for viewing flowers, enjoying nature or simply relaxing and watching the world go by – they're open to all and (most of the time) they're totally free.

If you've ever wondered which of all the parks and gardens in the world are the most beautiful, today is your lucky day. A study by air purification company HouseFresh looked at Tripadvisor's reviews of almost a thousand gardens and parks from all around the world, counted how many times each attraction was described as ''beautiful'' and then ranked them.

According to research, the most beautiful public park in the world is the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, which doesn't come as a shock at all given its giant man-made trees, stunning walkways and millions of different plant species. This hyper-futuristic park is quite a spectacular sight, as evidenced by the thousands of reviews that describe it as beautiful on the Tripadvisor platform.

Still, let's look a bit closer to come and see if any Croatian gardens and parks, of which there are many absolutely gorgeous ones dotted all around the country, stood out for HouseFresh. One Croatian park did make it onto this list, the beautiful Zagreb botanical garden, which, along with the Cathedral and the Upper Town (Gornji grad), is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the Croatian capital.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

May the 9th, 2022 - Tripadvisor has ranked Rijeka market among the top ten sights to see when paying a visit to this increasingly popular Kvarner city along the Northern Adriatic coast.

As Morski writes, over more recent years, the City of Rijeka has become increasingly popular as an urban tourist destination, seeing it attract more and more visitors from all over the world, which simply wasn't the case a decade or even five years ago. One of the favourite locations in this city is Rijeka market, which the famous tourism and travel portal Tripadvisor has ranked among the ten most attractive sights to see in all of Rijeka.

A wide variety of colours, tastes and smells - Rijeka market... placa, pjaca - is a favourite destination of many Rijeka locals, as well as for an increasing number of tourists. An unavoidable stop for them, of course, is the fish market.

Fish and seafood were once sold outdoors, and the first fish market was built in the second half of the 19th century. Today's fish market, where many are happy to buy produce from and frequently return to, was built back in 1916 and is the work of architect Carlo Pergoli, as reported by HRT.

''Pergoli pointed out his fondness for the Viennese secession in arranging the interior of this building, it's a very interesting fact that this building even had electricity back at that time,'' explained Marta Polic from the Public Relations Department of Rijeka Plus.

Rijeka market, which in addition to its wildly popular fish market includes two pavilions of a recognisable green colour, is a protected cultural monument. Tourist guides often include this location in guided tours of Rijeka and it has regularly been described as an atmosphere that is rarely encountered in any other similar location.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.

February 8, 2021 – According to TripAdvisor's Traveller's Choice list, Plitvice Lakes National Park took a high place and was declared the third best national park in Europe for 2021.

TripAdvisor compiled a Traveller's Choice list of the top 10 best national parks in Europe for the first time. Croatian most famous national park Plitvice Lakes took third place on the list and thus got another recognition by visitors.

As written on the TripAdvisor webpage, the Plitvice Lakes National Park is impressive in both winter and summer.

"The bubbling, turquoise crystalline pools of Plitvice Lakes National Park comprise one of Croatia's most popular tourist destinations. Just a two-hour drive from Zagreb, the national park offers 50 acres of forest and lake. In winter, it's a wonderland of frozen waterfalls. In summer, the park is lush with greenery. Wooden walkways and hiking trails traverse the porous karst limestone. This World Heritage Site is a veritable wildlife haven, home to everything from birds to boars and even bears," writes TripAdvisor.

Yorkshire Dales National Park in the United Kingdom took first place, and Vatnajokull National Park in Iceland overtook Plitvice Lakes National Park in second place. Check out the full list:

1. Yorkshire Dales National Park, United Kingdom

2. Vatnajokull National Park, Iceland

3. Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

4. Peak District National Park, United Kingdom

5. New Forest National Park Hampshire, United Kingdom

6. Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park, Spain

7. Sierra Nevada National Park, Spain

8. Uludag National Park, Turkey

9. Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche Natural Park, Spain

10. Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park, Italy

And what do Plitvice Lakes National Park look like right now? Check out at the live video stream.

For the latest travel info, bookmark our main travel info article, which is updated daily. 

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October 25, 2019 - Dubrovnik Restaurant 360 and chef Marijo Curic have been recognized yet again for their culinary prowess after TripAdvisor names 360 among the top 100 fine dining restaurants in the world. 

Namely, at the top of the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Restaurants Awards list of the top 100 fine dining restaurants in the world, is the Michelin-starred 360, in 15th place. And when looking at the top European restaurants in the list, 360 finished 10th. 

360's forte is superb food and a quality, extensive wine list. They are inspired by the "flavors and ingredients of Dubrovnik & Mediterranean cuisine and framed in French cooking techniques", while their gourmet dishes are "ready to be served to discerning culinary guests from all around the world."

“Restaurant 360 Dubrovnik with its chef Marijo Curić (Michelin star 2018) is focusing on modern gastronomy developed on the ground of Dalmatian and Dubrovnik culinary heritage, which is to say we respect the flavors and ingredients but play with textures and techniques. The restaurant earned a Michelin star in 2018 and confirmed it in 2019. Among the accolades is the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence 2017 and the Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence 2018. The Falstaff restaurant guide gave us 91 points while, according to Gault Millau, our restaurant deserved 17.5 and 4 toques. Our wine list contains more than 500 entries. We serve 90 wines by the glass. Our concept of food&wine pairing focuses on regional and local wines and grape varieties. We aim to give you the total experience of food, wine, and hospitality,” writes 360 on their TripAdvisor page. 

Restaurant 360 can thank chef Marijo Curic for their success, who was born and raised in Dubrovnik and has been behind kitchens since he was 17. With a culinary diploma in hand, Curic has worked with some of the world's best chefs, including Claude Bosi, Brett Graham, Philip Howard, Yu Sugimota, Marcus Wereing, and Enrico Bartolini.

"His concept is based on adapting the favorite dishes of Dalmatia and Dubrovnik to very modern cooking based on the old French school. Each dish by Marijo Curic is creative and a skillful play of contrasts and textures, with at least one local segment accentuated. Marijo Curic earned a Michelin star in 2018 and confirmed it in 2019," reads Restaurant 360's website. 

You might recall that one of the best footballers in the world dined here with his sweetheart on their Dubrovnik holiday last spring. Namely, Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina arrived at the restaurant located within the old city walls in a van followed by several security guards. It certainly created quite the buzz.

Number one on the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Restaurants Awards list is TRB Hutong in China, while the European restaurants are led by Epicure in Paris.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page. 

Novilist.hr brings the information that Croatia as a whole, as well as two cities in Dalmatia, are topping the world's largest travel platform's greatest growth list. In addition to the country itself, Dubrovnik and Split are the cities that are said to have gained the greatest growth in the recent past on TripAdvisor.

TripAdvisor has recently shared their newest statistical data about the behaviour and the clicks by the visitors to their website, and Croatia is at the top of the list for the greatest growth in the number of searches and popularity in the first four months of this year.

The popularity of our country has grown as much as 27 percent when compared to the same period last year. And, the results provided for Dubrovnik and Split just prove the trend: the two cities have been placed on numbers one and two on the list of cities with the biggest growth! Dubrovnik's growth is 46 percent (staggering, for a destination which was already extremely popular!), and Split grew by 41 percent, which brought it to the runner-up position.

Kristjan Staničić, director of the Croatian Tourist Board, says that these are excellent numbers for Croatian tourism, especially if we take into the account the fact that in April alone more, than 280 million travellers worldwide looked for key tourist information on TripAdvisor. After Croatia's top of the list position, Slovenia is placed second (with growth of 22 percent), then Montenegro (18 percent growth), Greece acheived 12 percent, and Cyprus has experienced growth of 11 percent. The lis of cities is topped by Dubrovnik and Split, followed by Salou in Spain, Ayia Napa in Cyprus, and Marmaris in Turkey (with 39 and 31 percent growth in searches). 

TripAdvisor is available on 49 markets worldwide, translated into 28 languages, it has accumulated over 760 million comments and opinions by tourists and travellers on their experiences, and has a database of over 8 million accomodations, restaurants, airlines, cruises, rental cars, etc.

The beautiful vacation facility La Casa di Matiki in Žminj near Pazin in Istria has been named by TripAdvisor as the best bed and breakfast in Croatia for this year. It is an award given on the basis of comments from the website’s guests, who evaluate the service, location, price-quality ratio, cleanliness, and even the quality of sleep. “A wonderful stay in rural Croatia," commented one of the guests. This is the fifth year that Trip Advisor has named Casa Matiki as one of the 25 best bed and breakfasts in Croatia, reports Jutarnji List on February 2, 2019.

The property is managed by Sonja Glavić, who has created the whole concept of this rural bed and breakfast, which offers a lot more than a regular vacation home. She started the business in 1997 and is considered one of the pioneers of rural tourism in Istria. In addition to the two houses with four apartments, where she also offers homemade breakfasts, she has remodelled another building with two suites that are marketed as a farm household. As an additional amenity, the tourists can look at and feed domestic animals since the property has a flock of sheep, several donkeys and horses.

The barn, where the hay is stored, has a separate area for tourists with a bedroom and a bunk bed, with a mattress filled with dry maize leaves. The room is decorated with hay bales that are used for practical purposes – to feed the animals in the morning. Above the small room, there is a loft in the low attic where you can ponder about this unusual experience.

“I decided to do it first and foremost for myself because this has returned me to the days gone by. Also, the idea of sleeping in the barn was given to me by a French group of tourists,” Glavić said.

All those who come here on vacation can, therefore, be in direct contact with domestic animals. On the table, they can find local products of this area, as well as homemade bread, jams and fresh eggs. The owner of the luxuriously decorated facility says that the tourists have become more than guests.

"My dream was to welcome people from all over the world, and that dream has come true. I sometimes feel like a guest myself, and I consider my guests as hosts. The guest has to feel like a royal,” said the owner of the property in the interior of Istria, demonstrating how a different approach to business can bring tourists to the Istrian hinterland all year round.

Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Barbara Ban).

More news on Istria can be found in the Travel section.

TripAdvisor and Airbnb recently revealed global travel trends for 2018, featuring cities with predicted growth in demand compared with last year

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