Magic Croatia

Croatia defeat their Bronze curse

2012-01-30T02:29:00.000-08:00

Photo: Sascha Klahn for the EHF

Croatia have defeated their curse in place 3/4 placement matches: After having lost the three Bronze finals at the EHF EURO events in 2004 and 2006 and at the Olympic Games 2008, this year they finally made it to the podium in Belgrade. In a tough struggle on a medium level the Balkan team took a 31:27 victory over Spain.

It was the second Bronze medal for the Croatian men after 1994 and the in total fourth EHF EURO medal after winning Silver in both 2008 and 2010. Ivano Balic and his team-mates managed to extend their medal series at EHF EURO events. On the other side Spain seemed too tired and too weak to win their in total fifth EHF EURO medal.

After the final whistle the Croatians danced on the field and jumped for joy on the bench. Top scorers were Balzenko Lackovic and Daniel Sarmiento with seven goals each – both were later also awarded best players of the match.

Both teams caused an enormous number of technical errors in the game, especially before the break, lost balls and missed passes or chances. Both seemed to be tired and uninspired – and also hectic. The Croats had fate in their hand to control the game after a great start.

Thanks to their HSV Hamburg duo Igor Vori and Blazenko Lackovic (eight of 12 Croatian goals in the first half) they had no problems to take on a 10:5 lead, as the Iberians were unlucky in attack.

It took them 23 minutes to score their third field goal. But suddenly the Croats lost their rhythm, did not hit the back of the net for seven minutes until the score was 11:7. Led by right wing Victor Tomas the Spaniards started a catch-up chase up until the half time score of 13:12.

Thanks to Spanish improvement in attack and a decreasing performance of the Croats the game was open again.

When Tomas had to leave the court due to a thigh injury, the Croats were back on track with a four goal margin after 39 minutes. Still Lackovic took the responsibility, scoring in an unstoppable way from the left back position, assisted by Ivan Cupic’s penalty goals.

The general performing level remained low, the number of mistakes was still high on both sides. But by taking the easy fast break profit from some missed Spanish shots, the Croatians increased the gap to six goals at 22:16 – and seemed to be on the winner’s in the middle of the second half.

All of a sudden not the game on court caused the loudest cheers from the stands in Beogradska Arena, but the announcement notice that Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic had won the thrilling six hour five sets final of the Australian Open against Rafael Nadal in Melbourne – the first of three titles Serbia hope to win on Sunday including the European Championship Finals in handball and water polo.

Those emotions from the stands seemed to give the exhausted handball players some intermediate extra power. Life and passion returned to both teams, with their final 12 EHF EURO minutes to go and a Croatian five-goal lead.

But – as usual in this EHF EURO – nothing was decided yet. The Iberians received a great amount of penalty shots, which brought them as close as two goals four minutes before the end. But when Roberto Garcia failed from the seven meter line and Ivan Cupic scored his seventh goal to 29:26, the Croatian Bronze curse was finally broken. In the end Igor Vori decided the Bronze final with the 30:26 which made their bench jump for joy.

The Source: ehf-euro.com

Seth Kugel: Croatia - Take your parents to work week

2011-06-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

In the U.S. media has been published another article describing Croatia as a desirable destination. This time Croatia was fascinated by Seth Kugel. Its full text we are transmiting on this blog:

"It was Take Your Parents to Work week at the Frugal Traveler, and you should see my office! Pine-covered islands jutting out from a stretch of the Adriatic that shifts from deep navy to aquamarine like a color-coded relief map; stone houses with red-tile roofs clustered improbably on the sides of mountains and along the edges of the harbors and swimmer-friendly coves filled with fishing boats. The company cafeteria’s weekly special? The freshest fish, squid and octopus, with sides of local cheese and thin-sliced prsut (sounds like — and is like — prosciutto). And my Slavic office-mates are just about the nicest people I’ve ever worked with.

The only problem is, I can’t get them to stop speaking Croatian.

Actually, that’s not really true: the English skills and hospitality of the people in Croatia were enough to quickly and utterly charm my parents, the highly seasoned travelers Peter and Judy Kugel, who flew in from Boston to join me for Week 5 of my frugal Mediterranean tour. As for all Croatians being wonderful, I can only vouch for those on the Dalmatian Coast that includes the southern mainland and islands that seem chipped off it.

For only a moderate step up in budget from our family adventure in Nicaragua last summer, my parents and I were able to live comfortably and meet many more local residents. That’s because of Croatia’s fantastic lodging system, in which families rent rooms (sobe) or apartments (apartmani) on their property or attached to their own homes. Private lodging provides almost four times as many beds in Croatia as hotels do, at least according to recent government data, and staying with hosts offers not only a peek into their family life but also a source of genuine insider advice.

That’s especially important in Dubrovnik, where most residents stay the heck out of the place most tourists make a beeline to: the impressive but overpriced walled old city. On my first and last nights with my parents, we stayed in town in a great neighborhood, a 20-minute walk from the old city’s main gate, in a two-room apartment attached to the home of the talkative Tony Djuric. It cost us 60 euros a night, or $88. (Prices are commonly quoted in euros, although the Croatian kuna, about five to the dollar, is the currency for everyday transactions.) We barely met Tony’s wife, but we accompanied him, his 10-year-old son, Luka, and Luka’s classmate to a local beach and the grocery store to buy treats for Luka’s last-day-of-school party. Tony seemed thrilled to talk about his job (he’s a “commercial man” at a bakery – we think he meant salesman, but aren’t sure) and his country’s complicated history.

For the five days in between we hit the islands. We spent two nights on the deeply pine-treed Mljet (population just over 1,000), where we stayed in two rooms owned by Andro and Ane Strazicic. Always around were their daughters, their friends and a kitten who tried every cute way possible to sneak onto the table for the grilled fish feast that Ane prepared for us for 100 kunas apiece. (My room cost 200 kunas a night; my parents’ was 240.) After Mljet we went to Korcula, where we stayed for three nights with Maria and Zeljko Seledin and their 7-month-old baby, Petar, who wore a bib that read “my mother loves me” in Croatian.

Maria charged us 60 euros a night for a two-bedroom apartment with a huge living room and kitchen, and a deck with a dramatic view across deep blue waters to the stark mountains of the Peljesac peninsula. She made phone calls for us and regaled my parents with the tale of how she had met her husband when he worked as a fisherman off her native island of Lastovo. She even let my mom hold the baby.

Still, I’d like to think my mom had a better time with me than with Petar. As an adult, traveling with my parents has always been fun. We share an adventurous attitude and an aversion to overspending, which isn’t surprising as my brother and I scrimped and laughed with them on many family vacations. We also have compatible senses of humor. My father, a retired college professor, is responsible for one-liners, which are about one-third hilarious, one-third predictable and one-third groaner. Here are two from this week:

In a small-town cafe, an upbeat pop song in Croatian comes on the radio.

Me: This is a kind of catchy tune.

Dad: I love the lyrics.

After two chatty German bikers swerve around me on a path through Mljet National Park, I raise the ancient but long-debunked Kugel family myth that my dad secretly speaks German.

Me: Dad, translation please?

Dad: “Who’s that jerk in the middle of the road?”

My mom, who works as a university dean, is a more sentimental type: “It’s like a dream being here with my husband and son.” But she has her own brand of humor, as she showed when we walked along a harbor where several gorgeous boats were docked: “I don’t know why these three attractive people walking down the street are not invited onto one of those yachts.” She is also the energetic enthusiast, and was thrilled when we rented a tiny, bright orange Fiat convertible for 10 hours (420 kuna including gas) to get around Mljet, posing on it like a teenager for my dad to take photos (and for me to take a picture of him taking the picture, a staple of Kugel family albums).

Though we could afford a car rental for only one day on each island, those days were probably the highlights. We got to drive on high-elevation roads, staring down at stunning coves; and we could poke around little towns, deciding where we would have stayed if we’d had a car the whole time (or a yacht).

On Mljet, the clear winner was a tiny town called Prozurska Luka, a round harbor with a nearly perfectly cone-shaped islet in the middle; it looked as though it had harbored aspirations of growing up to be a volcano but switched to pine forest management halfway through. We had been enchanted by Prozurska Luka from the road far above in the morning and agreed to head down for a late lunch-early dinner toward the end of the day. The lone restaurant in town disappointed a bit (my parents didn’t like their seafood risotto and I couldn’t get through my black risotto, made with cuttlefish) but the view of the island didn’t.

The runner-up was St. Mary Island in Mljet National Park, a spot popular with day trippers from Dubrovnik. St. Mary is a tiny island on the larger of the park’s two lakes (technically inlets) that you get to on a boat (the ticket price is included in the 90 kuna park entry fee). There’s a 12th-century monastery on the island, as well as a restaurant, but the highlight was a path that leads behind the monastery to a little grassy not-quite-beach, from which swimmers can glide through some of the most perfectly still water I have ever seen outside a Poland Spring bottle. It was so calm that moving through it creates not a splashing sound but a noise more like wind chimes or the slow crushing of a very thin wine glass.

Mljet is all about calm; Korcula has more action. Maria’s and Zeljko’s apartment was a 15-minute walk from the teardrop-shaped old city, which is supposedly the birthplace of the explorer Marco Polo. (Evidence is flimsy; the city was controlled by Venice, but long-form birth certificates from the 13th-century Venetian Republic have been lost.) The old town is remarkably picturesque and more genuine than Dubrovnik’s, but we preferred Racisce (pronounced ra-CHEESH-cheh), a fishing village where houses hug the slope down to the harbor; exploring the alleys and paths that separate the homes behind the main road is a bit like wandering a completely unspoiled old city, though one not quite as old.

Still, probably our favorite place of all was Gera, a restaurant run by Zeljko’s sister Stela in her agritourism lodge in the town of Zrnovo. Dinner is served on white tablecloths that cover wooden tables on a porch overlooking the gardens. I had an exquisite pair of just-charred, juicy squid; my mom had a “first-class” (white meat) fish and my dad had a made-from-scratch meat bisque with noodles in it and pork brochettes. To drink, Gera’s house-made red wine; on the side, fresh eggplant and green pepper and zucchini drenched in homemade olive oil and grilled perfectly. (“I have never had an eggplant that tasted that good,” my mom said.)

“Will you come back to Croatia?” Maria asked us as we took in the view from our porch (er, her porch) on our final day, back in Dubrovnik.

My parents have been around the global block, so they knew the correct answer was, “Of course,” even if it were an outright lie. But they might just return. My mother regrets not making it to the allegedly gorgeous Plitvice Lakes National Park, and my dad has rated the Croatians the nicest people in the world. What had started as a chance to see their son at work ended in a three-way love triangle of my mother, my father and a country. I was a mere chauffeur and one-liner straight man.

IF YOU GO

My parents flew British Airways to Dubrovnik via London, and got socked with $1,475 round-trip tickets by reserving late because their no-good son couldn’t confirm his schedule. That no-good son breezed in on a 58 euro ferry from Bari, Italy. From Dubrovnik, Mljet and Korcula are the easiest large islands to get to, though most people miss out by not staying on Mljet. There are plenty of sites for Croatian apartment rentals online, and if you can afford a car on Mljet or Korcula you can easily find places to stay in our favorite villages, Prozurska Luka and Racisce. You can get in touch with Tony in Dubrovnik at tony.dubrovnik.apartment@gmail.com or his site, Andro and Ane on Mljet at androstrazicic@gmail.com, and Maria and Zelko just outside the town of Korcula town at petar.segedin1@du.t-com.hr or through their site. June and September are the best months to go; in July the Europeans stream in, and August is an all-out Italian invasion.

MY BOOKS

It was all going so well. My parents and I split most things three ways (though I paid for my own room at Andro’s and at Ane’s), which, predictably, meant savings. And even more savings than I expected: my parents may not tolerate youth hostels or unsanitary conditions as well as I do, but they sure know how to scrimp on the food budget, taking to my one-restaurant-meal-a-day policy with vigor, grocery shopping daily and preparing breakfast at our rental apartments and cheese-meat-and-fruit picnics for lunch. (I frequently bend my rule for a pizza slice or a prepared sandwich.) With just three hours to go in the week, I had spent 58 euros for the ferry and 412 euros for my share of our adventures, a full 30 euros under budget. Then, thanks to a miscommunication with the gas station attendant, we somehow managed to top off our rental car’s gas tank with diesel. My share of the damages ate up that surplus pronto, and my final tally was 497.96 euros.

A previous version of this post misstated the ages of Petar Seledin and Luka Djuric: Petar is 7 months old and Luka is 10 years old."

PLEASE, VISIT SETH'S BLOG!

Croatia's Top 10 island destination

2011-06-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

This is the list from the website:

Only country with more than 1000 islands can offer top destinations from wide-ranging of naturist beaches to scuba diving and snorkeling, intact nature, Robinson Crusoe islands, the best islands for all kind of water sports, island with the best local food and autochthonous wines, the most fashionable and elegant island, the island with the best dance parties. You can choose to sleep in into an elegant boutique hotel, bohemian-style villas, fisherman's cottage or perhaps to one of lighthouse.

1. Vis island – best local food and wines

(c) tportal.hr

Once military base of the former Yugoslav army until 1989, Vis island has become one of the most attractive island. In addition to its well-preserved natural beauty, rocky coast rich with coves, caves and several sandy beaches, in both Vis small town , Vis and Komiza you can benefit from excellent food and wines (white wine Vugava and red one Plavac). In Vis town I recommend Villa Kaliopa restaurant situated in a beautiful ambient of the 16th century Garibaldi Palace with palm trees garden, the most romantic place in Vis town, serving fresh fish meals.

2. Hvar – Croatian St.Tropez

(c) villaadriella.com

Welcome to the island which declares of being the sunniest Dalmatian island often called Croatian Madeira. Nature has donated it 2715 sunny hours per year. The scents of rosemary and lavender, a pine wooded shore and an exceptional cultural richness divulge why Hvar(Hvar town) is after Dubrovnik a top destination.

Medieval Hvar is a small town that lies between protective pine-covered slopes and the azure Adriatic Sea. The main street is the wide promenade that runs along the harbor, where you will find the most important sights. Some hotels are just along this stretch while others are north-west of the town centre. The most popular beaches are on the Paklina islands connected with regular taxi boats leaving in front of Arsenal /built in 1611/ to the islands Jerolim and Stipanska, where you will find the most popular regular and nudist beaches.

Explore the chic korzo (stroll) that rules Hvar town at night. Right on the harbor, Carpe Diem cafe/club is situated and its after beach parties are famous. Summer, beautiful people, few cocktails and soon you'll find yourself doing something tomorrow you'll rather forget. It is a place to see and to be seen.

3. Kornati island – best for sailing and cruising

(c) onklivan.hr

It’s sufficient to repeat the George Bernard Show’s words about these islands “On the last day of the Creation, God desired to crown His work and thus created the Kornati Islands out of tears, stars and breath” to understand the beauty of 147 mostly unpopulated islands, islets and reefs. The islands running from north-west to south-east forming four chains. The first two are very close to the mainland while the other two facing the open sea makes part of Kornati National Park. See the map of the park.
Where to stay? The fact that these is no fresh water on these islands, they are mostly without any kind of vegetation, some of them covered with grass. Inhabitants of the small place Murter on the same name island, use these islands for their shepherds building stone cottages as a seasonal accommodation, today several of them transformed in tourist houses, with water from a well, low-voltage solar electricity, and an outdoor shower and barbecue. If you like this type of Robinson Crusoe accommodations contact the LORI tourist agency or National Park.

How to get there? There is no ferry connection to Kornati Islands. You can visit these island booking on of organized excursions from Zadar, Sibenik Split and other costal cities but the best way is sailing by chartering the yachts or if you like you can buy one of the famous Gullet wooden boats to sail the whole Croatian coast. The excellent way to invest your money and to feel all benefit of sailing on your own, when and where you decide!

4. Brač (Bol) – best for water sports

(c) bolcroatia.com

The channel between Hvar and Brac island is famous for maestral wind blowing usually in direction of Bol town.(Read more about winds along the Croatian coast). Maestral is a typical Adriatic summer northwestern wind and one of those winds that are characteristic for beautiful and stable weather. Bol is one of internationally famous windsurfers' top destinations and generally the most beautiful place to go windsurfing on the Adriatic.
In a channel between the islands of Hvar and Brac blows maestral that is stronger on this side of the coast than anywhere else, and that appears every afternoon almost without exception. easy wind levante blows during the morning that is ideal for learning and practice so you can find many windsurfing schools on this part of the coast.Nautic center Bol is situated in vicinity of famous Golden Cape (Zlatni Rat) beach and offers water skiing and wakeboarding, for both beginners and professionals. Additionally, they offer water sports fans extraordinary amusement programs with water equipment for children and adults as: tube, bananas, fly fish, parasailing, jet ski.

5. Mljet island - best for pristine nature

(c) korcula-kroatien.com

Mljet island has remained for centuries rather unknown island and rarely visited by tourist.With an average width of 3 km is 37 km long this island of great diversity and contrast, and "Mljet" National Park covers his northwestern part with an area of 5.375 ha of protected land and surrounding sea.

This area was proclaimed as national park 11 November 1960 and represents the first institutionalized attempt to protect an original ecosystem in the Adriatic. This island is one of the top destinations with pristine and outstanding nature beauties.

The world famous lakes of Mljet consist of the Great Lake, covering an area of 145 ha, with a maximum depth of 46 m. The Small Lake has an area of 24 ha and a maximum depth of 29 m. The natural secrets of both lakes have attracted many scientists over the years, as well as other nature lovers from a wide range of professions and personal interests. The rich vegetation of the island, especially in the area of the national Park, explains why Mljet is also known as a Green Island.

Visit Saplunara sandy beach on the island Mljet is one of the most beautiful sandy beaches in Southern Dalmatia. Stay in Villa Mirosa near Saplunara a peaceful village on the south coast of the l island of Mljet. It is in the midst of pine woods on the coast. An ideal spot for nature lovers and those who love to swim in crystal clear waters.

How to reach Mljet island?
There is ferry that goes from Dubrovnik every day and takes you to Sobra. There is fast catamaran service from Dubrovnik for passengers only, which takes less then one hour.
There is a ferry service from Rijeka which calls at the main cities and islands, stopping of at Sobra and then proceeding to Dubrovnik.
There is also a ferry (SEM Marine) which sails daily from Trstenik (the Pelješac peninsula) to Polace (Mljet)

6. Nudist paradise – Island Rab

(c) trend.seebiz.eu

Since 1936 when local authorities have permitted King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson to swim naked at Kandarola beach, Rab island has become one of the most popular destinations for naturist lovers. Kandalora beach (sometimes reffered as English Beach or Engleska Plaza) popular and well appointed naturist beach with a restaurant and sports facilities, is located on the southern side of the Frkanj peninsula (part of larger Kalifront peninsula), which is overlooking Palit, modern suburb of the town of Rab and can be reached by taxi-boats leaving from Palit's promenade.

Rab Town the capital of the island, is a charming town of medieval stone buildings, grouped on a fortified peninsular, lined with four elegant Romanesque church bell-towers.

Lopar is the northernmost place on the island and is the furthermost from the town of Rab (13 km).There are 22 sandy beaches bordered by pine groves and the shallow sea makes them perfect for small children and specially suitable for snorkeling and beginners diving activities. Sahara is one of the most beautiful beaches in general, not only among nude ones. There is a beautiful sand, shallow see and nice rocks on the sides.

7. The best party beach - Zrće beach, Pag island

(c) slobodnadalmacija.hr

Zrće beach, Novalja on the island of Pag is a popular summer resort which hosts probably the only beach in Croatia with Ibiza sense. Zrce can be reached form Novalja by car or you can take a small shuttle bus operating during the summer.
Zrce is a long, stretched, white pebbled beach with crystal clear sea. The beach has numerous facilities and three popular open-air clubs offering entertainment until “small” hours. Aquarius and Papaya are outfits from Zagreb's popular clubs, and there is also beach-bar Kalypso.

Stay at Tone & Tonica Apartments, modern apartments located in Novalja on the north west coast of the island of Pag.

8. The best for solitude vacations – Lighthouse on the island Palagruža

(c) unc.edu

If you are ready for something completely different, take the opportunity to run away from stressful everyday life in oasis of the peace and quietness where it seams like the time has stopped. The lighthouse was built in 1875 on the island bearing the same name and located in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, between the Italian and Croatian coast.
It is the most remote Croatian island and lighthouse. It is situated 68 M to the south of the town of Split and 26 M to the south of the Island of Lastovo. Palagruza and the small islands around it are not inhabited. The island is 1400 m long and 300 m wide, and is covered with Mediterranean vegetation. The lighthouse is located 90 m above sea level in central part of the island. The large stone building has two 4-bed apartments

There are two well-kept trails on Palagruza. One of them leads to Stara Vlaka, a pebble bay on the northern side of the island, while the other trail leads to the southern side of Velika Palagruza to Veli Zal so-called "Juzno zlato", one of the most beautiful beaches on the Adriatic. These pebble beaches are ideal for small children due to shallow waters and fine pebbles. but I honestly don’t recommend to bring children with you if they are not over 12 years old.

The complete isolation of this remote island makes Palagruza one of unique European tourist top destinations. There is an archeological site on the island of Palagruza Velika. On the island there is a famous "Southern golden beach", one of the most beautiful beaches in the Adriatic.

Stay at Palagruža lighthouse, in one of two 4-bedroom apartments. minimum stay is one week. Bring one week's food supply because there are no deliveries here, though you can often buy fresh fish from the lighthouse keeper. Bring a group of friends on this island and find out why this one is the best of all 10 Croatia's top destinations.

9. The best sailing school - Island Murter

(c) burzanautike.com

One of the most exciting way to spent your holidays on the Adriatic is certainly taking part in sailing schools to learn one of the most ancient human sills – sailing. This 7 days course teaches you basic skills essential in order to begin sailing, like handling ropes and deck equipment, basic navigating maneuvers, shortening sails, steering, avoiding collisions on the sea and many more. Course take place on island Murter at Jezera, a harbor in Jezera bay, on the north-eastern shores of the island of Murter which is connected to the mainland by bridge at Tisno.

Thanks to its favorable geographic position, a nautical center and marina with 220 berths have been built in Jezera is a great starting point for exploring Kornati National Park.

10. The best one day tour - island Lopud

(c) lopud.nl

Would you like to make a peaceful escape from touristy Dubrovnik? Island Lopud is one of the top destinations, situated 7 nm northwest of Dubrovnik. It makes a part of the Elafiti islands. The island can be reached by a boat from the new Dubrovnik's harbour Gruz during high season (June to August). Off season ferries operate only in the afternoon. Lopud is a car free island. The beautiful Sunj beach is only 20 minutes walk.

The croatian magical cultural heritage

2011-06-03T04:28:00.000-07:00

Croatian cultural heritage is not as well known as the cultural heritage of some large and powerful countries. It has no magnificent monuments, such as for example the Egyptian pyramids, the Pompeii in Italy or the castle Neuschwanstein in the German Alps. Croatia was not the centre of the great empires of the past and will surprise many visitors in that, in proportion to its surface, there are more sites of cultural heritage under UNESCO protection in Croatia than for example in France or Germany. Croatia has many other valuable cultural monuments which would also be able to find a place on UNESCO's list.

Proportional to its size, what is particularly significant about Croatia is its wealth of intangible heritage; with as many as nine cultural phenomena inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Croatia is among the countries with the most protected intangible assets in the world.

Inscribed on the UNESCO list are the Festivity of St. Blaise in Dubrovnik, lace-making in Lepoglava and on the islands of Hvar and Pag, the carnival group of bell ringers from the Kastav region, near Rijeka, a unique religious event – the Hvar Procession “Za Križen” (‘following the Cross’), two-part singing and playing of the Istrian scale, the spring procession of the women’s folklore group Ljelja in Slavonia, the production of traditional wooden toys from the Croatian Zagorje region, the Sinjska alka – a knights’ tournament in Sinj and the gingerbread craft from northern Croatia. Ojkanje singing features on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

Cultural heritage - Dubrovnik

One reason for this wealth of tangible and intangible cultural heritage is the outstanding position of Croatia on important traffic routes and at the crossroads of great civilizations, each wanting to leave their mark. There 3 fore, Croatia is characterised by exceptional diversity of cultural heritage on a small surface and the presence of monuments from all periods of civilization, from Ancient History to recent times. Thus, in Croatia, we can find monuments from ancient Greece, ancient Rome, early medieval monuments, Mediterranean Renaissance, Middle European Baroque and Modern secessionist heritage. There are also unique testimonies from the earliest
prehistoric times, such as the Neanderthal man of Krapina, one of the world's most important sites , the Vučedol Neolithic culture near Vukovar, pre-Roman Illyrian ruins and many more.

Cultural heritage - Plitvice lakes national park

In Croatia there are many testimonies of local people using skills that followed modern trends of large neighbouring cultures, but they also created unique autochthonous achievements, such as the medieval churches of Croatian rulers in northern Dalmatia, or the palaces of the Old Town of Dubrovnik. Many Croatian artists and architects entrusted the whole of humanity with their works, in the 15th century, Juraj Dalmatinac applied a previously unseen form of prefabricated building to the Cathedral in Šibenik, while the statues of Ivan Meštrović adorn particularly important locations in Chicago, in the United States.

Cultural heritage - Kopački rit nature park

Croatia has managed to preserve the rural and indigenous architecture, which clearly testifies to its cultural diversity. Today we can still see old wooden houses and churches in the flatlands of Pannonia and the unique elongated Slavonian houses with large yards in the Danube region, picturesque huts on hills in the north and shingle covered old houses in the snowy mountains of Croatia. Perhaps even more charming, are the Mediterranean villages with houses made of stone on the mountain peaks in Istria, or by the sea on the Croatian coast and islands.

Cultural heritage - Zagreb

This diversity makes it clear that large European civilizations had mixed here, and that it is right here that the influences of Europe's largest ethnic groups of Slavs, Romans and Germans had come together. Adding to the luxury of Croatian cultural heritage, is the fact that just by the country’s Eastern borders were the former Western and Eastern borders of Christianity, and Western and Eastern European culture. This is where the last line of defense used to be for the overcoming Islamic civilization in the late Middle Ages, as evidenced by many mighty works, and other monuments of the rich military history.

Cultural heritage - Theatres, festivales, concerts

The six most important parts of Croatian cultural heritage are - the Old City of Dubrovnik, a historic complex in Split with Diocletian's Palace, the historic town of Trogir, Euphrasius' basilica in Poreč, the Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik and Starogradsko polje on the island of Hvar, all protected as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. In addition to these, Croatia has 340 protected historic entities and a whole series of individual historic buildings, churches and chapels, fortresses and castles, manors and palaces and archaeological sites. Croatia, in its many museums, holds priceless and diverse cultural treasures, and there are many festivals and events, from music and film events to folklore events and carnivals. The cultural riches hold something for everyone, so let's go ahead and discover them:

Croatian cultural heritage (EN)
Das wunderbare Kulturerbe Kroatiens (DE)
Il meraviglioso patrimonio culturale della Croazia (IT)
Podivuhodne kulturni dedictvi Chorvatska (CZ)
Voyages a travers le patrimoine culturel de la Croatie (FR)
Horvátország csodalatos kulturalis oroksege (HU)
Kroatie een grote cultuurhistorische schatkamer (NL)
Chorwacja skraby kultury (PL)
El maravilloso patrimonio cultural de Croacia (ES)

Croatia TakeOff with Ashley Colburn

2011-05-29T02:36:00.000-07:00

Award winning documentary about beauty of the Republic of Croatia has sequel. Ashley Colburn, last year Emmy award winner for documentary 'Wow! Croatia' made new documentary 'Takeoff Croatia' about Croatian touristic attractions.

After shooting documentary 'Wow! Croatia' and winning Emmy award, Ashley Colburn decided to make a sequel 'Takeoff Croatia' about all touristic attractions which were not in the awarded movie. Young American and her Californian team joined fishermen's festivity, visited cathedral in Šibenik, discovered charms of beautiful Opatija, waterfalls of Krka but also participated archery competition in Varaždin and crunched grapes in Međimurje.

Author of the movie, Ashley Colburn says, this time, movie presents something new and exciting – culture, landscapes, some customs which tale place during touristic season – such as harvest and regattas. "This time I saw something more than this nice culture and customs so I decided to shoot it and show it to the people in the USA", says Ashley.

Documentary 'WOW! Croatia' by journalists Ashley Colburn and John Needen, made in organization of Croatian touristic comunity, has won a prestige Emmy award in Las Vegas.

(www.tportal.hr)

Croatian beaches, crazy summer fun

2011-05-29T02:29:00.000-07:00

We recommend top five ranking Adriatic beaches where young people can have fun during the day and night. Crazy summer fun is the motive for the vacation of a number of European and domestic tourists under thirties or forties, here is the list of five most attractive beaches to have fun in Croatia.

Top five beaches in Croatia

Island of Pag. Zrće beach, it is known beyond our borders; plenty of fun spills over from day to night and all over again. Recently, the German newspaper Bild, comparing Ibiza and Zrće beach, Spanish destination declared -out, and Zrće -in. The beach has numerous facilities and three popular open-air clubs: Papaya, Aquarius, and Kalypso. (Youtube links: Papaya, Aquarius)

Zrće, Pag Island

Split. Bačvice beach, on this beach in the city center, which is monitored by lifeguards, events lasting for 24 hours. As darkness falls, it is enough to move the sand bars and Discos on high and fun is guaranteed. The beach is under video surveillance 24 hours.

Vodice, near Šibenik. Vodice is well known for good place to be for young people, with lot of fun, bars, cocktails, music, day and night activities on the Blue Beach.

Umag. Sol Stella Maris is a picturesque lagoon for those looking for a fun and active vacations. With a variety of sporting activities and many entertainment programs are offered, especially during the tennis tournament, when Umag becomes place of fashionable life.

Fažana, near Pula. Beach in Bi Village surrounded by pine woods and Mediterranean vegetation. Besides numerous restaurants and cafes, offer at the beach completes the sports and entertainment programs, junior-club, evening entertainment, disco...

300 years of birth of Ruđer Bošković (1711-2011)

2011-05-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

Ruđer Bošković on croatian dinar banknote

Ruđer Josip Bošković (18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a croatian theologian, physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, Jesuit, and a polymath from the city of Dubrovnik in the Republic of Ragusa (today in Croatia), who studied and lived in Italy and France.

He is famous for his atomic theory and made many important contributions to astronomy, including the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position. In 1753 he also discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon.

His atomic theory, given as a clear, precisely-formulated system utilizing principles of Newtonian mechanics inspired Michael Faraday to develop field theory for electromagnetic interaction. Other nineteenth century physicists, such as William Rowan Hamilton, Lord Kelvin, and the elasticity theorist Saint Venant stressed the theoretical advantages of the Boškovićian atom over rigid atoms. Some even claim that Boškovićian atomism was a basis for Albert Einstein's attempts for a unified field theory and that he was the first to envisage, seek, and propose a mathematical theory of all the forces of Nature; the first scientific theory of everything.

The scientist Nikola Tesla, a critic of Einstein, claimed in an unpublished interview that Einstein's theory of Relativity was the creation of Bošković:

“...the relativity theory, by the way, is much older than its present proponents. It was advanced over 200 years ago by my illustrious countryman Ruđer Bošković, the great philosopher, who, not withstanding other and multifold obligations, wrote a thousand volumes of excellent literature on a vast variety of subjects. Bošković dealt with relativity, including the so-called time-space continuum ...”

For his contributions to astronomy, the lunar crater Boscovich was named after him.

The largest multidisciplinary research center in Croatia was named the "Ruđer Bošković Institute" in his honour.

Introducing Croatia

2011-05-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Despite the hype, Croatia’s pleasures are more timeless than trendy. Along its 1778km coastline, a glistening sea winds around rocky coves, lapping at pine-fringed beaches. Istrian ports bustle with fishermen while children dive into the sparkling water. In Dalmatia, cities throb with nightlife amid ancient Roman ruins.

Yachts glide up the coast, movie stars discreetly arrange to buy one of Croatia’s 1185 islands and no Mediterranean cruise is complete without a stop in Dubrovnik. The interior landscape is as beguiling, even though less visited. Soak in a thermal spa at Istarske Toplice in Istria. Hike through pristine forests watered by mountain streams in the west. Let the waterfalls of Plitvice moisten your face. And then there's the culture. The country that endured Roman, Venetian, Italian and Austro-Hungarian rule has a unique and slightly schizoid identity. You’ll find a strong central European flavour in the baroque architecture of Zagreb, and Italian devotion to the good life percolates up from the coast, permeating Croatian food and style. During holidays and festivals the country’s Slavic soul emerges, as colourfully costumed dancers whirl about to traditional folk melodies.

Croatians retain a strong attachment to the land and traditions that nourished the dream of independence for so long. Even as a tide of speculators and developers wash ashore, there is a real commitment to preserving the extraordinary beauty of the coast. Whether the country can hold out against the lure of easy money is an excruciating test of its character. But, so far the signs are promising.

Ready to go? Our recommended tours make it easy:

Take an island hopping cycle adventure along Croatia’s magical Dalmatian coast
Explore Croatia starting in Dubrovnik
See Montenegro via a day trip from Dubrovnik

Want more? Find recommended Croatia trips with Lonely Planet Travel Services

Dustinland - Croatian vacation

2011-04-30T02:21:00.000-07:00

American Dustin Glick visited Croatia, which it is obviously very delighted, because their experience in our beautiful conveyed many readers of his comics ‘Dustinland’. Thus, Glick describes the daily rituals of Croats and advises how to behave in Croatia.

Dustin Glick is the author of comics on Croatia, which these days is circulating the Internet. America is, in fact, visited Croatia and Slovenia and is briefly described his experiences in the comics ‘Dustinland’.

So Glick Croats described as thin people, who drink and smoke a lot. Enthralled by the old Croatian who notes that can be found in the middle of the forest and thus seen in isolation, and special memories of his ice cream, cheap beer, brandy and cisterns.

As already mentioned, apart from visiting the Croatian and Slovenia, which recommended Lasko beer, but also points out that there can not eat horses.

The whole comic read on his official website Dustinland

Dustinland is back! I was gone for two weeks on vacation in Croatia and Slovenia, and that is the topic of this week’s comic. Please excuse the bit of a departure in artistic style, since I drew this on the plane ride home, knowing I wouldn’t have much time to work on it once I was back in NYC and still dealing with jet lag.

But yeah, this comic pretty much describes my trip. This was actually my first time in Europe, which is almost embarrassing when I think about how old I am and how long I had passed up the opportunity of going aboard. I think it was always intimidating to me, both in terms of the language barrier and the cost. The cost does kinda suck, but if you can afford it, it’s worth it. Put off buying that new couch or TV. You can’t compare material possessions to what you get out of a great vacation to someplace new. And as for the language, well, I am lucky enough to be born in the U.S., because apparently everyone else speaks English, making it incredibly easy for us to travel. I guess we have England to thank for that, what with all their imperialism and what not. And American music, TV and movies of course, our No. 1 export. Man, I heard almost nothing but American music wherever I went in both Croatia and Slovenia — crappy pop music too. And for some reason I heard the Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes” at least three times.

But anyway, great vacation. Go there. But maybe not during the summer, since that’s when thousands of German tourists will be there beaching it up in Speedos. Hitting the beach would be nice though. I kinda missed out on that since it’s not quite beach weather yet.

Istria is the region to fall in love with!

2011-04-26T11:58:00.001-07:00

When a journey is organized the basic questions are always the same: what destination to choose, why, when and who to go with...

If you want to make your wish come true and live an unforgettable experience, come to Istria.

Sure, it's common place to praise its own homeland. By this brief web site journey we will try to conjure up the richness of the tourist offer of our region. To get the answer to the question of why the author wrote and sang the following song " Only the angels know how it feels to be in heaven..." you will have to come and see for yourself!

Who comes once to Istria keeps coming back!

Marko Antun de Dominis

2011-04-26T11:53:00.003-07:00

Marko Antun de Dominis (1560 – 1624), the archbishop of Split, theologian and physicist was born in Rab in 1560, i.e. 450 years ago. He becomes a member of „The Society of Jesus“ in 1579; studies theology in Padua from 1587 to 1591, and teaches philosophy Brescia from 1592. He drops out from the „Society of Jesus“ in 1596; becomes bishop of Senj in 1597 and archbishop of Split in 1602. In conflict between Rome and Venice, in 1606, when Pope Paul V made a curse and interdicted the Venetian Republic, De Dominis sided with the Republic denying to the Pope the right to interfere with the affairs of the profane government.

In 1611 De Dominis publishes in Venice his first work in the field of physics, on the theory of lens and rainbow– De radiis visus et lucis in vitris perspectivis et iride. After finding out in 1612 that De Dominis reportedly was preparing a work against the Pope and the church policy, the roman court advised De Dominis to abandon the writing, which advice he did not take. However, in 1615 he takes the advice of Rome to give up the position of archbishop in Split. In 1616 he leaves Venice and travels to England. That same year in Heidelberg, where he makes a short stop during his journey, he publishes the announcement of the reasons for his departure under the title Marcus Antonius de Dominis Archiepiscopus Spalatensis suae profectiones consilium exponit, saying that his departure has nothing to do with any kind of ulterior motive of schism. This work, translated in several languages, circulated throughout Europe. It contained De Dominids’ "credo": "From the very first years of my being part of the clergy, I have nourished an inborn wish to see the unity of all Christ’s churches; I could not disinterestedly watch the separation between the East and West, the South and the North as concerns religious topics; it was with anxiety that I strived to find out about the reasons for so many divisions and schisms and to consider if some way could be found to unify all Christ’s churches into a truthful unity that existed a long time ago; I was burning with the desire to see it happen". On his winding journeys from Rome, Senj, Split, Venice, and London to Rome again, De Dominis remained faithful to his youth „credo“ in which he said that he was „burning“, as if he had suspected that in the end of the journey he will finally literally be burned as an old man - corpse.

De Dominis arrives to London on 16 December 1616, festively welcomed. His choice was the Anglican Church as the closest to Catholic Church. And in King James I he sees the ruler suitable for his idea, tolerant and ecclesiastical. Already in 1617 he publishes in London his work De Republica ecclesiastica libri X, - the first four books. De Dominis, a catholic bishop – he had always signed as „Archiepiscopus Spalatensis“or the Bishop of Split – who came to anglican, protestant country is a much discussed case throughout Europe. The fifth and the sixth book De Republica ecclesiastica he published in Frankfurtu am Mein in 1620, the seventh and the ninth in Hanau in 1622, while the eight and the tenth book remained unpublished. And what was the subject of his study and what did he recommend in these books? The key to realise the dream of his youth i.e. to achieve to unity of the churches, according to him, was a collegial organisation of the church hierarchy instead of a monarchic organisation, without the leadership and the priority of the Pope. In the same way in which the believers spread throughout the world form one Church, so do the bishops spread throughout the world form one bishop – a bishop’s college, an assembly of bishops. Only by the unity and oneness of the bishop college, according to De Dominis can the unity and the oneness of the Church be preserved and the Church Schism overcome. When in 1621 the Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi, once a teacher and a friend of De Dominis is elected Pope, taking the name of Gregory XV, De Dominis thinks of returning to Rome.

At the beginning of the next year, in 1622 he writes to King James to allow him to leave England and go to Rome, where the Pope himself had invited him. De Dominis tries to persuade the king to unification with the Catholic Church. The response he gets is permanent exile from England. De Dominis returns to Rome as penitent, receives grace from the Pope and is re-established to all honours and pertaining income. At the beginning of 1623 De Dominis publishes a book in Rome – in which he explains his reasons for returning from England: Marcus Antonius de Dominis Archiepiscopus Spalatensis sui redditus ex Anglia consilium exponit. However, at the beginning of summer, the Pope Gregory XV dies. His successor is the young Pope Urban VIII. In 1624 De Dominis publishes his last work Euripus, like the first one, in physics, discussing the high and low tide. In that same year he also starts his work Retractationes – Reconsiderations, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII, wherein he repeatedly discusses the content of the work De Republica ecclesiastica and corrects the misconceptions. However, the inquisition opens investigation against De Dominis. He is detained in St. Angel’s Castle. De Dominis dies on 8 September 1624. However, the inquisition does not suspend but continues the process against him. He is declared guilty and on 21 December 1624 his dead body, the picture of him and his books are burned at the Roman’s gathering point Campo dei fiori, and his ashes are thrown into a nearby Tiber. In his hand written, unfinished work Retractationes… in Rempublicam Ecclesiasticam (Reconsiderations of the work De Republica ecclesiastica) De Dominis accepts the primacy of the Pope while – as it seems, orally advocating also the bishops’ college, but in unity with the Pope. The Second Vatican Council will later emphasise exactly the bishops’ college headed by the Pope as its special legacy. The Church would have achieved far more by publishing the finished work Retractationes – Reconsiderations, which would stand next to the work De Republica ecclesiastica as reconsiderations and new considerations, than it had achieved by condemning and burning Marko Antun de Dominis. De Dominis experienced the fate of the prophet. Pope John Paul II in the holly and jubilar year 2000 prayed and asked pardon for all the injustices that had been caused by some men of the Church. By the merit of Professor Antun Maletić, and the Academy member Darko Novaković and diligent fellows Petar Šoštarić and Tomislav Jazvić, there appeared in 2009, published by Lamaro in Split Reconsiderations– Retractationes as the final tome of the De Dominis’ masterwork De Republica ecclesiastica entitled: Retractationum M. Antonii de Dominis archiepiscopi Spalatensis Libri X in totidem ipsius De republica ecclesiastica libros, Spalati MMIX. Only together with Retractationes - Reconsiderations – which presents the last De Dominis’ attitude towards the work De Republica ecclesiastica, the latter becomes complete and constitutes the entire and finished De Dominis’ idea. In the year 2009, on the 450th anniversary of the birth of Marko Antun de Dominis from Rab - the Archbishop of Split, the Primate of Dalmatia and Croatia, physicist and theologian of reconciliation with the Christian West, the precursor of Ecumenism and the Second Vatican Council, the issuing of his masterwork De Republica ecclesiastica, in modern book print, together with the pertaining tome Retractationes – Reconsiderations, was finished in his homeland Croatia.

by Ivan Golub (c) Hrvatska pošta

Croatian famous brands

2011-04-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Podravka (text from podravka.hr)

About the company

In 1934 the Wolf brothers founded a workshop to process fruits, a predecessor of Podravka. Today, Podravka is enlisted among the leading companies of southeast, middle and east Europe. There are three business segments of the company: food, beverages and pharmaceuticals.

In our work, we are trying to balance between the economic growth, a progress of the society and the concern fo the environment and to create a perfect match of local and global. Our mission is creation of top-quality products of recognizable brands.

Quality and professional people, the high level of knowledge, especially technological, as well as corporative management, are the basic advantages of our company. Its basic values are: innovation skills, the desire for education, entrepreneurialism, ambition, the winning spirit, team work and professionalism.

With numerous created brands as well as many received awards and acknowledgements for a wide variety of business activity, we consider the loyalty of our consumers as the biggest success of Podravka. We are different from other companies because we understand their needs, becuse we have high quality products and because we adjust very successfully to the growing demands of the market.

In Podravka we run business according to the principles of sustainable growth. With its products, Podravka has been constantly increasing its value. While doing that, we use less resources and we make less waste, and we are especially taking care of environment preservation and the development of the environment and the society and we are extremely sensitive to their needs and we support them through our acitvities. Podravka is also characterized by its involvement in the life processes of their employees and the entire community respectively.

Numerous consumers in more than 40 countries throughout the world have recognized the value of Podravka and its products and they have put their trust to them.

Products

Podravka products are of high quality, practical and safe. Using the advantages of global and local, they are adjusted to the national cuisines, nurturing the specifics of local flavour.

Respecting the fact that a right and quality food is essential for a healthy and good life, the Podravka Brands are a result of long-time tradition, knowledge and concern for the consumers' well-being. Podravka is always young and flexible. It readily adjusts to the market regularities. It strives to satisfy more sofisticated demands of the consumers and to meet their specific demands.

Podravka Products are the result of selected and high quality raw materials, knowledge and modern technological processes with the intention of preserving healthy nutrients of the food.

Products are characterized by quick and simple preparation which contributes to the easier need for food. In that way, the consumers have more time for themselves and their families.

The most famous Podravka Brands are: Vegeta, Podravka soups, Lino, Čokolino, Fant, Eva, Dolcela, Fini-Mini, Talianetta, Kviki, Studena, Studenac and many others.

All products are classified according to the regulation about classification of the Republic of Croatia, EU and the countries that the company works with. The packaging has truthful, complete, clear and unambiguous information about the product. A special care is devoted to ingredients classification of products which cause allergies or intolerance with some consumer groups.

Only quality and healthy food will meet the demands of the body for energy and the necessary quantity of nutritive and protective substances. Podravka is always keeping that in mind!

© Podravka d.d.

Croatian beers

2011-03-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Pan is a Croatian lager beer, which is produced by Carlsberg Croatia. Refresh your day! Less bitter, but full taste, it is the best choice if you want to relax or just quench your thirst. Refresh and enjoy! Fastest growing brand on the Croatian market.

Discover a beer of a seductively golden shade that will win you over with a full and rich taste and finely caramelized roasty notes of the aroma, but that will also completely refresh you: Zlatni PAN.

A high quality pale lager beer from the first Croatain brewery with natural ingredients and water from our own wells. A brewing tradition in Osijek, over three centuries long, is dedicated to the production of the original Osječko pivo (beer from Osijek). The water from our own springs, the highest-quality barley, corn and hops and painstaking care, experience and the right dosage of Slavonian pride create the unique ingredients that, combined together, make this relaxing and refreshing beer. ABV dropped from 5% do 4.5% in 2010.

Ožujsko beer (Ožujsko pivo) is a Croatian marzen lager beer, which is produced by the Zagrebačka pivovara (Zagreb Brewery) since 1892. The brewery was acquired by Interbrew in 1994. It is the most consumed beer in its own country, a record for a marzen type beer. Ožujsko is currently the official sponsor of Croatian national football team.

Karlovačko is a popular beer in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is the signature product of brewer Karlovačka Pivovara, located in the city of Karlovac. It has an alcohol content of about 5.4 percent by volume. Its makers describe it as "golden-yellow" in color and "refreshingly" bitter in taste. It won a 2005 Brewing Industry International Award golden medal in the category of beers with 4.5 to 5.5 percent alcohol.

Lavoslav Ružička

2011-03-30T07:50:00.001-07:00

Lavoslav Ružička (13 September 1887 – 26 September 1976) was a Croatian scientist and winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry who worked most of his life in Switzerland. He received eight honoris causa doctorates in science, medicine, and law; seven prizes and medals; and twenty-four honorary memberships in chemical, biochemical, and other scientific societies.

Ružička was born in Vukovar, Croatia, then part of Croatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His family of craftsmen and farmers was of Croatian, Czech, and German origin.

Ružička attended the classics-program secondary school in Osijek. He changed his original idea of becoming a priest and switched to studying technical disciplines. Chemistry was his choice, probably because he hoped to get a position at the newly opened sugar refinery built in Osijek.

Due to the excessive hardship of everyday and political life, he left and chose the High Technical School in Karlsruhe in Germany. He was a good student in areas he liked and that he thought would be necessary and beneficial in future, which was organic chemistry. That is why his physical chemistry professor, Fritz Haber (Nobel laureate in 1918), opposed his summa cum laude degree. However, in the course of his studies, Ružička set up excellent cooperation with Hermann Staudinger (a Nobel laureate in 1953). Studying within Staudinger's department, he obtained his doctor's degree in 1910. With Staudinger, Ružička went to Zurich and was his assistant.

Work and research
Ružička's first works originated during that period in the field of chemistry of natural compounds. He remained in this field of research all his life. He investigated the ingredients of the Dalmatian insect powder (Pyrethrum cinerariifolium), a highly esteemed insecticide. In this way, he came into contact with the chemistry of terpene, a fragrant oil of vegetable origin, interesting to the perfume industry. He intended to start individual research and even started successful and productive cooperation with the Chuit & Naef Company (later known as Firmenich) in Geneva.

In 1916-1917, he received the support of the oldest perfume manufacturer in the world Haarman & Reimer, of Holzminden in Germany. With expertise in the terpene field, he became senior lecturer in 1918, and in 1923, honorary professor at the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) as well the University in Zurich. Here, with a group of his doctoral students, he proved the structure and existence of the compounds of muscone and civet, the scents derived from the musk deer and the civet cat. The Ruzicka large ring synthesis is a method in organic chemistry for the organic synthesis of these type of compounds.

In 1921, the Geneva perfume manufacturers Chuit & Naef asked him to collaborate. Working here, Ružička achieved financial independence, but not as big as he did plan so he left Zurich to start working for the Ciba, Basel- based company. In 1927, he took over the organic chemistry chair at Utrecht University in Netherlands. In Netherlands he remained for three years, and then returned to Switzerland, which was superior in its chemical industry.

Back to Zurich, at ETH he became professor of organic chemistry and started the most brilliant period of his professional career. He widened the area of his research, adding to it the chemistry of higher terpenes and steroids. After the successful synthesis of sex hormones (androsterone and testosterone), his laboratory became the world center of organic chemistry.

In 1939, he won the Nobel prize for chemistry with Adolf Butenandt. In 1940, following the award, he was invited by the Croatian Chemical Association, where he delivered a lecture to an over packed hall of dignitaries. The topic of the lecture was From the Dalmatian Insect Powder to Sex Hormones. During the World War II, some of his excellent collaborators were lost, but Ružička restructured his laboratory with new, younger and promising people; among them was young scientist Vladimir Prelog. With new people and ideas new research areas were opened.

Following 1950, Ružička returned to chemistry, which had entered a new era of research. Now he turned to the field of biochemistry, the problems of evolution and genesis of life, particularly to the biogenesis of terpenes. He published his hypothesis, Biogenetic Isoprene Rule, which was the peak of his scientific career. Ružička retired in 1957, turning over the running of the laboratory to his assistant and future Nobel laureate Vladimir Prelog.

Ružička dedicated significant efforts to the problems of education. He insisted on a better organization of academic education and scientific work in the new Yugoslavia, and established the Swiss-Yugoslav Society. Ružička became an honorary academician at the then Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb. In Switzerland, the Ružička Award was established, for young chemists working in Switzerland. In his native Vukovar, a museum was opened in his honour in 1977.

Osijek

2011-03-30T07:38:00.001-07:00

Promenade along the Drava river

Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 114,616 in 2001. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county. Osijek is located on the right bank of the river Drava, 25 kilometres upstream of its confluence with the Danube, at an elevation of 94 metres.

The name was given to the city due to its position on elevated ground which prevented the city being flooded by the local swamp waters. Its name Osijek comes from the Croatian word "oseka" which means "ebb tide".

Due to its past and its history within the Habsburg Monarchy and briefly in the Ottoman Empire and also due to the presence of German and Hungarian minorities throughout its history, Osijek also has (or had) its names in other languages, notably Hungarian: Eszék, German: Esseg, Serbian: Осек or Осијек, Latin: Mursa, Turkish: Ösek. All those names were adjusted variations to the original Croatian given name. In Roman times Osijek was called Mursa Maior, but its official Roman name was Colonia Aelia Mursa, as it was established by emperor Hadrian.

History

Origins
The origins of human habitation of Osijek dates back to Neolithic times, with the first known inhabitants belonging to the Illyrian tribes. Roman emperor Hadrian raised the old settlement of Mursa to a colony with special privileges in 131. After that, Mursa had a turbulent history, with several decisive battles taking place (among which the Battle of Mursa Major in 351 and the battle between Aureolus and Ingenuus in 260), deciding the destiny of the whole region. After their migration, the Croats made a settlement near the ruins of Mursa, giving it its present name, Osijek. Life was thriving here in the Middle Ages, but only traces of that life can be found today because of destruction in Ottoman–Hungarian Wars as well as architectural changes during the Ottoman period.

The earliest mentions of Osijek date to 1196. The town was a feudal property of the Korogyi family between 1353 and 1472. The city was demaged by the Ottoman conquerors on 8 August 1526. The Turks rebuilt it in oriental style and it was mentioned in the Turkish census of 1579. In 1566, Suleiman the Magnificent built a famous, 8 kilometer-long wooden bridge of boats in Osijek, considered to be one of the wonders of the world. The town was officially promoted to a city by the end of the 17th century. It was a sanjak of Budin Eyalet.

Habsburg Empire
Osijek was restored to western rule when on 29 September 1687 it was occupied by the Habsburg Empire. Between 1712 and 1721, new Austrian authorities built a new fortress (authored by the architect Maximilian de Gosseau), known as Tvrđa. It is a unique urban and military complex that lies in the heart of the town. Its main central Holy Trinity Square is closed on the north by the building of the Military Command, on the west there is the Main Guard building and on the east is the Magistrate building (presently Museum of Slavonia). In the middle there is a monument to the plague, erected in 1729 by general Petras' widow. The Gornji Grad (Upper Town) was founded in 1692 and Donji Grad (Lower Town) followed on 1698. Tvrđa, Gornji, and Donji grad continued as separate municipalities until 1786. In late 18th century it took over from Virovitica as the centre of the Verőce county.

City of Osijek panorama

The Habsburg empire also facilitated the migration and settlement of German immigrants into the town and region.

In 1809, Osijek was granted the title of a Free Royal City and during the early 19th century it was the largest city in Croatia. The city developed along the lines of other central European cities, with cultural, architectural and socio-economic influences filtering down from Vienna and Buda.

During the 19th century, cultural life mostly revolved around the theatre, museums (the first museum was opened in 1877 by private donations), collections and printing houses (the Franciscans). City society, whose development was accompanied by a prosperous economy and developed trade relations, was related to religious festivals, public events (fairs), entertainment and sports. The Novi Grad (New Town) section of the city was built in the 19th century, as well as Retfala to the west.

20th century
The newest additions to the city include Sjenjak, Vijenac, Jug and Jug II, which were built in the 20th century. The city's geographical riverside location, and noted cultural and historical heritage — particularly the baroque Tvrđa, one of the most immediately recognizable structures in the region — facilitated the development of tourism. The Osijek oil refinery was a strategic bombing target of the Oil Campaign of World War II.

Immediately after the war, the daily newspaper Glas Slavonije has been relocated to Osijek and has printed there ever since. A history archive was established in the city in 1947 and city library in 1949. The Children's theatre and the art gallery were open in 1950.

As a continuation of the reach tradition of promoting national heritage, especially in music, society of culture and art "Pajo Kolarić" was established on 21 March 1954.

Osijek has been connected with the Croatian republic's capital Zagreb and the previous federal capital Belgrade by a modern paved road since 1958. The new Drava bridge to the north was built in 1962.

The first faculty opened in Osijek was Faculty of Economy (in 1959 as Centre for economic studies of the Faculty of Economy in Zagreb), followed immediately by a high school of agriculture, later renamed as Faculty of Agriculture and Faculty of Philosophy. The Faculty of Law was established in 1975. thus becoming the first new member of newly established University of Osijek.

As part of further development as a regional food industry and agricultural centre, a major (working) collective for agriculture and industry was established in 1962.

During 1980s, a new pedestrian suspension bridge over the Drava was built. A regional centre of JRT was also opened.

During the war in Croatia, from 1991 to 1995, the city avoided heavy destruction (unlike nearby Vukovar, for example) and sustained moderate damage, especially to the centre and Co-cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul and to the periphery. More than a thousand (over 1200) civilians also died in the daily shelling of the town. On the other hand, at least five Croatian officials were condemned for war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek, including General Branimir Glavaš. While some buildings still have mild damage, most often the occasional superficial pockmark from artillery and mortar fire, the city's facades are generally in good shape, due to extensive restoration in recent times, preserving the charm of its intricate Austro-Hungarian Baroque architecture in the older quarters of town.

Tourism, sights and attractions
Osijek remains a popular domestic tourist destination for its Baroque style, open spaces and ample recreational opportunities. The most important sights in the city include the main square, Trg Ante Starčevića, Tvrđa the 18th century Baroque citadel, the promenade along the Drava ("promenada"), and the suspension pedestrian bridge toward Baranja.

The Municipal Park of King Petar Krešimir IV and the Tomislav Park date from the beginning of the 20th century, and are protected national landmarks. Osijek is also home to one of the few Croatian zoological gardens, along the Drava river. The city is home to a monument to Ante Starčević.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul is a Neo-Gothic structure with the second highest tower in Croatia after the Zagreb Cathedral. The tower measure 90 m (295.28 ft) and can be seen from throughout Osijek. Because of its size most locals refer to it as the cathedral but it is only a parish church. The Church of St Peter and St Paul was designed by Franz Langenberg and contains 40 stained glass windows, although they are not all intact after the bombing in the 1990s. The church also contains sculptures by Eduard Hauser.

Twin towns - sister cities

Osijek is twinned with:
* Hungary Pécs, Hungary, since 1972
* Slovenia Maribor, Slovenia, since 1995
* Germany Pforzheim, Germany, since 1994
* Romania Ploieşti, Romania, since 1996
* Bosnia and Herzegovina Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 1996
* Switzerland Lausanne, Switzerland, since 1997
* Slovakia Nitra, Slovakia, since 1997
* Hungary Budapest, XIII district, Hungary, since 2001
* Subotica, Serbia, since 2004

Brač Island

2011-03-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Supetar harbour

Brač is an island in the Adriatic Sea within Croatia, with an area of 396 km², making it the largest island in Dalmatia, and the third largest in the Adriatic. Its tallest peak, Vidova Gora, or Mount St. Vid, stands at 778 m, making it the highest island point in the Adriatic. The island has a population of 13,000, living in numerous little towns, ranging from the main town Supetar, with more than 3,500 inhabitants, to Novo Selo, where only a dozen people live. Bol Airport on Brač is the largest airport of all islands surrounding Split.

History
Archaeological findings date the existence of human communities on the island back to the palaeolithic (in the Kopačina cave between Supetar and Donji Humac). Nevertheless, there are no traces of human habitation from the neolithic. In the Bronze Age and Iron Age, Illyrian tribes populated the inner parts of the island. Numerous villages existed at that time (but none of them survived).

In the 4th century BC Greek colonisation spread over many Adriatic islands and along the shore, but none of them on Brač. Nevertheless, Greeks visited the island and also traded with the Illyric tribes; Greek artifacts were found in the bay of Vičja near Ložišća. Brač lay on the crossroads of several trade routes from Salona (today Solin) to Issa (today Vis) and the Po River.

In the year 9 AD, the Romans finally conquered Dalmatia after long fights against the native tribes. Salona became the capital of the new province and, probably because of its proximity to Salona, no bigger villages or towns were founded on the island. Signs of Roman habitation can be found all over the islands, but they usually remain single Roman villas, cisterns, and especially early quarries between Škrip and Splitska. Splitska also became the most important harbour to carry stone to Salona and the whole of Dalmatia. Diocletian's Palace, which later became Split, was largely built with limestone that was quarried on Brač. Also agriculture, especially wine and olives, began in the same era.

After the destruction of Salona by Avar and Slavic tribes, Brač became a refuge for many denizens of the shore. Tradition has it that Škrip was founded by refugee Salonans, but the town is actually much older than that.

From 1268 to 1357 AD the island recognised the supremacy of the Republic of Venice, and after that they bowed to the Kingdom of Hungary. In the summer of 1390, together with the whole region, they accepted the rule of the Bosnian King Tvrtko Kotromanić, who died the next year. Soon after his death, Hungary claimed the island again. In this whole period, they kept their basic autonomy and old structures - the island was never rich or strategically interesting enough to justify serious intervention. Local nobility administered and ruled Brač and the seat of the council was Nerežišća in the island's center. The leader was selected from the noble families. Only in 1420 did the Venetian Republic reclaim the island, finally sending someone to lead the island.

Venice ruled for more than four centuries, until 1797, when the Habsburg Monarchy annexed most of its territory in a deal with Napoleonic France. The official language was Latin. During this time, the Bosnian realm fell to the Ottoman Empire and many refugees settled on the islands, especially on Brač. Many towns were founded in that time and the population began moving from the interior of the island to its coast: to Bol, Milna, Postira, Povlja, Pučišća, Splitska, Sumartin, Supetar i Sutivan.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Brač was conquered by the French Empire for a short time in 1806. In 1807, Prince-Bishop Petar I Njegoš of Montenegro managed to seize Brač with the help of the Russian navy, however already at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the island was returned to the Austrian Empire. Brač was incorporated into the Austrian crownland of Dalmatia from and became a part of Transleithania of the Monarchy of Austria-Hungary from 1867. After the fall of Austria-Hungary 1918, Brač became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or Yugoslavia since 1929. In 1939 an autonomous Croatian Banate was created that included the island.

The population of the island drastically decreased in the beginning of the 20th century due to heavy emigration, mostly to Latin America, especially Argentina and Chile, and to New Zealand and Australia. The emigration continued during the whole century, only later generations preferring to move to European countries, especially Germany.

In 1941 Italian forces occupied the island. In the mountainous regions of the island, native rebels fought a quite effective guerilla war, but the occupiers answered harshly with arrests and executions. After the Italian capitulation in 1943, German troops occupied the island on January 12 and 13 of 1944, but in July they were defeated and the island was freed. As part of Croatia it became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, until Croatia gained its independence in 1991, receiving recognition in 1992. The Croatian War of Independence was barely fought on the island (there was a brief bombing of Milna), but the aftermath of the war, especially the loss in tourism, was disastrous for the island. Only now is the island regenerating from the decade-long drainage of its most important revenue.

Mladen Petrić

2011-03-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Mladen Petrić is a Croatian international footballer who plays for Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga.

Born in Dubrave croatian village near Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Petrić first moved with his family to Vinkovci and then later to Neuenhof, Switzerland, where he started to play football at the local club FC Neuenhof before moving to FC Baden and starting his professional career at the club in the summer of 1998. He left Baden after one season and went on to sign with Grasshopper-Club Zürich in the summer of 1999.

Club career

Switzerland
At club level, Petrić spent five seasons with Grasshopper before leaving the club for FC Basel in the summer of 2004. He received lots of criticism because of a previous action in which he burned an FC Basel scarf during the Swiss Champion celebrations of Grasshopper almost exactly one year before leaving Grasshoppers. He was acquired for a transfer fee of €3 million and signed a four-year contract until June 2008. Playing for Grasshopper, he made a total of 114 domestic league appearances and scored 30 goals for the club in the league.

Petrić was the fourth best goalscorer of the Swiss Super League for the 2005–06 season, scoring 15 goals in 31 matches. In the same season, he also appeared for Basel in all of their 12 UEFA Cup matches and managed to score three goals before the club was eliminated by Middlesbrough in the quarterfinals of the competition. He continued to perform well for Basel in the 2006–07 season of the Swiss Super League. In their first-round UEFA Cup game that year, he netted a brace in a 6–2 home victory over FK Rabotnički.

In the final moments of Basel's UEFA Cup group-stage match versus AS Nancy-Lorraine on 23 November 2006, Petrić was installed in goal after Basel's keeper Franco Costanzo was sent off for a foul on Nancy's Issiar Dia and the team had already made all three substitutions. The foul resulted in a penalty kick that gave Nancy the final chance for an away victory, but Petrić was able to make a save and stopped the penalty kick taken by Mickaël Chrétien, helping his team to drive home one point with a 2–2 draw.

He ended the Swiss Super League 2006-07 as the top goalscorer with 19 goals for Basel.

Borussia Dortmund
On 11 June 2007, Petrić signed for Bundesliga team Borussia Dortmund along with fellow national team player Robert Kovač as part of the sides squad rebuilding. While originally being intended to act as a playmaker behind the forwards in a 4–4–2 diamond system, it quickly turned out that he was more effective as a striker up front. He enjoyed a good start to the season, scoring a brace in Dortmund's 3–0 victory against Werder Bremen. He was one of the league's top scorers in his first season in Germany and also made a notable assistance to his side reaching the DFB-Pokal final in which he scored a stoppage time equaliser against eventual winners and champions Bayern Munich.

Hamburg
On 17 August 2008, Petrić's transfer from Dortmund to Hamburger SV was confirmed by both clubs' official websites as part of a deal that also saw Egyptian international Mohamed Zidan moving in the opposite direction, with both players signing four-year contracts. Dortmund also confirmed they have received an officially undisclosed transfer fee, which is believed to be worth around €5 million.

Petrić made his Bundesliga debut for Hamburg on 23 August 2008 in their 2–1 win at home to Karlsruher SC, coming on as a substitute for Jonathan Pitroipa in the 73rd minute. He scored his first goal for the club on 13 September 2008, netting the winner in their 3–2 win against Bayer Leverkusen. In three consecutive matches in late September and early October 2008, Petrić scored all five goals in Hamburg's 2–0 victories over VfL Bochum in the German Cup and Unirea Urziceni in the UEFA Cup as well as their 1–0 victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach in the Bundesliga. On 5 October 2008, he netted a last-minute winner in Hamburg's 2–1 away victory at Energie Cottbus to keep them top of the Bundesliga table. He scored in the Europa League Semi-Final against Fulham from a free-kick. However crucial the away goal was, Hamburg lost the tie on an aggregate score of 2–1, due to a goalless draw in the first leg in Hamburg.

International career

In 2001, Petrić was spotted in Switzerland by Mirko Jozić, head coach of the Croatian national team at the time, and made his international debut for Croatia during the team's South Korean tour in November 2001, where they played two friendly matches against the South Korean national team. Petrić appeared in both of the two matches as a second-half substitute, but was subsequently nevertheless not called up to be part of the Croatian squad at the 2002 World Cup finals. He scored his first goal for Croatia in their friendly match against Wales on 21 August 2002 in Varaždin, which ended in a 1–1 draw. He subsequently made his competitive international debut as a second-half substitute in Croatia's opening match of the Euro 2004 qualifying against Estonia, but did not play any international matches at the A-team level for three and half years following this match.

In early 2006, Petrić made his international comeback with the Croatian national team by appearing as a second-half substitute in the team's friendly matches against Korea Republic at the Carlsberg Cup in Hong Kong and Argentina in Basel. He was eventually omitted from the final 23-man squad for the 2006 World Cup finals, but received a pre-invitation.

In early August 2006, he was called up by the Croatian national team's new coach Slaven Bilić to be part of the team in their friendly match against Italy on 16 August 2006 in Livorno and appeared in the match as a second-half substitute. He was an active member with his national side in their Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, appearing in almost all of the team's qualifying matches. In the second qualifier, against Andorra on 7 October 2006 in Zagreb, he scored four goals in only 60 minutes of playing and became the first ever player to score four goals for the Croatian national football team in a competitive match. Croatia won the match 7–0, celebrating their highest competitive victory ever. In the return leg against Andorra on 12 September 2007, he scored twice.

On 21 November, the last day of UEFA Euro 2008 Qualifiers, Petrić was brought on as a substitute in the away fixture against England. With Croatia already qualified and the match tied at 2–2, he scored the winning goal from about 25 yards to send England out of Euro 2008. It was England's first competitive defeat at the New Wembley. After the match, he refused to swap his jersey, going on to say "this is the proudest moment of my career. I didn't want to swap this jersey for anything."

Because of his impressive qualifying campaign, he was named in Croatia's Euro 2008 squad. Croatia won their first round group, winning all their matches, including a surprise win over a strong German side, but were knocked out by Turkey in the quarter-finals after a penalty shootout.

Daria Kinzer - Celebrate (Croatian entry for ESC 2011 in Düsseldorf, GER)

2011-03-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Marko Marulić

2011-03-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

Marko Marulić's monument in Zagreb

Marko Marulić (Split, 18 August 1450 – Split, 5 January 1524) was a Croatian national poet and Christian humanist, known as the Crown of the Croatian Medieval Age and the father of the Croatian Renaissance. He signed his works as Marko Marulić Splićanin ("Marko Marulić of Split"), Marko Pečenić, Marcus Marulus Spalatensis, or Dalmata. He was also the first who defined and used the notion of psychology, which is today in current use.

Biography
Marulić was a nobleman born in Split, Dalmatia, coming from the distinguished aristocratic family of Pečenić (Pecinić, Picinić), who in the 15th century began calling themselves Marulus or De Marulis.

Very little is actually known about his life, and the few facts that have survived to this day are fairly unreliable. It is certain that he attended a school run by a humanist scholar Tideo Acciarini in his hometown. Having completed it, he is then speculated to have graduated law at the Padua University, after which he spent much of his life in his home town. Occasionally he visited Venice (to trade) and to Rome (to celebrate the year 1500).

He lived for about two years in Nečujam on the island of Šolta. In Split, Marulić practised law, serving as a judge, examinator of notarial entries and executor of wills. Owing to his work, he became the most distinguished person of the humanist circle in Split.

Writing
The central figure of the humanist circle in Split, Marulić was inspired by the Bible, Antique writers and Christian hagiographies. He wrote in three languages: Latin (more than 80% of his preserved opus), Croatian and Vulgar Italian (three letters and two sonnets are preserved). Marulić was active in the struggles against the Ottoman Turks who were invading the Croatian lands at that time. He wrote, among other works, an Epistola to the Pope where he begged for assistance in the fight against the Ottomans.

His European fame rested mainly on his works written in Latin which had been published and re-published during 16th and 17th century and translated into many languages. He published Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae containing the earliest known literary reference to psychology. He wrote De institutione bene vivendi per exempla sanctorum, a moralist tractate of Biblical inspiration which he managed to publish in 1506 in Venice. Marulić also wrote the Evanglistarium, a systematic discourse on ethical principles that he managed to publish in 1516 and in 1517 - The Davidiad a religious epic which fused Biblical motifs and Antique, Virgilian poetics in 14 verses, the most important being the story on the life of the Bilbical King David. Unfortunately, the Davidiad was discovered only in 1924, only to be lost again and rediscovered finally in 1952. However, Marulić's Latin works of devotional and religious provenance, once adored and envied across Europe, shared the destiny that befell the Humanist genre of those centuries: they vanished into oblivion.

In the works written in Croatian, Marulić achieved a permanent status and position that has remained uncontested. His central Croatian oeuvre, the epic poem Judita (Libar Marca Marula Splichianina V chomse sdarsi Istoria Sfete udouice Iudit u uersih haruacchi slosena chacho ona ubi uoiuodu Olopherna Posridu uoische gnegoue i oslodobi puch israelschi od ueliche pogibili) written in 1501 and published in Venice in 1521, is based on the Biblical tale from a Deuterocanonical Book of Judith, written in Čakavian dialect - his mother tongue and described by him as u versi haruacchi slozhena ("arranged in Croatian stanzas"). His other works in Croatian are:

* Suzana (Susan) - biblical poem in 780 stanzas, listing Croatian works at the end and theming Babylon Jewish woman falsely accused on adultery
* Poklad i korizma (Carnival and Lent), Spovid koludric od sedam smrtnih grihov (Nun's confession of seven deadly sins), Anka satir (Anka the satire) - secular poetry, poems dedicated to his sister Bira
* Tuženje grada Hjerosolima (Jerusalem's Lament) - anti-Turkish laments
* Molitva suprotiva Turkom (Prayer against the Turks) - poem in 172 doubly rhymed dodecasyllablic stanzas of anti-Turkish theme, written between 1493 and 1500. Poem has a hidden acrostic Solus deus potes nos liberare de tribulatione inimicorum Turcorum sua potentia infinita, "Only God can save us from the misery of our enemies Turks", discovered by Luko Paljetak. The poem is assumed to exhibit influence of Juraj Šižgorić's Elegija o pustošenju Šibenskog polja and medieval song Spasi, Marije, tvojih vjernih from Tkonski miscellany. This Marulić's work influenced Zoranić's Planine - the first Croatian novel, in which ganka pastira Marula is sung alluding to Turks, and also to Petar Lučić and his work Molitva Bogu protiv Turkom, and Primož Trubar's Pjesni zuper Turke.

His works are neither aesthetically nor stylistically superior to the works of his Dubrovnikan predecessors. Three puzzling facts tend to raise questions:

* Marulić's Croatian work is aesthetically plainly inferior to the lyric poetry of Hanibal Lucić and the dramatic vitality of Marin Držić.
* Even in terms of chronology, Džore Držić and Šiško Menčetić wrote in an essentially modern Croatian Shtokavian dialect some 3 decades before him.

Marulić's national eminence is due to a happy confluence of some other facts: no one among his contemporaries or predecessors had achieved fame during his lifetime. Further, his deeply patriotic and Catholic verses had assimilated the frequently superficial and imitative poetry of his southern compatriots and transformed it into an epitome of Croatian national destiny. His Judith representing the Croat people defending against the Ottoman Empire invasion – Marulić remained the ineradicable centre of Renaissance Croatian patriotism – of Croathood itself. That is why his stature as the father of Croatian literature is secure and unshakeable.

Marulić's portrait is depicted on the obverse of the Croatian 500 kuna banknote, issued in 1993.

Lake Vrana (Vransko jezero)

2011-03-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Lake Vrana on the island of Cres

Lake Vrana (Croatian: Vransko jezero), in the centre of Cres, is a fresh water lake, 1.5 km wide and about 7 km long. The town of Cres has been supplied with drinking water from the lake since 1953, and the towns of Mali and Veli Lošinj received their supplies ten years later. It was thought at one time that the water in the lake was linked to some mainland source by underground streams, but it has since been established that in fact it originates from the atmosphere.

The lake is one of crypto-depression characteristics. It was formed by very heavy tectonic movements along a longitudinal relaxation fault which now contains 220 million m3 of fresh water. Comprising an area of 5.5 km2, the depression reaches a depth of 60 m below the sea level, but its surface lies about 13 m above it, oscillating by about half a metre. It's surrounded by mountains like the 483 m high Mont Elmo and Mount Perskra of 429 m. The lake contains pike, tench and carp. There are also eels, but their origin is still unclear.

The village of Vrana above the lake is only 15 km from Cres.

Knin

2011-03-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

View of the Knin Fortress from the city center

Knin is a historical town in the Šibenik-Knin county of Croatia, located near the source of the river Krka, in the Dalmatian hinterland, on the railroad Zagreb–Split. Knin rose to prominence twice in history, as a one-time capital of both the Kingdom of Croatia and briefly of the unrecognized, and selfproclamed now defunct Republic of Serbian Krajina. The city is of extreme importance for infrastructural reasons, as the railroads from the rest of Dalmatia and its cities of Zadar, Split and Šibenik pass through Knin, going north to the capital city of Croatia, Zagreb.

History
In the vicinity of today's Knin was once a town called Burnum, which served as an Illyrian and Roman military camp in the 1st century BC.

Knin is mentioned in the 10th century in the history of Constantine Porphyrogenitus as the centre of a parish. A Croatian diocese of Knin was founded 1040 and its jurisdiction extended to the Drava river, with the "Croatian bishop" at its head.

Knin was also the capital of the Kingdom of Croatia around 1080 during the rule of King Dmitar Zvonimir. At the entrance of Knin, the town sign has an inscription stating "Welcome to Knin, town of King Dmitar Zvonimir". This heritage has led to Knin being known as the "City of Croatian Kings" or "Zvonimir's City" (Zvonimirov grad). Between the 10th and the 13th century, Knin was a notable military fort. The huge 10th century medieval Knin Fortress on Mt. Spas dominates the centre of town, and its present aspect dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. It is one of the largest fortification buildings in Dalmatia and is divided into the upper, medium and lower town, connected by drawbridges.

Its strategic position played an important role in many wars and power changes — beginning with the Croatian rulers in Kingdom of Croatia, then the Kingdom of Hungary, the Venetians, the Turks, to the Austrians and the French.

On May 29, 1522, the fort of Knin fell to the Ottoman Empire, and Croatian folk massively left the town. The town was populated with Serb refugees by the Ottomans. Century and a half later, on September 11, 1688, it was captured by the Venetian Republic. Subsequently, the Croatian population partially returned and the Franciscans built a monastery and a church there in 1708.

Knin passed on to the Habsburgs together with Dalmatia in 1797 according to the Treaty of Campo Formio. After the Peace of Pressburg in 1805, the French Empire gained the city and incorporated it into the Illyrian Provinces in 1809. By 1813, the Austrians regained the control over the town. By the end of the 19th century, as a part of the Habsburg domain of Dalmatia, Knin grew steadily becoming an important commercial as well as the road and railway center. In 1867, Knin became a part of Dalmatia - a territorial entity within Cisleithania. After the First World War Knin became a part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in 1918, which subsequently became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia since 1929).

From October 1990, eight months before Croatia declared independence (June 25, 1991) from Yugoslavia, Knin became the main stronghold for the Serbs in the Knin region, eventually becoming the capital city of the internationally unrecognised Republic of Serbian Krajina in 1991. Serbs held the town until Croatian forces freed it during Operation Storm on August 5, 1995 (the date is today marked as a Victory Day in Croatia).

At the end of the war, Knin's demographic composition changed greatly with the influx of Croat refugees from Bosnia and former Croat militia members. They replaced, to a great extent, those Serbs who fled during Operation Storm.

Croatia women's national volleyball team

2011-03-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

(c) fanpop

The Croatia women's national volleyball team represents Croatia in international women's volleyball competitions and friendly matches. The team's biggest successes came in 1995, 1997 and 1999 when Croatia won the silver medals at the European Championships.

Women's World Championship since 1998 (2 participations)
Best result : Place 5 in 1998
Women's World Cup since 1995 (2 participations)
Best result : 4th in 1995
Women's European Championship since 1993 (9 participations)
Best result : 2nd in 1999
3 times second in 1999, 1997, 1995
Women's Olympic Games since 2000 (1 participations)
Best result : Quarter-Finals in 2000

Bronze medal for croatian alpine skier at world championship

2011-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Is not it fantastic when the skier from a country that has only one ski slopes and from a country that has no tradition of skiing, winning medals at the world championships in skiing? It was successful Croatian Ivica Kostelic, who was not one of the favorites to win medals, even though he is the leader in overall World Cup standings. This is because he is one of the best technicians of the world, and "fast disciplines" are not his stronger side. And he won a bronze medal in a fast discipline - super giant slalom! Look!

Gemma Arterton in Croatia - in pictures

2011-02-08T05:20:00.000-08:00

"I was a Bond girl, but this was the most Bond moment of my life." Actor Gemma Arterton heads to Croatia

Croatia may not seem the obvious destination for a 24-year-old, but after lots of hard work last year, I was after indulgence, relaxation – and sobriety. A good friend, Bobby, is Croatian and after hearing him talk about lobster spaghetti, sunshine and rocky beaches, my best friend Pippa and I were keen to check it out, though we vowed we'd rise and sleep early all week – quite a commitment.

First stop was Dubrovnik, once a rival to Venice. We were staying only one night, in the swanky Hotel Excelsior, so headed straight to the old town in search of that famed spaghetti. After two glasses of very good local wine in a charming bar, we forgot all about the pasta mission. Instead, we had some ice-cream from a stall and lost ourselves within the city walls. This city is used as a backdrop in many a film requiring medieval architecture, and we couldn't help feeling a bit guilty that our husbands weren't with us – it is one of the most romantic places I've been.

Next morning, we set off for the island of Hvar. You can fly, but we opted for a drive along the coast and a ferry. This was the most memorable and beautiful part of the trip: the crystal-clear Adriatic, the rocky, meandering landscape. Occasionally, we'd see a couple soaking up the sun on a beach, but for the most part the coastline was rugged and untouched. After three hours, we arrived at Split, and the ferry to Hvar. The boat was packed, with a lot of Italians and, surprisingly, Americans. It seems we Brits are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to Croatia's treats.

We disembarked at Stari Grad, its harbour crammed full of huge yachts, to be greeted by a woman who announced: "Welcome to the party island!" Pippa and I shared a worried look, our attempt at sobriety looking ever more doubtful.

The old town of Hvar is charming. St Stephen's Square is a portside hub of activity, surrounded by bars and restaurants, and narrow, winding streets lead away from the seafront; further back from the shore, the hills are lined with medieval walls built to protect the inhabitants from pirates (how exciting!). Pippa and I knew that our search for lobster spaghetti was on, so we checked into our hotel, the Adriana, and ventured into town.

Having been to Ibiza, I was expecting this "party island" to be a similar scene of madness, but Hvar is much more civilised. We even managed our promised early night. Early the next morning we took a yoga class by the beach, and spent the rest of the day reading by the sea. I was due to appear in Ibsen's The Master Builder in a few weeks and was desperately trying to work out what it all meant – the tranquillity helped.

That evening we had the best lobster spaghetti of the trip, served by a lovely waiter who insisted on Pippa wearing a bib. No matter how beautiful a place may be, it is always the locals who make it, and Mr Bib had me won over. We spent the next few days relaxing, reading and swimming, but on the final day we went island-hopping – Bobby had told me the best way to holiday in Croatia is to hire a boat and sail around the hundreds of islands, stopping where you please. He was right. The hotel organised a small boat, and we were met at the harbour by a rock'n'roll pirate, complete with bandanna, hooped earrings and Aerosmith blaring from the boat's speakers. He asked what music we liked. "Rock'n'roll!" Pippa and I chimed, which he happily played loudly as we tore through the waves to an unknown destination. I once played a Bond Girl in an actual Bond film, but this was the most Bond moment of my life: lying bikini-clad at the front of a boat with the wind in my hair, and feeling very bad-ass to boot.

We arrived at a small island with a tiny, family-owned restaurant on it and a few sailors who'd had the same idea as us. Away from the buzz of Hvar, we could have been anywhere in the world. It was paradise. I could have stayed for a few days at least, but we had a pirate eager to take us onwards.

On the way back to Hvar, to a soundtrack of AC/DC and Guns N' Roses, we passed some naked middle-aged men on their boats, conjuring both shock and admiration. You can be naked here and no one cares. Freeeeeedom!

Over dinner that night, we discussed coming back in summer, avec a boat and husbands, to continue our exploration of these lovely islands. And next morning, up early to catch our ferry, I bumped into my first ever boyfriend – very odd! – who told me of a fantastic jazz bar he'd found. Next time…

On the ferry back to Split, we encountered the other side of the party island: a hungover, or perhaps still-drunk, Australian man without clothes (don't worry, he had underwear on) and sporting a large gash on his head. It was his birthday, and his friends had abandoned him in a stupor without a passport or any worldly goods. Even though we were on a party island, we had managed to avoid the party. Bliss – and highly recommended.

Josip Broz Tito

2011-02-07T05:35:00.000-08:00

Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito (7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a highly popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation.

Josip was born as the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz in the village of Kumrovec within Austria-Hungary (modern-day Croatia). Drafted into the army, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains, after being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Josip found himself in a newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

He was Secretary-General (later President) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80), and went on to lead the World War II Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Yugoslav Partisans (1941–45). After the war, he was the Prime Minister (1943–63) and later President (1953–80) of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). From 1943 to his death in 1980, he held the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia, serving as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav military, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, Josip Broz Tito received some 98 foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honour, and the Order of the Bath.

Tito was the chief architect of the "second Yugoslavia", a socialist federation that lasted from World War II until 1991. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, he was also the first (and the only successful) Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony. A backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as "national communism" or "Titoism"), he was one of the main founders and promoters of the Non-Aligned Movement, and its first Secretary-General. He supported the policy of nonalignment between the two hostile blocs in the Cold War. Such successful diplomatic and economic policies allowed Tito to preside over the Yugoslav economic boom and expansion of the 1960s and '70s. His internal policies included the suppression of nationalist sentiment and the promotion of the "brotherhood and unity" of the six Yugoslav nations. He remains a controversial figure in the Balkans. More about Tito you can read at Wikipedia.

Daruvar

2011-02-07T05:28:00.001-08:00

Daruvar's main street

Daruvar (Latin: Aqua Balissae) is a town in central Croatia, population 9,815 (2001), total municipality population 13,243 (2001).

Daruvar is a spa town, located in the western part of the Croatian plains, on the foothills of the fruitful Papuk mountain, with wine tradition longer than 2200 years, and along the fertile Toplica river. It is the main political and cultural centre of the Czech national minority in Croatia.

Archaeological findings here, (stone axes), could be traced back to the stone age. The history of Daruvar could be traced to the 4th century BC, when the first organized habitation emerged near the warm geothermal spas in today's Daruvar valley. Celtic - Pannonian tribes living here and familiar with water treatments benefiting health, were Iassi, (meaning healers), so called by both Greek and Roman writers.

As allies of the Roman Empire, the tribes provided support to Emperor Augustus during the siege of Siscia, (today's Sisak), and in year 35, Iassi were granted local autonomy know as Res Publica Iasorum. The center of it was Aqua Balissae, meaning very strong springs. In the year 124, during the reign of Hadrian, the area gained additional autonomy as Municipium Iassorum. Stretching between the rivers Sava and Drava, on the roads which ran between Siscia-Mursa, (Sisak- Osijek), Salona–Aquincum, Sirmium–Poetovio, it was easy to access. As did Hadrian, emperors Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Septimius Severus and Constantine I, all visited Aqua Balissae's thermal complex, its decorated temple, its forum and its, (though not as big as the one in Pula), amphitheatre .

In the 11th century the region became part of a mightier entity, that of the rapidly growing and politically important city of Križevci. Within, it became part of the archdiocese of Zagreb mentioned by legislators for the first time in 1334. Since the city was on a busy crossroads, there were four trading points within the valley — Četvrtkovac, Dimičkovine, Podborje and Toplice, (toplice=spas in Croatian). And, as it was more than millennium ago, pleasant spas kept attracting people. The population in that period was exclusively Catholic.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, all that changed. Expansion of the Ottoman Empire disrupted the steady development and Turks occupied lands here in 1543. The Monastery of St King Ladislaus was degraded, becoming a Turkish defensive post looking into the Krajina, military zone created to protect the Habsburg Empire just west of the city. Local people fled from Turks. Turks were expelled in 1699 and the now ethnically mixed area came under the rule of Vienna in 1745.

Podborje, Sirač and Pakrac were bought by count Antun Janković who in 1771 renamed Podborje to Daruvar, (daru=crane in Hungarian), after one building of his own he already called the Crane's castle. In 1837 Daruvar was declared a free city by decree of king Ferdinand I. Still empty lands were soon repopulated by people skilled in crafts, trade, agriculture from around Croatia and beyond. Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Italians, (around so called Little Italy), others were invited to came.

Before the Croatian War of Independence, Daruvar's municipality had a Croatian majority. Daruvar was briefly captured by militants from the Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Western Slavonia during the war.

Demographics
According to the census of 2001, the population of the Daruvar municipality (township) was 13,243. In ethnic terms, 58,36% are Croats, 18,91% Czechs, 14,07% Serbs and 1,05% Hungarians. As for the religion, 74.5% are Catholics, 12.7 % Orthodox, 10.5 % agnostics and atheist while the rest belong to Baptism, Islam, Calvinism and other.

The Czech population is of significant size having its own newspaper, schools, societies and clubs, (Česká beseda or Czech word, Jednota - Unity in Czech language), publishing company. The entire area, (Veliki Zdenci, Grubišno Polje, Končanica), is actually bilingual with Czech being the second official language.

Since mixed, there are numerous local ethnic festivities celebrating important points in different cultures — youth, harvest etc. with most interesting and picturesque that of the Czech minority. The food is reflecting full range of tastes ranging from baklava and sarma to stuffed pepper, mlinci, knedlichke and kolach(i)y (biscuits in both Croatian and Czech language).

Spas
Water treatments benefiting health were well known to mentioned Iassi tribes here almost 2500 years ago, later widely used by Romans and in the Middle Ages. In 1772 owner of the area Antun Janković started building around the springs, envisioning correctly that the town might become healing, leisure and recreation center again as it was proven through the course of history. He erected numerous buildings, many of them still functional -- (Anton's spa, Ivan's spa ). After 1897 newly opened railroad brought new visitors. Restaurant Teresa, Swiss villa, Villa Arcadia, Big Mud Spa with its prominent dome and today well known city mark were all built during the turn of 19 and 20th century.

Today, Daruvarske Toplice is a special hospital complex for rehabilitation specializing in treatment of female fertility (primary and secondary sterility), with two clinics for esthetic surgery. Warm waters (33 to 47 °C) are also used in postoperative rehabilitation, treatment of inflammations, rheumatism, the trauma of bones, hips, head, spine, and locomotion. More spas are around Pakrac and Lipik where there is also a mineral water bottling plant.

The park within the complex is positioned containing 65 different kind of trees like 250 years old Ginkgo tree from China, Variegatum from Arizona and others. Pleasant Hotel Termal renovated and extended in 1996 is also here. The smaller one, Balisse is just few minutes walking distance from here in the traffic friendly downtown.

Tourism
The Area is rich in monuments. Historic Kistalovac, Pavlovina, Sirač, Bagenovać, Dobra Kuća, Stupčanica are examples of numerous local castles belonging to the Croatian nobility of the times passed by. Franciscan monasteries like that ones of St. Margareth, St. Ana, St. three kings, Church of Holy Trinity are witnesses of the rich religious culture.

Economy
German people who came here in the 18th century as well Czechs in the 19th were the keystone of the revival participating in agriculture, food processing plants, culture and education. The development was accelerated on the turn of the centuries by being connected to the railroad track from Banova Jaruga to Barcs in Hungary. Important historic moment was in 1897 witnessed by the emperor Franz Joseph himself.

Since 1840 a brewery is operating here producing today more than 250,000 hectoliters of beer based upon old and famous Czech recipes, with Old Bohemian, (Staročeško pivo), brand being the most known. Zdenka of Veliki Zdenci is well known for its milk and melted cheese processing plant. Also, fish is cultivated in artificial lakes around Končanica and processed within Irida. Here are local high quality vines as Graševina, (ranking the highest), Rhein Riesling, Chardonnay and Sauvignon. Here are fruit, maize, wheat, meat and other agriculture products produced for local, national and wider market s. Dalit, created in 1905, is a metal processing plant once one of the biggest in what was once Yugoslavia, employing today 320, but in the late 70es almost 2000 people. Flat glass factory is in Lipik. There are small graphics and printing, (Daruvarska Tiskara d.d., Logos), facility and textile plant Vesna which is employing around 200. Growing is the importance of the trade, tourism and communication. 2300 people are employed one third of them women.

Risnjak

2011-02-07T05:20:00.000-08:00

View to the Schlosser lodge from the Veliki Risnjak.

The Risnjak is a large mountain range in the Risnjak National Park, in Gorski Kotar, Croatia. It belongs to Dinaric Alps mountain range, but it also forms the border area and is a natural link between tha Alps and the Balkan mountains. The name of the massif probably comes from ris, the Croatian word for the lynx. Another interpretation suggests that it comes from the local word risje, which is a name for a type of grass.

The vegetation is very diverse. Thirty different plant communities have been recorded of which the most common are beech and fir forests (Fagetum illyricum abietotosum) which go up to 1240 m and then are replaced by sub-alpine beeches (Fagetum croaticum subalpinum). The highest vegetation is a belt of mountain pine (Pinetum mughi croaticum). The fauna is also diverse, but has been less well researched. There are particularly many species of birds and mammals, including several types of chamois, while since 1974 the area has once again been inhabited by the lis (lynx).

The highest peak of Risnjak mountain is Big (Veliki) Risnjak (1528 m), and it is also the highest peak in the Risnjak National Park, and the second in Gorski kotar next to Bjelolasica. On its southern slope is located the mountain lodge called Šloserov dom, built by Josip Schlosser. The peak can be reached only on foot, from Crni Lug (3 h) or from an unpaved road beginning in Gornje Jelenje (1 h).

The leading peaks of Risnjak mountain are: Big Risnjak (1528 m), Snježnik (1506 m), North Little Risnjak (1434 m) and Southern Small Risnjak (1448 m).

Toni Kukoč

2011-02-07T05:08:00.000-08:00

Toni Kukoč (born September 18, 1968 in Split) is a retired Croatian professional basketball player. He was renowned for his versatility and passing ability; although his natural position was small forward, he played all five positions on the court with equal prowess and demonstrated court vision and an outside shooting touch that were seldom found in players of his height. Kukoč was one of the first established European stars to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Kukoč played for Jugoplastika Split and won the Euroleague with the team three years in a row. Afterwards he played for Benetton Treviso, winning the title of Player of the Year three times. He has won the Italian Championship in 1992 and Italian Cup in 1993, and played in the European Champions' Cup final in 1993. He has been nicknamed "the white Magic", "the spider from Split", "the Pink Panther", "the waiter","the European Jordan", and was known as "the Croatian Sensation" when he played in the NBA. He was also on teams that won the FIBA World Junior Championship (1987 for Yugoslavia), two Olympic silver medals (1988 for Yugoslavia and 1992 for Croatia), and the FIBA World Championship (1990 for Yugoslavia), in which he was selected the tournament MVP.

So great was Kukoc's fame, even before playing in the NBA, Kukoc was earning $13 million over five years for a contract with the Italian clothier Benetton. He had a $5 million deal with Microsoft and Apple.

Having been drafted by the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1990, he continued to play in Europe, until finally reporting to the Bulls in 1993, when the team had just finished its first three-peat and had lost Michael Jordan to retirement. Kukoč was disappointed that he could not play with Jordan, although Jordan returned to the Bulls in 1995.

The 6'11" (2.11 m) Kukoč came off the bench in 1993–94 behind small forward Scottie Pippen and power forward Horace Grant, though Kukoč could play shooting guard and center as well. Kukoč put up a solid rookie campaign, averaging double-digit scoring and earning a berth on the All-Rookie Second Team.

On May 13, 1994, at the end of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, the Bulls and the New York Knicks were tied 102-102. With 1.8 seconds left and the score tied, Bulls coach Phil Jackson designed the last play for rookie Kukoč, with Scottie Pippen charged with inbounding the basketball. Pippen was so angered by Jackson's decision to not let him take the potential game-winner that he refused to leave the bench and re-enter the game when the timeout was over. Kukoč did hit the game-winner, a 23-foot fadeaway jumper at the buzzer, though the Bulls eventually lost the series.

After Grant left in the offseason, Kukoč moved into the starting lineup and finished the 1994–95 season second on the Bulls in scoring, rebounds and assists behind Pippen.

In the 1995–96 season, Michael Jordan had returned, and the Bulls had acquired an exceptional rebounder, Dennis Rodman, in the offseason. With Pippen still at small forward, coach Phil Jackson saw it best to have Kukoč continue to be a bench player. Toni was third on the team in scoring (behind Jordan and Pippen) and was rewarded for his efforts with the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award. He also assisted the Bulls to a 25-game turnaround and the best record in league history at 72–10, as well as the fourth championship in team history. Kukoč is currently the last player to win the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award on a championship team in the same year.

In 1997 and 1998, Kukoč again came off the bench as sixth man as the Bulls won their fifth and sixth NBA titles. Once again, he was the team's third-leading scorer.

In early 1999, the team was broken up, and Kukoč was one of the only players from their championship years that the Bulls retained. In the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, he led the team in scoring, rebounding, and assists. During the 1999–2000 season as Chicago continued their rebuilding scheme, Kukoč was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for whom he played briefly before he was soon traded again to the Atlanta Hawks. After a short stint with the Hawks, he finally found himself in a more suitable fit with the Milwaukee Bucks via a third trade.

On September 12, 2006, Kukoč indicated that he would retire from professional basketball if he could not be signed by either the Milwaukee Bucks or the Chicago Bulls for the 2006-07 NBA season. Although various NBA teams had shown interest in his services, Kukoč expressed a desire to be close to his residence in the town of Highland Park, Illinois. His son, Marin Kukoč, played for Highland Park High School's varsity basketball team and committed to play basketball for the University of Pennsylvania.

Men's Basketball
Olympic medal record
Competitor for Yugoslavia
Silver	1988 Seoul	National team
Competitor for Croatia
Silver	1992 Barcelona	National team
World Championship
Gold	1990 Argentina	Yugoslavia
Bronze	1994 Canada	Croatia
European Championship
Bronze	1987 Greece	Yugoslavia
Gold	1989 Yugoslavia	Yugoslavia
Gold	1991 Italy	Yugoslavia
Bronze	1995 Greece	Croatia

Croatian Cellists - Smooth Criminal

2011-02-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic playing Smootth Criminal by Michael Jackson for two cellos solo. Arranged by Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic.

Visit Stjepan's website: http://stjepanhauser.webs.com/

Ivan Gundulić

2011-02-01T10:04:00.001-08:00

Ivan Gundulić

Ivan (Dživo) Franov Gundulić (also Gianfrancesco Gondola; 8 January 1589 - 8 December 1638; Nickname: Mačica) is the most celebrated Croatian Baroque poet from the Republic of Ragusa. His work embodies central characteristics of Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation: religious fervor, insistence on "vanity of this world" and zeal in opposition to "infidels." Gundulić's major works—the epic poem Osman, the pastoral play Dubravka, and the religious poem Tears of the Prodigal Son (Croatian: Suze sina razmetnoga; based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son) are examples of Baroque stylistic richness and, frequently, rhetorical excess.

Ivan Gundulić was born in Dubrovnik in a wealthy Ragusan noble family (see House of Gundulić) in 8 January 1589. Son of Francesco di Francesco Gundulić (senator and diplomat, once the Ragusan envoy to Constantinople and councillor of the republic to the Pope Gregory VIII) and Djiva Gradic (de Gradi). He received an excellent education. He probably studied the humanities with the Jesuit Silvestro Muzio and philosophy with Ridolfo Ricasoli[2] and Camillo Camilli (*Siena -+1615), who in late 1590 had been appointed rettore delle scuole e professore di umane lettere in Ragusa. After that he studied Roman law and jurisprudence in general, where he held numerous offices for the Great Council of the Republic. In 1608, when he was nineteen, he became a member of the Veliko vijece (Great Council). Twice, in 1615 and 1619, he held the temporary function of knez (commissary or governor) of Konavle, an area southeast of the city.

At the age of thirty he married Nicoleta Sorkočević (Sorgo)(+1644) who bore him three sons, Frano (Francesco), Mato(Matheo), Šiško (Segismondo) and two daughters, Maria (Mara) Gondola and Dziva (Giovanna). Fran Dživo Gundulić and Mato Gundulić (1636–1684) fought in the thirty-years war under Wallenstein; the youngest died on January 16, 1682, and was by then the Rector of the Republic. From 1621 until his death Gundulić held various offices in the city government. In 1636 he became a senator, in 1637 a judge, and in 1638 a member of the Small Council (Malo vijeće). Ir s believed that had he lived a little longer - he died of an intense fever, product of an inflammation in his ribs ( Folio 15 Libr. Mort. N°274, Adi le Xbre 1638 Ragusa) - he would probably have been elected knez of the Dubrovnik Republic, the highest function that was held for one month only by meritorious gentlemen at least fifty years old. His father, who died in 1624, had been knez five times, and Gundulić's son Šišmundo Gundulić later four times. He began his literary career by writing poems and staging melodramas that became popular in Dubrovnik. But Ivan published only his larger works. His earlier work, which he referred to as a "brood of darkness", is now lost. His first publications were in 1621, when he rewrote several of David's Psalms and wrote several religious poems. He then wrote his famous Suze sina razmetnoga (Tears of the Prodigal Son) in 1622, composed of three "Cries": Sagriješenje (Sin), Spoznanje (Insight) and Skrušenje (Humility). In this poem Gundulić presented the three basic categories of Christian faith: sin, repentance and redemption through contrasts such as between life and death, purity and sin, and Heaven and Hell. In 1637 when Ferdinand II of Tuscany married, Gundulić wrote a poem to honor the event, he noted that "all of Slavic people (Slovinski narod) honor you on this occasion".

His most famous play is Dubravka, a pastoral written in 1628, where Ivan cherishes the former glory of Dubrovnik and uses contrasts like freedom/slavery, beauty/ugliness, truth/lies. It contains some of the most famous verses in Croatian literature:

O beautiful, o beloved, o sweet freedom,
God has given us all the treasures in you,
you are the true source of all our glory,
you are the only decoration of this Dubrava.
All silver, all gold, all human lives
cannot repay your pure beauty!

Nature park Papuk

2011-02-01T10:00:00.001-08:00

The flora of Papuk

Papuk is the largest mountain in the Slavonia region in eastern Croatia, near the city of Požega. It extends between Bilogora to the northwest, Krndija to the east, and Ravna gora and Psunj to the southwest.

The peak (also named Papuk) is 954 meters high.

The area of Papuk is designated a nature park (park prirode), a kind of protected area in Croatia.

At the seventh European Geopark Network Open Conference, hosted by North West Highlands Geopark in September 2007, the Papuk Geopark became the first Croatian Geopark and 30th member of the European and UNESCO Global Geopark Network.

Zoran Primorac

2011-02-01T09:52:00.001-08:00

Zoran Primorac

Zoran Primorac (born May 10, 1969 in Zadar) is an accomplished male table tennis player from Croatia. He is considered to be among the best European players in the last 25 years (along with Vladimir Samsonov from Belarus, Timo Boll from Germany, Jan-Ove Waldner and Jörgen Persson from Sweden and Jean-Philippe Gatien from France).

Primorac was born in Zadar and started playing table tennis in the club STK "Bagat" in his home town. As a junior he won seven medals in European championships. In 1985 he moved to the Zagreb club "Vjesnik". At the 1987 World Championship in New Delhi he won the silver medal together with Ilija Lupulesku, and repeated the success by winning the silver at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Together with Lupulesku he also won the 1990 European Championship in Gothenburg.

Primorac competed for Croatia at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona where he reached last 16 in singles and doubles. He repeated the same at the 1996 Summer Olympics, and at the 2004 Summer Olympics he was eliminated in the third round. At 2008 Summer Olympics "Zoki" lost in quarter-final of Men's singles event by Jörgen Persson.

Primorac, Belgian Jean-Michel Saive, and Swede Jörgen Persson are the first table tennis players to have competed at six Olympics, having competed in all Games since the sport was introduced in 1988.

In 1993 he won a bronze medal in Men's singles at World Table Tennis Championships. He won silver medal in 1995 and bronze in 1999 at World Championships in Men's doubles event.

At the 1998 and 2000 European Championships Primorac won silver medal in Men's singles. In 1998 final he lost against Vladimir Samsonov and in 2000 lost against Peter Karlsson. At 1992, 1994, 2002 and 2005 European Championship he won bronze medal in Men's singles. In the 2007 European Championship in Belgrade he won the silver medal in the team event with Croatia (with Roko Tošić, Andrej Gačina and Tan Ruiwu).

At Mediterranean Games in Men's singles event he won gold medal in 1987, silver in 1993 and 1997 and bronze in 1991. In Men's doubles evnt he won gold medal in 1987 and 1991, silver in 1993 and bronze in 1997.

He currently uses specially-designed equipment made by Butterfly Table Tennis. He uses the Timo Boll spirit blade, while using Tenergy 05 rubber on both sides of his racket.

Achievements

Year	Competition	Venue	Placed	Event
1988	Olympic Games	Seoul	2 Silver	Men's doubles
1987	World Championships	New Delhi	3 Bronze	Men's team
1987	World Championships	New Delhi	2 Silver	Men's doubles
1991	World Championships	Chiba	2 Silver	Men's team
1993	World Championships	Gothenburg	3 Bronze	Men's singles
1995	World Championships	Tianjin	2 Silver	Men's doubles
1999	World Championships	Eindhoven	3 Bronze	Men's doubles
1986	European Championships	Prague	3 Bronze	Men's doubles
1988	European Championships	Paris	2 Silver	Men's doubles
1990	European Championships	Gothenburg	3 Bronze	Men's team
1990	European Championships	Gothenburg	1 Gold	Men's doubles
1992	European Championships	Stuttgart	3 Bronze	Men's singles
1992	European Championships	Stuttgart	3 Bronze	Mixed doubles
1994	European Championships	Birmingham	3 Bronze	Men's singles
1994	European Championships	Birmingham	2 Silver	Men's doubles
1994	European Championships	Birmingham	1 Gold	Mixed doubles
1998	European Championships	Eindhoven	2 Silver	Men's singles
2000	European Championships	Bremen	2 Silver	Men's singles
2002	European Championships	Zagreb	3 Bronze	Men's singles
2005	European Championships	Aarhus	3 Bronze	Men's singles
2007	European Championships	Belgrade	2 Silver	Men's team

Pula

2011-02-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

The Arena in Pula

Pula is the largest city in Istria County, Croatia, situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula, with a population of 62,080 (2006). Like the rest of the region, it is known for its mild climate, tame sea, and unspoiled nature. The city has a long tradition of winemaking, fishing, shipbuilding, and tourism. Pula has also been Istria's administrative center since ancient Roman times.

The city is best known for its many surviving ancient Roman buildings, the most famous of which is its 1st century amphitheatre, which is among the six largest surviving Roman arenas in the world. and locally known as the Arena. This is one of the best preserved amphitheatres from antiquity and is still in use today during summer film festivals. During the World War II Italian fascist administration, there were attempts to disassemble the arena and move it to mainland Italy, which were quickly abandoned due to the costs involved.

Two other notable and well-preserved ancient Roman structures are the 1st century AD triumphal arch, the Arch of the Sergii and the co-eval temple of Rome and Augustus, built in the 1st century AD built on the forum during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus.

The Twin Gates (Porta Gemina) is one of the few remaining gates after the city walls were pulled down at the beginning of the 19th century. It dates from the mid-2nd century, replacing an earlier gate. It consists of two arches, columns, a plain architrave and a decorated frieze. Close by are a few remains of the old city wall.

The Gate of Hercules dates from the 1st century. At the top of the single arch one can see the bearded head of Hercules, carved in high-relief, and his club on the adjoining voussoir. A damaged inscription, close to the club, contains the names of Lucius Calpurnius Piso and Gaius Cassius Longinus who were entrusted by the Roman senate to found a colony at the site of Pula. Thus it can be deduced that Pula was founded between 47 and 44 BC.

The Augustan Forum was constructed in the 1st century BC, close to the sea. In Roman times it was surrounded by temples of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. This Roman commercial and administrative centre of the city remained the main square of classical and medieval Pula. It still is the main administrative and legislative centre of the city. The temple of Roma and Augustus is still preserved today. A part of the back wall of the temple of Juno was integrated into the Communal Palace in the 13th century.

Two Roman theatres have withstood the ravages of time: the smaller one (diam. circa 50 m; 2nd c. AD) near the centre, the larger one (diam. circa 100 m; 1st c. AD) on the southern edge of the city.

The city's old quarter of narrow streets, lined with Medieval and Renaissance buildings, are still surfaced with ancient Roman paving stones.

The Arch of the Sergii

The Byzantine chapel of St. Mary Formosa was built in the 6th century (before 546) in the form of a Greek cross, resembling the churches in Ravenna. It was built by deacon Maximilian, who became later Archbishop of Ravenna. It was, together with another chapel, part of a Benedictine abbey that was demolished in the 16th century. The floors and the walls are decorated with 6th century mosaics. The decoration bears some resemblance to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna. The wall over the door contains a Byzantine carved stone panel. The 15th-century wall paintings may be restorations of Early Christian paintings. When the Venetians raided Pula in 1605, they removed many treasures from this chapel to Venice, including the four columns of oriental alabaster that stand behind the high altar of St Mark's Basilica.

The Church of St. Francis dates from the end of the 13th century. It was built in 1314 in late Romanesque style with Gothic additions such as the rose window. The church consists of a single nave with three apses. An unusual feature of this church is the double pulpit, with one part projecting into the street. A 15th-century wooden polyptych from an Emilian artist adorns the altar. The west portal is decorated with shell motifs and a rose window. The adjoining monastery dates from the 14th century . The cloisters display some antique Roman artifacts.

The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the 6 th century, when Pula became the seat of a bishopry, over the remains over the original site where the Christians used to gather and pray in Roman times. It was enlarged in the 10th century. After its destruction by Genoese and Venetian raids, it was almost completely rebuilt in the 15th century. It got its present form when a late Renaissance façade was added in the early 16th century. The church still retains several Romanesque and Byzantine characters, such as some parts of the walls (dating from the 4th century), a few of the original column capitals and the upper windows of the nave. In the altar area and in the room to the south one can still see fragments of 5th to 6th-century floor mosaics with memorial inscriptions from worshippers who paid for the mosaics. The windows of the aisles underwent reconstruction in Gothic style after a fire in 1242. The belfry in front the church was built between 1671 and 1707 with stones form the amphitheatre. There also used to stand a baptistery from the 5th century in front of the church, but it was demolished in 1885.

The Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas with its Ravenna-style polygonal apse, originally dates from the 6th century, but was partially rebuilt in the 10th century. In 1583 it was assigned to the Orthodox community of Pula, mainly immigrants from Cyprus and Nauplion. The church owns several icons from the 15th and the 16th century and an iconostasis from the Greek artists Tomios Batos from the 18th century.

The star-shaped castle with four bastions is situated on top of the central hill of the old city. It was built, over the remains of the Roman capitolium, by the Venetians in the 14th century , following the plans of the French military architect Antoine de Ville. Since 1961 it now houses the Historical Museum of Istria. Close by, on the north-eastern slopes, one can see the remains of a 2nd-century theatre.

The Archaeological Museum of Istria is situated in the park on a lower level than the Roman theatre and close to the Twin Gates. Its collection was started by Marshall Marmont in August 1802 when he collected the stone monuments from the temple of Roma and Augustus. The present-day museum was opened in 1949. It displays treasures from Pula and surroundings from prehistory until the Middle Ages.

Some nice croatian music

2011-01-27T10:58:00.001-08:00

Dalmatino povišću pritrujena

What you must to eat when you come to Croatia?

2011-01-18T05:13:00.000-08:00

Štrukli

Štrukli is a traditional Croatian dish served in most household across Zagorje and Zagreb. There are two types of štrukli, one is called kuhani štrukli (boiled štrukli) the other is called pečeni štrukli (baked štrukli) or simply štrukli.

Making Štrukli
Either way štrukli is cook the preparations are the same. A pastry is rolled out flat and very thin to cover a tables top. A mixture of cottage cheese with eggs, sour cream and salt are spread thinly across the pastry. Then the pastry is rolled lengthways from both sides into two joined rolls, and finally cut into 10–20 cm lengths.

For pečeni štrukli these lengths are placed into a baking tray, generously covered in clotted cream and baked for roughly 45 minutes until slightly brown on top.

For kuhani štrukli water is boiled and the štrukli pieces are placed into the pot. Onion and parsley are fried until slightly brown and poured into the kuhani štrukli. The štrukli is then boiled for roughly 20 minutes.

Riblja čorba / Fiš paprikaš (Fisherman's Soup)

Fisherman's Soup is a hot and spicy paprika based river fish soup. The meal originates from the Hungarian cuisine, a bright red hot soup prepared with generous amounts of hot paprika and carp or mixed river fish, characteristic for the cuisines of the Pannonian Plain, particularly prepared in the Danube and Tisza river regions.

Punjena paprika

Punjena paprika is a dish made of peppers, stuffed with a mix of meat and rice in tomato sauce, the ingredients consisting of green or red capsicums, eggs, spices, salt, tomato, minced meat and rice. The dish is called punjena paprika in Croatian. There are also many variations of the dish across the Balkans.

The meat, usually ground beef is mixed with egg, rice, diced red onions, salt, herbs and spices, like garlic, ground black pepper, ground paprika, parsley or rosemary. The filling can sometimes contain mushrooms, mixed meats or cabbage.

The pepper tops are removed and the peppers are washed, seeded and loosely stuffed with the meat mixture and laid out in a large pot (tops facing up).

Enough water is added to completely cover the peppers. Spices like bay leaves, black peppercorn and other vegetables, like celery, cabbage and a whole onion may be added.

The stew is boiled until the peppers become visibly soft on the outside and the water reduces down to half. The thickening agent for the gravy is browned roux or flour and water. The heat is reduced and tomato paste, or even pasta sauce, can be added and mixed into the gravy. The dish is usually served alone, eaten with bread or with mashed potatoes and salad as a side dish. There are even other ways of serving this dish.

Ivan Lupis

2011-01-14T07:58:00.000-08:00

Ivan Lupis (27 August 1813 – 11 January 1875) was an officer of the Austrian Navy, born in Rijeka (Croatia), who had the idea of the first self-propelled torpedo.

He was born in Rijeka in 1813. His parents where Ferdinando Carlo, nobleman of Poreč and Vis and Giovanna Parich, noble of Dubrovnik. In the city of Rijeka, then part of the Illyrian Provinces, Ivan Lupis's family has been powerful shipowners. Lupis attended a gymnasium in Rijeka and the Collegio di marina, the Austrian naval academy in Venice. Then he married a noblewoman, the Baroness Elisa de Zotty.

He served in the Venezianisch-Österreichische Kriegsmarine (after 1849 K.u.K Kriegsmarine) and rose up the ranks to the position of Frigate Captain (Fregattenkapitan). In 1848/1849 he was an officer on the ships that blocked Venice.

The "Salvacoste" (Coastsaver)
About the middle in the 19th century, an officer of the Austrian Marine Artillery conceived the idea of employing a small boat carrying a large charge of explosives, powered by a steam or an air engine and remotely steered by cable to be used against enemy ships. Upon his death, before he had perfected his invention or made it public, the papers of this anonymous officer came into the possession of Capt. Ivan Lupis.

He envisioned a floating device for destroying ships that would be unmanned and controlled from land, while the explosive charges would detonate at the moment of impact. His first prototype was one metre long, had glass wings, and was controlled via long ropes from the coast. It didn't succeed due to primitive implementation.

The second model was built with a clock mechanism as the engine for the propeller. The explosives were in the stern and were ignited through a pistol-like control, which in turn was activated through the bow, the sides or the mast. It had two rudders: one turned to the right, the other to the left, that were moved by ropes/wires from land. After numerous experiments, this design, marked '6 m', finally performed well enough. He nicknamed it 'Salvacoste', Italian for "Coastsaver". In 1860, after Luppis had retired from the Navy, he managed to demonstrate the '6 m' design to the emperor Franz Joseph, and it was a success, but the naval commission refused to accept it without better propulsion and control systems.

The meeting with Robert Whitehead
In 1864 Fiume/Rijeka the future mayor Giovanni de Ciotta introduced Luppis to the British machine engineer Robert Whitehead, manager of the local factory 'Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano', with whom he signed a contract to develop the 'salvacoste' further.

Whitehead built a model but decided that the idea was not viable. He did however start to think about the problem of setting off explosive charges remotely below a ship's waterline, this being far more effective than above-water bombardment. Whitehead made a device running under water and installed an engine running on compressed air, as well as automatic guidances for the depth and direction. Whitehead had significantly altered the original design, but always credited Lupis with the invention.

On 21 December 1866 the first automobile torpedo, now named Minenschiff, was officially demonstrated in front of the Austro-Hungarian state commission for evaluation. This model was 355mm in diameter and 3.35m in length, weighing 136 kg with 8 kg of explosives. The naval commission accepted it, and subsequently on 6 March 1867 the government contracted the inventors for a test production and agreed to pay all the production costs.

Whitehead retained the copyrights and even negotiated a new contract with Lupis which gave Whitehead full control of all future sales.

On 27 May 1867, the navy paid 200,000 forints in royalties to the inventor. The invention was generally regarded as a promising one, but in the first years of production there were not enough orders, so 'Stabilimento' went through a crisis and went bankrupt in 1873. R. Whitehead took it over and at the beginning of 1875 transformed it into a private company called 'Torpedo-Fabrik von Robert Whitehead'.

Ivan Lupis was given the noble title of Baron von Rammer ('the sinker') on 1 August 1869. He died in Milan on 11 January 1875.

Brijuni National Park

2011-01-14T07:46:00.001-08:00

Position of Brijuni

The Brijuni or the Brijuni Islands are a group of fourteen small islands in the Croatian part of the northern Adriatic Sea, separated from the west coast of the Istrian peninsula by the narrow Fažana Strait. The largest island, Veliki Brijun Island- Brioni Grande or Veli Brijun (5.6 km2), lies 2 km off the coast, the others are Mali Brijun, San Marco, Gaz, Okrugljak, Supin, Supinič, Galija, Grunj, Krasnica (Vanga), Madona, Vrsar, Jerolim and Kozada. Famous for their scenic beauty, the islands are a holiday resort and a Croatian National Park.

History
The Brijuni Islands had some Ancient Roman settlements, but up to the late 19th century the islands were mainly used for their quarries, which have been worked on for centuries. The islands belonged to Venice from the Middle Ages, and stone from the islands was used to build the palaces and bridges of the city. The islands were part of the Illyrian Provinces after Napoleon's brief annexation.

In 1815 the islands became part of the Austrian Empire, which later became Austria-Hungary. During this period the islands' quarries first supplied stone to Vienna and Berlin. With the erection of a naval base in the harbour of Pula, the Austrians built a strong fortress on Veliki Brijun Island Island, together with minor fortifications on some of the others.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy abandoned the fortress, and in 1893 the Viennese business magnate Paul Kupelwieser bought the whole archipelago and created an exclusive beach resort. The estate was supplemented with first class hotels, restaurants, beach resorts, a casino and a yacht harbour and became a focal point in social life on the Austrian Riviera. Kupelwieser also established a sailing regatta, a golf course and - due to the flourish of Austrian Culture - various music concert and literature events. The Brijuni islands became popular as a destination for the Viennese upper class and were visited by members of the Imperial family and other wealthy European bourgeois and aristocrats.

In 1918 after World War I Brijuni became part of Italy. Karl Kupelwieser, the son of the founder of the estate tried to maintain the former splendor, but after the economic crisis following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the estate went bankrupt and Karl committed suicide. In 1930 the islands were acquired by the Italian state and remained part of Italy until the capitulation in 1943.

The Safari Park

In 1945 after World War II the Brijuni became part of Yugoslavia and President Marshal Josip Broz Tito made the Brijuni Islands his personal State Summer Residence. Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik designed a pavilion for Tito. Almost 100 foreign heads of state visited Tito on his islands, along with film stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Carlo Ponti, and Gina Lollobrigida. Tito died in 1980, and by 1983 the islands were declared a National Park of Yugoslavia.

In 1991 Croatia gained independence and made the Brijuni Islands an International Conference Center (see Brijuni Agreement). Four hotels on Veliki Brijun Island were re-opened, as well as a Safari Park, which holds animals given to Tito, such as Sony and Lanka, two Indian elephants donated by Indira Gandhi. Sony, who was donated to Tito in 1970 as a two-year-old calf, died in 2010. The International Brijuni Polo Tournament, dating back to Karl Kupelwieser's Austro-Italian Brijuni in 1924, has been re-continued since 2004.

Flora

1700 year old Olive tree

The majority of the flora on the archipelago of the Brijuni islands has the typical Mediterranean characteristics. On Veliki Brijun Island there are about 600 indigenous plant species. Here cedars, bamboos, and the pyramidal yew have become acclimatised, while on Vanga the dwarf spruce grows. There is also much exotic vegetation that Tito received from foreign statesmen. The most important plant associations of Veliki Brijun Island are: Maquis shrubland, Holm Oak, and Laurel forest, and Conifers, which are very characteristic of the region.

It is interesting to point out that on the islands there are some plant species that are among the endangered plant species of Istria (marine poppy, wild cucumber, some grass species etc.), but on the islands they are quite widespread and develop freely. The most valuable part of the island from the point of view of vegetation streches from the Villa Brijunka in the south, and the most lovely forest is found in the east of the White Villa.

Fauna

Birds

Because of the millennial presence of men on the archipelago of Brijuni, the animal world on the islands, especially Veliki Brijun, besides the autochthonous species, was enriched by many imported species that are not congenial to this habitat but got acclimated to it thanks to the almost ideal microclimatic conditions. Inside the park there is an ethno park is an area within the Safari park presenting a typical Istrian homestead with its autochthonous animal species. Istrian ox (a descendent of the Aurochs), Istrian sheep, donkeys and goats. It is intended both as a habitat and presentation of domestic animals of Istria.

In addition, the chital deer, the Fallow deer and mouflons were introduced to the Veliki Brijun Island in the early 20th century. Their numbers increased in the following decades and can be seen roaming freely around the island.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century the European Hare, the Chital, the Fallow Deer and the Mouflon were imported, so their descendants still adorn the forests, parks and glades of Brijuni and are part of its identity. The autochthonous birds are quite well represented. Some of the smaller islands are excellent habitats where gulls and sea swallows nest, as well as some rare genuses of Cormorants. The Brionian islands are also important seasonal habitats of northern bird species and the most interesting is the locality of Saline. That is a very damp area with three marshy lakes of 8 acres (32,000 m2) of fenced area with the aim of forming an Ornithology reservation. The biggest lake is overgrown with reed and is a good nestling ground for numerous types of birds.

On the island there is also a Safari Park, it is home to a variety of exotic animals which were given to the park as gifts from diplomatic partners. The Nilgai, Zebu and Asian Elephant were donated as a gift from India, Plains Zebra and Mountain Zebra were given by Ahmed Sékou Touré from Guinea, Waterbuck came from Ethiopia.

The local seas of the Brijuni archipelago are important hatching grounds and representative Marine Parks for the typical marine organisms of the northern Adriatic. Of the marine organisms that are protected by the Law on Environmental Conservation in the waters of Brijuni you can find the pen-shell and the date-shell. Turtles and dolphins, the protected marine vertebrates, can also from time to time be seen in the waters of Brijuni. There are also some endemic species like the black tang, Jadranski bračić, and the Tunicate, Jadranski ciganin.

The seabed abounds in sponges, shellfish, sea urchins, crustaceans, fish etc. In the past in the seas of Brijuni were found some species that were never seen in the Adriatic, as well as some species up to then unknown to scientists like the soft coral Alcyonium brionense or the variety of the sponge Ircinia variabilis fistulata.

Tourism
On the Brijuni there are several archaeological and cultural sites. At four sites on Veliki Brijun Island over 200 dinosaur footprints have been discovered, which can be traced to the Cretaceous Period from where Brijuni Cretaceous Park gets its name.

There are also several archeological sites worth seeing. There is the 13th century AD St. Mary's Church which was built by the Knights Templar. There are also two ancient Roman villa remains, from the 2nd Century BC and remains of a Byzantine palace. The last remain is Hill-fort which indicates a Bronze Age settlement on the island dating back to 14th century BC.

There are also several exhibitions including natural history and art exhibitions, and archaeological collections.

Bjelovar

2011-01-14T07:41:00.001-08:00

Saint Therese of Avila Cathedral

Bjelovar is a city in central Croatia. It is the administrative centre of Bjelovar-Bilogora County. During the 2001 census, there were 41,869 inhabitants, 90.51% which are Croats. Bjelovar is one of the younger towns of Central Croatia, as it was first mentioned in 1413 and only gained importance when a new fort was built there in 1756. It was built on demand by empress Maria Theresa of Habsburgs. The initial role of the city was to defend central Croatia against the Ottoman invasions.

The town had to wait until the end of the wars to be pronounced a free royal town by ban Ivan Mažuranić in 1874.

Ancient history
Oldest Neolithic location of this area can be found in the suburban part of Bjelovar, named Ždralovi, where, while building a basement for the house of Josip Horvatić, a dugout was found and identified as part of the Starčevo culture (generally 5000 – 4300 b. C.) Findings from Ždralovi belong to a regional subtype of the final variant in the long process of development of that Neolithic culture. It is designated as Ždralovi facies of the Starčevo culture or the Starčevo - Final stages. There are also finding of Korenovo culture, Sopot culture, Lasinja culture and Vučedol culture.

Culture
Bjelovar is home to three memorial areas to soldiers. Memorial Area Barutana is dedicated to those who died defending the city on September 29, 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence; Memorial Area Lug is dedicated to Ustashi soldiers killed by Partisans in 1945 and Memorial Area Borik is dedicated to Partisans killed during the Second World War.

Bjelovar hosts the yearly theatre festival „BOK“ (Bjelovarski odjeci kazališta or Bjelovar Echoes of Theatre). The festival was founded and run by Bjelovar actor Goran Navojec and it gathers the selection of best plays performed in Croatia during previous year.

Blanka Vlašić

2011-01-14T07:33:00.001-08:00

Blanka Vlašić at the 2008 Internationales Stadionfest

Blanka Vlašić (born 8 November 1983) is a Croatian athlete who specialises in the high jump. She is the current Croatian record holder in the event, and also the current World Champion both indoors and outdoors. Her personal best jump of 2.08 m was set on 31 August 2009 and is the second highest height cleared in the history of the event.

The daughter of Croatian decathlon record holder, Joško Vlašić, she was a talented junior athlete and attended her first Olympic Games in 2000 Sydney at the age of sixteen. She won the World Junior Championships in Athletics in both 2000 and 2002. Vlašić broke her national record in 2004 and also won her first world senior medal at the World Indoor Championships that year. A hyperthyroid condition hindered her second Olympic appearance in Athens and she spent the 2005 season recuperating from surgery.

She returned in 2006, taking the silver at the World Indoor Championships. The 2007 season signalled a strong run of form: she won at the 2007 World Championships, became the indoor world champion in 2008 and her winning streak came to an end with a narrow loss at the Beijing Olympics, where she took silver. She became World Champion for a second time in 2009. She ranks second in the all-time high jump rankings, behind Stefka Kostadinova. Her awards also including the IAAF World Athlete of the Year 2010 and European Athlete of the Year Trophy (2007,2010).

World and Olympic competition
Although she recorded an indoor season's best of 2.01 m in February, she failed to repeat her previous season's indoor form and finished fifth at the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships (later upgraded to fourth after Venelina Veneva tested positive for banned substances).

During the 2007 season, Vlašić jumped over two metres in seventeen of her nineteen outdoor competitions, along with several close attempts at a would-be world record of 2.10 m.

Vlašić also won eighteen out of nineteen outdoor competitions, with her only loss coming early in the season at the first Golden League meeting in Oslo. As the women's high jump was a jackpot event this year, had Vlašić won here, she would have won (along with Russian Pole Vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and American sprinter Sanya Richards) a share of the Golden League jackpot ($1,000,000).

Vlašić's consistency over two metres, and consistency at the first attempt, this season, put her as a firm favourite to challenge for honours at August's World Championships and she proved the expectations had been right. She became a world champion with a jump of 2.05 m.

In early October, Vlašić was named female European Athlete of the Year by the European Athletic Association after the combined votes of a panel of experts, a group of journalists and the public. She is the first Croatian athlete and the first high jumper to win this award.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in Beijing, Vlašić won the silver medal, beaten by the Belgian Tia Hellebaut (both cleared 2.05 m, but Vlašić needed one more attempt than Hellebaut). This ended her recent unbeaten streak of 34 competitions. Vlašić's season ended in despair, as she was again beaten on countback in the final leg of the ÅF Golden League series, which ended her chances of winning the $1,000,000 jackpot. Having won the previous 5 Golden League events, she finished Memorial Van Damme meeting in 2nd place to Ariane Friedrich.

August 2009 was a month of highlights for Vlašić as she won gold at the World Championships in Berlin, then set a new personal best at Zagreb.

On 20 August, she won her second World Championship high jump crown, clearing 2.04 m on her second attempt to win gold.

Her personal best came 31 August at a meet at Zagreb, Croatia, her home country. She cleared 2.05 m on her first attempt, thus setting a meet record, then attempted and cleared 2.08 m setting a new personal best and tying the second-best performance all-time in the event. Her three attempts to set a new world record at 2.10 m failed.

Despite missing some meetings due to a virus in early 2010, further improvements came when she cleared 2.06 m indoors in Arnstadt in February. The victory at the Hochsprung mit Musik meeting brought her to third on the all-time indoor lists.

More about Blanka Vlašić you can read on Wikipedia.

Sinjska alka

2011-01-09T02:38:00.000-08:00

The Alka or Sinjska alka is a knight tournament which has been held every first Sunday in the month of August in town of Sinj, Croatia since 1715, commemorating the victory over Ottoman Turkish administration. It consists of an equestrian competition, in which various horsemen attempt to aim their lances at a hanging metal ring (alka) at full gallop.

Traditionally, heads of state have attended the tournament. In 1818, king of Dalmatia and Austrian Emperor Francis I attended the games. In 1842 Archduke Franz Karl attended and Emperor Franz Joseph also attended, in 1875. Today, the President of Croatia currently takes part in the tournament annually. The Alka held on August 20, 1944 was bombed by the Allies as part of World War II.

Alkar

Alka is also the name of the object used in the tournament; it is made of two concentric rings (diameter of inner being 35.1 mm, and 131.7 mm of outer one) connected with three bars 120° apart. The object is hung on a rope 3.32 metres above the race track. The contestant (called an alkar) rides his horse down the race track and tries to hit the central ring of alka with his spear in full gallop. Depending on which part of the alka he hits, he receives from 1 to 3 points, and no points if he misses. If, however, alkar sends alka in the air away from its holder and hits any part of it on its way down, he will be awarded 1-3 points for a target hit and additional three points, thus increasing the maximum to 6 points in one run. The contest consists of three rounds.

Participants
Only men born in Sinjska krajina (city of Sinj and surrounding villages) can take part in the Alka and it is considered a great privilege to participate in the tournament. The vojvoda ("Duke") of Alka is a ceremonial title representing the commander of the alkars. It is a great honour to become the alkar vojvoda, and only the most notable men from Sinjska krajina become one. The costumes worn by the alkar men are the same that were worn by the warriors in the 18th century.

Croatia - The Mediterranean as it once was

2011-01-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

Julije Klović

2011-01-07T02:53:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Julije Klović, pointing to his Farnese Hours, by El Greco.

Juraj Julije Klović (1498 – January 5, 1578) was a Croatian Renaissance illuminator, miniaturist, and painter, born in Croatia, who worked in Renaissance Italy. He was also a priest. He is considered the greatest illuminator of the Italian High Renaissance, and arguably the last very notable artist in the long tradition of the illuminated manuscript, before some modern revivals.

Clovio was born in Grižane, near Crikvenica in Kvarner bay, in what was then the diocese of Modruš. Croatian sources claim that his name was probably Juraj Klović and the Catholic Encyclopedia states that his original name was perhaps Glović, while J.W.Bradley speculates that Clovio's surname was Glovičić.

Career
He is said to have trained in Dalmatia, and to have studied afterwards at Rome under Giulio Romano, and at Verosia under Girolamo dai Libri. He excelled in historical pieces and portraits, painting in minute detail, much of which needs to be seen with a magnifying-glass, and yet contriving to handle his subjects with great force and precision. He worked in Venice, Florence and elsewhere, with a long active period in Rome where he died. He worked mostly for royal and clerical private collectors. His grave is in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, the church containing Michelangelo's celebrated Moses.

Clovio arrived at Venice from Croatia at the age of 18. There he became a protégé of Cardinal Domenico Grimani and engraved medals and seals for him, as well as the Grimani Commentary Ms., an important early illuminated book (now Sir John Soane's Museum, London). By 1524 Clovio was at Buda, at the Hungarian court of King Louis II, for whom he painted the "Judgment of Paris" and "Lucretia". After Louis' death in the Battle of Mohács, Clovio travelled to Rome where he continued his career.

Clovio was a friend of the much younger El Greco, the celebrated Greek artist from Crete, who later worked in Spain, during El Greco's early years in Rome. Greco painted two portraits of Clovio; one shows the four painters whom he considered as his masters; in this Clovio is side by side with Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Clovio was also known as Michelangelo of the miniature. Books with his miniatures became famous primarily due to his skilled illustrations. He was persuasive in transferring the style of Italian high Renaissance painting into the miniature format.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder stayed with Clovio in Rome during his Italian trip of 1558; he executed a small medallion on a Clovio miniature (New York Public Library), but the six Bruegels in mentioned in Clovio's will have all disappeared.

An illuminated page from his Colonna hours, John Rylands Library, Manchester.

His most famous work is the Farnese Hours, completed in 1546 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, which was nine years in the making (now Morgan Library, New York). He is pointing to this work in the El Greco portrait (above). This contains twenty-eight miniatures, mostly of Old and New Testament scenes, but with a famous double-page picture representing the Corpus Christi procession in Rome. It has splendid silver-gilt covers, although they are not by Benvenuto Cellini, as Vasari claimed. The British Library has his twelve miniatures of the victories of the Emperor Charles V, and other works. The Vatican library has a manuscript life of Frederigo III di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, superbly illustrated by Clovio. The Towneley Lectionary is now in the New York Public Library and probably belonged to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Used during services, the book contained six majestic, full-page miniatures opposite miniature depictions of the Evangelists. The illustrations, introduced the relevant readings from the Scripture. They include the Resurrection and the Last Judgment.

Other illustrations by him are kept in libraries in Vienna, New York, Munich, and Paris, and other works are in many private collections. A small part of his work is viewable in Klovićevi Dvori ("Palace of Klović"), the art gallery dedicated to him in Zagreb.

According to a description written for publication by Antonfrancesco Cirni, he also designed many of the costumes for the famously elaborate wedding festivities of Ortensia Borromeo in March 1565, which were held in the Vatican and included a tournament in the Belvedere coutyard. Such duties were often expected of a Renaissance court painter. The costumes are carefully recorded in a series of anonymous etchings, some probably based on Clovio's design drawings.

National Park Paklenica

2011-01-07T02:46:00.001-08:00

Paklenica interior

The Paklenica karst river canyon is a national park in Croatia. It is located in Starigrad, northern Dalmatia, at the southern slopes of Velebit mountain, not far from Zadar. It has two canyons: Mala (Small) and Velika (Big) Paklenica. Today there is no water flowing throughout Mala Paklenica. Near the entrance into the Velika Paklenica there is an artificial basement/cave complex that had been built for Josip Broz Tito during the tension between Yugoslavia and the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Geological Features
he most attractive and most valuable parts of South Velebit are surely the impressive canyons of Velika Paklenica and Mala Paklenica. Velika Paklenica canyon is 14 km long and 500–800 m wide. In its narrowest part around the Bunkers, the canyon is only 50 m wide. Vertical cliffs rise above both sides of the canyon up to a height of over 700 m. The most attractive part is the area around the steep drop of the stream downstream from Anića luka, where steep cliffs rise directly above the stream, forming the narrowest part of the canyon between Anića luka and the parking lot. Mala Paklenica Canyon is of lesser dimension, and the torrent running through it is much less powerful. It is 12 km long and 400-500 wide. In its narrowest part, it is only 10 m wide, while the surrounding cliffs rise up to a height of 650 m.

The central part of the Park is distinctive for the relief complex of Borovnik and Crni vrh, with the valley of Mala Močila and Velika Močila nearby. In terms of relief, Velika Močila is a very interesting bowl-shaped valley at an altitude 850 m asl, surrounded by Crni vrh (1 110 m asl), Škiljina kosa (1 015 m asl) and Zeleni brig (842 m asl), while Borovnik, named after the black pine forest, stretches along the south edge.

The east part of the Park is very differentiated geomorphologically, inaccessible and wild. Further to the east, this zone of wilderness transforms into an area of milder forms around Malo Libinje and Veliko Libinje, karstic plateaus with numerous pits, the bottoms of which were mostly treated.

The highest area of Paklenica National Park is the narrow ridge of Velebit, 1 to 3 km wide. The highest peak of Velebit – Vaganski vrh (1 757 m asl) is also here. The area of Paklenica National Park is one of the most completely explored areas in Croatia in terms of speleology. 76 speleological objects are known and have been explored in the Park, namely 39 pits and 37 caves. We will mention some of the most interesting speleological objects in the National Park. Vodarica Pit is the longest cave in Velebit at 300 meters, Precipice on Bunovac (534 m) is the deepest object in Central and South Velebit.

Watertight sediments are situated beneath very porous karstic deposits of carbonate rock in the extended part of Velika paklenica, Brezimenjača, and in the spring parts of Mala paklenica and the occasional flow of Orljača. This is why Paklenica National Park has several permanent or occasional flows and many permanent springs. The permanent springs of high-quality drinking water are Stražbenica, Kontinovo vrilo, Crno vrilo, Velika Močila and Pećica.

Flora
The wealth of flora is reflected in the list of 1,000 plant species and subspecies recorded to date, 79 of them endemic. The great diversity, the presence of relict, endemic, rare, statutorily protected species make the Park a very valuable floristic area, not just in Croatia, but in Europe and the world as well.

The forest phenomenon is one of the main reasons why the South Velebit area was proclaimed a national park. Areas of oak and oriental hornbeam forests, beech forest, black pine forests, and fern forest, can all be found in the park.

Fauna
The diverse habitats in Paklenica and the vertical stratification provide home to a diverse fauna. Invertebrates are relatively poorly explored, attractive insects like diurnal butterflies are well explored. Over 40 species of amphibians and reptiles are found, the endangered Orsini's Viper is a highlight.

Birds are the most numerous group of vertebrates, with 230 species recorded to date. The world of birds is represented by 102 species of nesting birds found in the broader park area. The nesting bird group includes a community of birds inhabiting rocks and cliffs in the canyons of Velika Paklenica and Mala Paklenica, with 24 bird species. A special value is added to the park by the endangered and rare bird species such as the golden eagle, peregrine falcon , short-toed eagle and goshawk[disambiguation needed]. Forest areas are rich with woodpeckers, the rarest among them being the white-backed woodpecker and middle spotted woodpecker.

There are also 53 species of mammals at the park, the roe deer and chamois are highlights, while the brown bear is the biggest predator. In the caves there is a host of interesting underground animals such as crabs, mites, Nematodes, aquatic worms, spiders, pseudoscorpion, beetles and bats.

Touristic Activities
Hiking is the only way to really get to know Paklenica. The Park area contains 150–200 km of trails and paths, from those intended for tourists, leading from Velika Paklenica Canyon to Manita peć cave, Lugarnica forest cottage and the mountain hut, to those intended for mountaineers, leading to the highest peaks of Velebit. The trails in the Park are marked with boards and mountaineering signs.
Anica kuk (712 m / 2350 ft) is a home to the most well-known routes of Paklenica climbing area

Paklenica National Park is the most visited climbing site in Croatia, and the largest in Southeast Europe. The close proximity of seawater gives this climbing site a special charm, making Paklenica Riviera an ideal place to combine climbing and water sports. Today, there are over 360 equipped and improved routes of various difficulty levels and lengths within Paklenica’s climbing sites, so each climber can find to their liking. The main climbing season begins in spring and goes on until late autumn.

Croatian national handball team

2011-01-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

The team at Euro 2010

The Croatian national handball team is a handball team that represents Croatia in the international matches and has been playing since the country's independence in the early 1990s. The team is controlled by the Croatian Handball Federation.

Despite of its relatively short history, the Croatian team has already made some significant results at the international tournaments. During the 1990s they placed third at the 1994 European Championship and second at the 1995 World Championship before eventually winning the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

After these successes they have been going through the time without such good results until they eventually made their comeback by winning the 2003 World Championship. The new generation was led by Ivano Balić, who is considered to be the best handball player in the world. In 2004 they were fourth at the European Championship, but won second gold medal at the Summer Olympics later that year. In the Olympic tournament they didn't lose any single game. After these results it was logical that they were one of the favorites of the 2005 World Championship, but lost to Spain in the final match.

In 2006 the team finished fourth at the European Championship, where they have qualified for the semifinals by winning the group in the main stage, but were subsequently defeated by France in the semifinals and Denmark in the third place match.

In 2007 World Men's Handball Championship held in Germany Croatia finished 5th despite losing only one game against France in Quarter Final game. Croatia was seen by many as the team who played best handball in the tournament.

In 2008 European Championship Croatia won the silver medal losing the final against Denmark. In the group stage Croatia had many problems with injuries of key players and was heavily defeated by Denmark. In the last game in group stage they played draw with the host Norway and advanced in the Semi-finals were they defeated France.

In 2009 World Mens Handball Championship held in Croatia, Croatia won the silver medal losing the final against France. Before the final defeat against France, Croatia had won nine games in a row.

Našice

2011-01-07T02:36:00.000-08:00

The Pejačević Castle

Našice is a town in the Osijek-Baranja county of Croatia. It is located on the northern slopes of Krndija Mountain in eastern Slavonia, 51 km southwest of Osijek.

The city was first mentioned in 1229 under the name of Nekche. As economic and cultural centre is famous for its valuable cultural and historical heritage, (the Gothic church, two manors, exhibitions of the art colony "Hinko Juhn"). Našice plays an important role in business and excursionist tourism. The nice park by both of the Pejačević manors (horticultural monument). Private zoo of the Bizik family in nearby in Markovac Našički as well as the interesting surroundings at the foot of Krndija Mountain emphasize the importance of natural beauty.

Rich hunting grounds can be found in the immediate surroundings, and the fishpond Našička Breznica and Lake Lapovac offer fine angling opportunities. Slavonian cuisine and freshwater fish are a part of the gastronomic offerings of the town and its surroundings.

Croatia in popular TV series

2011-01-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

New housewife, Renee Perry (Vanessa Williams) coming to Wisteria Lane and talking about her college friend Lynette (Felicity huffman) and days when she has backpacked through beautiful Croatia, jumped onstage at a Springsteen concert and had threesome with guys from the rugby team...

Slavoljub Penkala

2011-01-02T23:44:00.000-08:00

Slavoljub Eduard Penkala (April 20, 1871 – February 5, 1922) was a naturalized Croatian engineer and inventor of Polish-Dutch ethnicity from the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in Austria-Hungary and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Eduard Penkala was born in Liptovský Mikuláš (in what is now Slovakia), to Franjo Penkala, who was of Polish heritage, and Maria Penkala (née Hannel), who was of Dutch heritage. He attended the University of Vienna and Technische Universität Dresden, graduating from the latter in 1898 and going on to earn a doctorate in organic chemistry. He then moved with his wife and family to Zagreb (which was then also part of Austria-Hungary) and subsequently added "Slavoljub" to his name, becoming a naturalized Croat.

He became renowned for further development of the mechanical pencil (1906)– then called an "automatic pencil" – and the first solid-ink fountain pen (1907) Collaborating with an entrepreneur by the name of Edmund Moster, he started the Penkala-Moster Company and built a pen-and-pencil factory that was one of the biggest in the world at the time. This company, now called TOZ-Penkala, still exists today. TOZ stands for "Tvornica olovaka Zagreb," which means "Zagreb pencil factory."

He also constructed the first Croatian two-seat aeroplane in 1909, which Dragutin Novak, the first Croatian pilot, used for his first flight. He constructed and invented many other products and devices, and held a total of 80 patents.

Among his patented inventions were:

* a hot water bottle – his first patented invention, the "Termofor"
* a type of bluing detergent
* a rail-car brake
* an anode battery

He also founded another company called the Elevator Chemical Manufacturing Company, which produced various chemicals such as detergents, sealing wax, and "Radium Vinovica", a patent-medicine-like product that was billed as curing rheumatism.

Penkala died in Zagreb at the age of 51, after catching pneumonia on a business trip.

Kopački Rit

2011-01-02T23:42:00.001-08:00

Kopački Rit (Kopački Tršćak, Hungarian: Kopácsi rét), is a nature park in eastern Croatia. It is located northwest of the confluence of the Drava and the Danube, situated at the border with Serbia. It comprises many backwaters and ponds along the Danube. It is one of the most important, largest and most attractive preserved intact wetlands in Europe.

The vicinity of the big city of Osijek and its surroundings, as well as excellent communications (by road, railway, plane and ship) enable a high visiting rate. The beauty of "intact" nature, the multitude of waters, flora and fauna attract not only excursionists and visitors but also many experts and scientists from the whole of Europe.

A part of Kopački Rit has been designated as a special zoological reserve. Around 260 various bird species nest here (wild geese and ducks, Great White Egret, White Stork, Black Stork, White-tailed Eagle, crows, coots, gulls, terns, kingfishers, Green Woodpecker, etc.), and there are many other species using this area as a temporary shelter on migration from the northern, cooler regions to the southern, warmer areas and vice versa.

There are 40-odd fish species (pike, ide, tench, bream, carp, catfish, pike-perch, perch, etc.). Several various mammal species inhabit the land (red deer, roe deer, wild boar, wild cat, pine marten, stone marten, weasel, sable, otter, etc.). Rich plant life, typical of wetlands, is found also in Kopački Rit.

Guided tourist visits by panoramic ships, boats, team of horses or on foot are available. Some packages offer the possibility of photographing or video-recording animals, birds in particular.

Angling and hunting are allowed in certain parts of Kopački Rit, which are put under less strict protection.

The specialities of Kopački Rit (fish stew, grilled carp, venison, Belje wines, etc.) can be tasted in the nearby restaurant.

Goran Ivanišević

2011-01-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Goran Ivanišević at Wimbledon 2004

Goran Ivanišević (born 13 September 1971) is a retired Croatian professional tennis player. He is best remembered for being the only person to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon as a wildcard. He achieved this in 2001, having previously been runner-up at the championships in 1992, 1994 and 1998. Ivanišević is famous for his strong serve, which is considered among the greatest to date. His career-high singles ranking was World No. 2 (behind Pete Sampras) in 1994. He is the current reigning Legends under 45 French Open doubles Champion.

Career

Ivanišević was born in Split, Croatia to Srđan and Viška. He turned professional in 1988 and later that year, with Rüdiger Haas, won his first career doubles title in Frankfurt, but he focused more on his singles career, yet had some success in doubles, winning nine titles and reaching a career high ranking of 20.

Ivanišević made his first significant impact on the tour in 1990, knocking Boris Becker out of the first round of the French Open men's singles; he went on to reach the quarter-finals. He was also, with Petr Korda, the runner-up in the French Open men's doubles. At that year's Wimbledon, Ivanišević reached the semi-finals, where he lost to Becker in four sets. Ivanišević also won his first tour singles title in 1990 at Stuttgart and helped Yugoslavia win the World Team Cup. He played in eight ties for Yugoslavia in the Davis Cup before quitting the team after the Croatian declaration of independence in 1991. Yugoslavia lost its subsequent tie against France 5-0.

Ivanišević quickly became known on the tour for his strong, attacking style of play and for an extremely powerful serve. For several years, he had more aces than anyone else on the tour. Capable of beating anyone in the world when at his very best, he was also known for occasional on-court temper tantrums—usually directed towards himself—and the volatility of the standard of his play. Ivanišević received death threats at the 1992 Australian Men's Hardcourt Championships. He went on to win the tournament.

In 1992, Ivanišević steamrolled his way to reach his first Wimbledon singles final, having defeated Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, and Pete Sampras in succession. In the final he faced Andre Agassi and was heavily favored to win; both players were attempting to win their first Grand Slam title. Agassi eventually won 6–7, 6–4, 6–4, 1–6, 6–4. In the 5th set, Ivanišević had a break point on Agassi's serve at 3 all, but did not convert it. In the final game of the match, he served 2 double faults to start the game, even though he had 5 for the entire match before that. His ace count for the tournament (200+) at the time was the highest in the history of ATP. He served 39 aces that day, while Agassi had 37 for the entire tournament. It was a tough loss, but as he was only 20 years old, a bright future was predicted. Later that summer at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Ivanišević won bronze medals in both singles and doubles representing Croatia, a state that had only recently declared independence. He also won four singles titles that year.

Ivanišević reached the Wimbledon final for the second time in 1994, where he was defeated by defending-champion Pete Sampras 7–6, 7–6, 6–0. Ivanišević reached his career-high singles ranking of World No. 2 in July that year.

In 1995, Ivanišević won the Grand Slam Cup, beating Todd Martin in the final 7–6, 6–3, 6–4. At Wimbledon, Ivanišević lost in the semi-finals to Sampras 6–7, 6–4, 3–6, 6–4, 3–6.

In 1996 he won a career-best five singles titles. He reached the Grand Slam Cup final again, but this time lost to Becker in straight sets. Ivanišević also teamed with Iva Majoli to win the 1996 Hopman Cup for Croatia. That year Ivanišević also defeated Stefan Edberg to reach the semi-finals of the U.S. Open, his first Grand Slam semi-final away from Wimbledon; the match was the last Grand Slam match of Edberg's career. In the semifinals, Ivanišević he fell again to Sampras, in four sets; Sampras would go on to defeat Michael Chang to win his fourth U.S. Open championship.

In 1998, Ivanišević reached his third Wimbledon final, facing Sampras once again. Although a heavy underdog, this time he pushed Sampras to five sets, before losing 7–6, 6–7, 4–6, 6–3, 2–6.

Ivanišević finished runner-up in the French Open men's doubles in 1999 (with Jeff Tarango). However for much of 1999, 2000, and 2001, he struggled with a shoulder injury and his performance and world ranking began to slide steadily.

By the summer of 2001, Ivanišević was ranked the World No. 125. This was not sufficient to earn him an automatic place in the main draw at Wimbledon but, given his past record as a three-time runner-up, he was awarded a wildcard for entry into the singles draw. He defeated former and future World #1 players Carlos Moyá, Andy Roddick and Marat Safin to reach the semi-final, beating home favourite Tim Henman in a five set, rain-affected semi-final, setting-up a match with the previous year's runner-up and former US Open champion Patrick Rafter. It was Ivanišević's first singles final since 1998. In a match lasting just over three hours, Ivanišević defeated Rafter 6–3, 3–6, 6–3, 2–6, 9–7. Two months shy of his 30th birthday, Ivanišević became the lowest-ranked player and the first wildcard entry to win Wimbledon. To date, he is the only male entrant to have won a Grand Slam as a wildcard. His Wimbledon success was rated sixteenth at the list of 100 Greatest Sporting Moments by a British television programme.

On July 10, 2001, Ivanišević received a hero's welcome in his home city of Split where a crowd of over 150,000 led by local and state dignitaries greeted him at the central harbor, with a parade of boats as well as fireworks, topped off by Ivanišević himself taking off his clothes and jumping into the sea.

Later that year he received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award.
Goran Ivanišević and Mario Ančić playing doubles during the 2004 Queen's Club Championships.

The 2001 Wimbledon title was the last of Ivanišević's career. He temporarily retired in 2002 due to shoulder surgery. He returned to tennis sparingly in the following years but in 2004 retired permanently after a third-round loss to Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon, held on the Centre Court, the scene of his greatest triumph.

In 2005, Ivanišević was a member of the Croatian team for the Davis Cup final against Slovakia in Bratislava, although he did not play. Croatia won the final 3–2. He Received a Winner's Medal and his name was engraved on the trophy along with Mario Ančić, Ivo Karlović, Ivan Ljubičić and Captain Nikola Pilić .

Much more about Goran Ivanišević you can read on Wikipedia.

Varaždin

2011-01-02T23:22:00.000-08:00

Varaždin Castle in the Old Town.

Varaždin is a city in north Croatia, 81 km north of Zagreb on the highway A4. City population is 41,434 on 34.22 km2 , urban area population is 49,075 on 59.45 km2, and the metro area population is 80,991 on 243.75 km2 (2001). The centre of Varaždin county is located near the Drava river. It's mainly known for its baroque buildings, textile, food and IT industry.

History

The first written reference to Varaždin, whose historical name is Garestin, was on 20 August 1181, when King Béla III mentioned the nearby thermal springs (Varaždinske Toplice) in a legal document.

Varaždin was declared a free royal borough in 1209 by the Hungarian King Andrew II. The town became the economic and military centre of northern Croatia. Due to Turkish raids, the town was structured defensively around the old fortress, and acquired the shape of a typical medieval Wasserburg. In the early 13th century, the Knights Hospitaller (Croatian: Ivanovci) came to Varaždin, where they built the church and a monastery.

At the end of the 14th century, Varaždin fortress passed to the hands of the Counts of Celje. Over the following centuries Varaždin had several owners, the most influential being Beatrice Frankopan, Margrave Georg of Brandenburg, who built the town hall; the last was Baron Ivan Ungnad, who reinforced the existing fortification. At the end of the 16th century Count Thomas Erdödy became its owner, assuming the hereditary position of Varaždin prefects (župan), and the fortress remained in the ownership of the Erdödy family until 1925.

In 1756, the Ban Francis Nadásdy chose Varaždin as his official residence, and Varaždin became the capital of all of Croatia. It hosted the Croatian Sabor and the Royal Croatian Council founded by Empress Maria Theresa.

The periods of the Reformation and the counter-reformation had a great influence on Varaždin. With the arrival of the Jesuits, the school (gymnasium) and the convent were founded, and churches and monasteries were built in the baroque style. In the 18th century Varaždin was the seat of many Croatian noblemen, and in 1756 it became the Croatian administrative centre. The fire of 1776 destroyed most of the town, resulting in the administrative institutions moving back to Zagreb.

By the 19th century Varaždin had been completely rebuilt and expanded, with flourishing crafts and trade, and later the manufacture of silk and bricks. The theatre, music school, and fire department were founded.

In the 20th century Varaždin developed into the industrial centre of Northwestern Croatia. The textile manufacturer Tivar was founded in 1918. In the Croatian War of Independence, 1991, Varaždin suffered directly for only for a few days, because the huge Yugoslav People's Army base quickly surrendered, resulting in a minimal number of casualties, and providing weapons (worth $600m) for the Croatian army.

Tourism

Herzer Palace

Today Varaždin is a popular destination for the summer holidays. In the summer time, actions are taken to attract hundreds of thousands of tourists that come to Varaždin and its surroundings for the holidays. The city has numerous areas of interests ranging from cultural areas (reflected by many museums, galleries and theaters in the area), shopping centers in the downtown core, various sports and recreation facilities, also a rich history in cuisine. The close of the Varaždin Touristic Season is brought down by two annual festivals. The annual Špancir Fest begins at the end of August and ends in September (lasts for 10 days). At this time the city welcomes artists, street performers, musicians and vendors for what is called "the street walking festival".

The city is home to the Varaždin's Baroque Evenings festival (Varaždinske Barokne Večeri), inaugrated in 1971: it honors baroque music and its culture which holds a special place in Varaždin's identity.

Varaždin is also the host of the "Radar festival", which hosts concerts at the end of summer. It has already hosted musical stars such as Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, The Animals, Manic Steet Preachers, Solomon Burke & many more.
Much more about Varaždin you can read on Wikipedia.

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić

2011-01-01T05:44:00.000-08:00

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (18 April 1874 – 21 September 1938) was a Croatian writer. Within her native land, as well as internationally, she has been praised as the best Croatian writer for children.

Life

She was born on April 18, 1874 in Ogulin, Croatia into a well known Croatian family of Mažuranić. Her father Vladimir Mažuranić was a writer, lawyer and historian who wrote Prinosi za hrvatski pravno-povjestni rječnik (Croatian dictionary for history and law) in 1882. Her grandfather was the famous politician, the Croatian ban and poet Ivan Mažuranić, while her grandmother Aleksandra Mažuranić was the sister of well known writer and one of keypersons of Croatian national revival movement, Dimitrija Demeter. Ivana was largely home-schooled. With the family she moved first to Karlovac, then to Jastrebarsko, and ultimately to Zagreb.

Upon marriage to Vatroslav Brlić, a politician and a prominent lawyer in 1892, she moved to Brod na Savi (today Slavonski Brod) where she entered another known family and lived there for most of her life. She devoted all her work to her family and education. As the mother of six, she had the ability to identify with the psyche of the child, to understand the purity and naïveté of their world. Her first literary creations were initially written in French.

Work

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić started writing poetry, diaries and essays rather early but her works were not published until the beginning of the 20th century. Her stories and articles like the series of educational articles under the name "School and Holidays" started to be published more regularly in the journals after the year 1903.

It was in 1913 when her book The Marvelous Adventures and Misadventures of Hlapić the Apprentice (also known as The Brave Adventures of Lapitch and Čudnovate zgode i nezgode šegrta Hlapića) was published that really caught the literary public's eye. In the story, the poor apprentice Hlapić searches for his master's daughter as his luck turns for the better.

Her book Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Priče iz davnine), published in 1916, is among the most popular today in large part because of its adaptation into a computerized interactive fiction product by Helena Bulaja in 2003/2006. In the book Mažuranić created a series of new fairy-tales, but using names and motifs from the Slavic mythology of Croats. It was this that earned her comparisons to Hans Christian Andersen and Tolkien who also wrote completely new stories but based in some elements of real mythology.

Brlić-Mažuranić was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature twice, in 1931 and in 1938. She was also the first woman accepted into what is today the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1937. She died on September 21, 1938 in Zagreb.

Her books of novels and fairy tales for children, originally intended to educate her own, have been translated into nearly all European languages. Highly regarded and valued by both national and foreign literary critics, she obtained the title of Croatian Andersen.

The Marvelous Adventures and Misadventures of Hlapić the Apprentice was translated, among other languages, into Bengali (by Dr. Probal Dashgupta), Hindi, Chinese (by Shi Cheng Tai), Vietnamese (a few chapters), Japanese (by Sekoguchi Ken) and Parsi (by Achtar Etemadi). Most of the latter translations were made indirectly, through Esperantists. The book's most recent Esperanto translation is by Maja Tišljar, and important part in translations of "Adventures of Hlapić" had Spomenka Štimec, the most important Croatian writer that writes in Esperanto.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

2011-01-01T05:41:00.001-08:00

The Plitvice Lakes (Croatian: Plitvička jezera) is a national park in Croatia in the Plitvice Lakes municipality, in the mountainous region of Lika.

Plitvice Lakes National Park lies in the Plitvice plateau which is surrounded by three mountains part of the Dinaric Alps: Plješevica mountain (Gornja Plješevica peak 1,640 m), Mala Kapela mountain (Seliški Vrh peak at 1,280 m), and Medveđak (884 m).

The national Park is underlain by karstic rock, mainly dolomite and limestone with associated lakes and caves, this has given rise to the most distinctive feature of the lakes.

Lakes

The lakes are separated by natural dams of travertine, which is deposited by the action of moss, algae, and bacteria. The encrusted plants and bacteria accumulate on top of each other, forming travertine barriers which grow at the rate of about 1 cm per year.

The sixteen lakes are separated into an upper and lower cluster formed by runoff from the mountains, descending from an altitude of 636 to 503 m (2,087 to 1,650 ft) over a distance of some eight km, aligned in a south-north direction. The lakes collectively cover an area of about two km², with the water exiting from the lowest lake to form the Korana River.

The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colours, ranging from azure to green, grey or blue. The colors change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in the water and the angle of sunlight.

The lakes are divided into the 12 Upper Lakes (Gornja jezera) and the four Lower Lakes (Donja jezera).

You can read much more about Plitvice Lakes on Wikipedia.

Janica Kostelić

2011-01-01T05:37:00.000-08:00

Janica Kostelić (born January 5, 1982, in Zagreb, Croatia) is a retired Croatian champion alpine ski racer. She is the only woman to win four gold medals in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics (in 2002 and 2006), and the only woman to win three alpine skiing gold medals in one Olympics (2002).

Kostelić was the World Cup overall champion in 2001, 2003, and 2006. On January 15, 2006, Kostelić became only the third woman in World Cup history (after Swede Pernilla Wiberg and Austrian Petra Kronberger) to win World Cup races in all of the sport's five disciplines. On February 5, 2006 Janica became the second female skier (after Petra Kronberger) to win all five disciplines in one season. She also holds the record for the highest number of points in one season. She is 5'9" (1.75 m) tall and weighs 145 lb. (66 kg).

At the age of 16, Kostelić was selected for the Croatian team for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Her best result was 8th place in the combined. She competed in all five disciplines. She won her first World Cup slalom in December 1999. Kostelić then suffered knee ligament damage which kept her out of competition until late 2000. She won the Alpine Skiing World Cup that season with eight further victories.

2002 Winter Olympics

In the 2002 Winter Olympics she won three gold medals and a silver in alpine skiing disciplines, the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete from Croatia. No other female alpine skier has ever won four medals or three gold medals at a single Olympics.

Kostelić chose not to compete in the Downhill and concentrated on the Combined. She performed well in the downhill run and then won the gold medal after the slalom. She then won a silver medal in the Super-G, just behind Daniela Ceccarelli. The next race was the Slalom, in which Kostelić won her second gold medal, narrowly beating Laure Péquegnot. Her final victory was in the Giant Slalom, finishing 1.32s ahead of Anja Pärson.

These achievements instantly made Kostelić a national hero in Croatia.

Later career

In 2003 she won the World Cup overall title again. In early 2004 she was again taken away from the skiing fields by a knee injury. The injury caused 2004 to be the only year from 1998 to 2006 that she was not recognized as "Croatian Sportswoman of the Year."

In the 2006 season, Janica won the World Cup overall title for the third time, but also was in Top 5 in all 4 disciplines, including number 1 in slalom. She won her first World Cup races in giant slalom (2), Super-G, and downhill in 2006.

At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino she won a gold medal in women's alpine combined. That was her fourth Olympic gold medal, making her the most successful female skier in the history of the Olympic Games. This record was set on February 18, 2006, only half an hour after Norway's Kjetil André Aamodt, winner of the men's super-G, became the first Alpine skier in men's competition to win four Olympic gold medals.

She also became the first Alpine skier to win the "Sportswoman of the Year" award at the Laureus World Sports Awards in 2006, in part for her accomplishment of winning races in each discipline during the year.

Due to recurring injuries, Kostelić has not competed since the conclusion of the 2006 season. Not unexpectedly, she announced her retirement a year later on April 19, 2007, citing persistent pain from her injuries. She has not confirmed whether she will attempt a comeback.

She won 3 overall World Cup titles: 2001, 2003, and 2006. In 2005 she was second overall, just three points behind winner Anja Pärson - the smallest difference between 1st and 2nd place in World Cup history.

Kostelic also won the slalom season title three times, the same years that she won the overall titles. She also would have won the season trophy for the combined discipline four times (2001, 2003, 2005-06), but the discipline trophy for the combined was not awarded to women during her career, being added only in 2007.

She won a total of 30 World Cup races, including at least one in every discipline: 20 in Slalom, 6 in Combined, 2 in Giant Slalom, 1 in Super-G, and 1 in Downhill.

Zadar

2011-01-01T05:34:00.001-08:00

Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Zadar faces the islands of Ugljan and Pašman, from which it is separated by the narrow Zadar Strait. The promontory on which the old city stands used to be separated from the mainland by a deep moat which has since become a landfill. The harbor, to the north-east of the town, is safe and spacious. Zadar is the seat of a Catholic archbishop.

In antiquity, Iadera and Iader, the much older roots of the settlement's names were hidden, the names being most probably related to a hydrographical term. It was coined by an ancient Mediterranean people and their Pre-Indo-European language. They transmitted it to later settlers, the Liburnians. The name of the Liburnian settlement was first mentioned by a Greek inscription from Pharos (Stari grad) on the island of Hvar in 384 BC, where the citizens of Zadar were noted as Ίαδασινοί (Iadasinoi). According to the Greek source Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax the city was Ίδασσα (Idassa), probably a vulgar Greek form of the original Liburnian name.

During Antiquity the name was often recorded in sources in Latin in two forms: Iader in the inscriptions and in the writings of classic writers, Iadera predominantly among the late Antiquity writers, while usual ethnonyms were Iadestines and Iadertines. The accent was on the first syllable in both Iader and Iadera forms, which influenced the early-Medieval Dalmatian language forms Jadra, Jadera and Jadertina, where the accent kept its original place.

In the Dalmatian language, Jadra (Jadera) was pronounced Zadra (Zadera), due to the phonetic transformation of Ja- to Za-. That early change was also reflected in the Croatian name Zadar, developed from Zadъrъ by vocalizations of the semi-vowel and a shift to male gender. An ethnonym graphic Jaderani from the legend of St. Krševan in 9th century, was identical to the initial old-Slavic form Zadъrane, or Renaissance Croatian Zadrani.

The Dalmatian names Jadra, Jadera were transferred to other languages; in Venetian language Jatara (hyper urbanism in 9th century) and Zara, Tuscan Giara, Latin Diadora (Constantine VII in DAI, 10th century), Old French Jadres (Geoffroy de Villehardouinin in the chronicles of the Fourth Crusade in 1202), Arabic Jadora (Al-Idrisi, 12th century), Iadora (Guido, 12th century), Spanish Jazara, Jara, Sarra (14th century) and the others.

Jadera became Zara when it fell under the authority of the Republic of Venice in the 15th century. Zara was later used by the Austrian Empire in the 19th century, but it was provisionally changed to Zadar/Zara from 1910 to 1920; from 1920 to 1947 the city became part of Italy as Zara, and finally was named Zadar later on.

You can read much more about Zadar on Wikipedia