Articles on Croatia from 2005.
Croatia was a revelation, a unique combination of Latin and Slavonic… One of the most celebrated casualties of the war, Dubrovnik, seems to have recovered completely. I’d heard of the town’s beauty of course, and it deserves its fame. We walked around the towering stone walls, hanging on to a steel railing with both hands as we looked down at the sea far below.
Esther Rantzen, The Daily Mail, 9th July 2005
If you like the Costa Brava…you’ll love the Dalmatian CoastCroatia probably has Europe’s most spectacular coastline, with mountains tumbling into the island-scattered, clear sea. Ruled for centuries by Venice, the architecture of the surprisingly well-preserved medieval towns is gorgeous. Marvel at the remains of Diocletian’s Palace in hectic Split, then take a ferry to the sleepy island of Brac and chill out on the magnificent, ever-shifting Y-shaped beach at Bol. Go there before it’s too late.
Jan Barden, The Daily Mail, 11th June 2005
There’s a bubbling just below the surface in Zagreb, the Croatian capital of one million people, and most visitors sense it instantly. It’s a well-worn, East-meets-West passion called Balkan culture that equally embraces a consumer’s desire to visit a newly opened fragrance shop and the cafe next door where an entire goat turns slowly on a spit.
Alex Crevar, The New York Times, 1st May 2005
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Since much of Croatia is a long narrow strip of coast, it’s an obvious candidate for the classic sunny summer holiday. Having emerged from the bust-up of old Yugoslavia with the lion’s share of the shore, it offers almost 1,000 miles of seaside, reaching all the way from the Slovenian border to the Montenegrin one. And should you run out of mainland, there are still 1,185 islands to play on — many of them as easy to reach as the Isle of Wight from Hants.
David Wickers, The Sunday Times, 13th February 2005
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The last time I went to Lastovo, one of Croatia’s more remote islands, it was as a backpacking student disgorged from a rusting ferry in Tito’s Yugoslavia when much of the island was a military reserve, with secret submarine pens burrowed into its shores. Thirty years on, gliding into a harbour on the state-of-the-art 90ft world-cruising yacht Boo Too, the contrast was sublime.
Tom Reynolds, The Sunday Times, 23rd January 2005
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If the museum is a time capsule of the 1950s, so is the island — its fading grandeur only adding to its charm. It is untouched by modernity. Brioni is the largest of a chain of 14 islands known as Brijuni to the Croatians and Brioni to the Italians, who lost them after the second world war. They were closed to the public until 1984, when they were turned into a national park.
Deirdre Fernand, The Sunday Times, 23rd January 2005
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Croatia’s coastline may now be getting all the attention, but glance at a map of the country and you will see that it is shaped like a boomerang, with one blade pointing down the coast towards Dubrovnik and the other poking inland across the Pannonian plain. Few of us ever make it beyond the capital, Zagreb, so on a recent visit, I decided to explore the vast hinterland to the east.
Tony Kelly, The Times, January 22nd 2005
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