Dodgeball Supercar Rally

Dodgeball Supercar Rally comes to Croatia!

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This year’s Dodgeball Supercar Rally – which kicks off in London on 26th June – will be making its way down Croatia’s gorgeous coastal roads for the first time ever!

Dodgeball Supercar Rally

Bringing together some of the world’s finest and rarest cars, the Rally makes an annual visit to Saint Tropez in the South of France after navigating a scenic route through some of the prettiest parts of Europe. This year, the route will first take in a country chateau in the Rhone Valley; a drive through Italy (and a stop at Ferrari’s factory), including a night in Venice; heading through Slovenia on to the stunning Croatian coastline (including a stay in a beach hotel); and a cross-Adriatic ferry over to Ancona and a drive on to Rimini before reaching its usual final destination. The last part of the Rally will see the drive to St Tropez for the opening party of the VIP Rooms, as well as viewing the FIA GT Championship & The Blancpain Endurance series and the opportunity to race around the Paul Ricard track.

Dodgeball Supercar Rally

For those interested in entering, the fee is £3,250 per person, based on two sharing – although if you’re in possession of a supercar, that’s seems like very good value! The price includes everything on the rally, including 5-star accommodation, lunch stops, ferries, parties and more.

Full details about the Dodgeball Supercar Rally can be found at www.dodgeballrally.com.

Echo Festival (22nd-24th June in Makarska) releases its line-up!

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We know that we whet the appetites of many of you party animals out there with our previous post on the brand-new-for-2012 Echo Festival that’s taking place in Makarska on the weekend of 22nd to 24th June – and we’re sure that many of you have already got your ticket orders in.

But here’s more good news – Echo Festival have announced their line-up! Names on the bill include Koreless (Live), Pariah, Midland – who are all appearing on the Simply Stage – and Inxec, Droog and Cozzy D., who will be on the DJ & Sound Stage as well as many, many more – plus further names that are to be announced in due course.

Echo Festival Flyer Line Up

There will also be showcases and daily beach parties from the likes of Krankbrother, Creche, Moody Disco, Simply Vinyl and more.

Oh, and – as if this wasn’t enough good news – there are still tickets available for £35 for the weekend (which is truly mind-bogglingly good value) for only a short time more, so do make sure you and your friends snap them up soon.

For full line-up details (as announced so far) and other information on the festival and to purchase tickets, please go to www.echofestival.com.

Croatian Summer Salsa Festival in Rovinj this June!

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Great news for the dancers out there – the 8th Croatian Summer Salsa Festival will be in Rovinj this June! Held from 19th to 24th June, the festival is being billed as a “unique sea, sun and salsa” event where participants of all abilities can learn to dance or show off all their dancing skills, as well as relaxing and enjoying a great time in a beautiful setting.

Croatian Summer Salsa Festival, Rovinj

This year’s Festival will feature many exciting components, including open air dance and music points throughout the town of Rovinj; over 90 hours of workshop dance classes; a live music concert on 21st June; some of the best salsa DJs in the world; three different dance floors (each with their own different salsa style); indoor and outdoor parties; a special post-festival boat party; passes for both the girls and guys (for classes and parties); and much more! With over 2,000 dancers and dance-fans gathering in Rovinj, it’s sure to be a very fun Festival!

Croatian Summer Salsa Festival, Rovinj

For those looking for something a little different, the Summer Sensual Days – a sensual dance festival – will also be held in the same town from 15th to 17th June 2012. (For the very keen dancers amongst you, why not combine the two events for eleven fun-filled days?)

Croatian Summer Salsa Festival, Rovinj

For more details and to find out how to attend the Croatian Summer Salsa Festival, check out the full details on the official website at www.crosalsafestival.com.

Croatian Summer Salsa Festival
19th – 24th June 2012
Rovinj

A new festival for 2012 – Echo Festival, Makarska 22nd-24th June

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Echo Festival

Fantastic news for all those revellers looking to party it up on the Croatian coast this summer – a brand new festival has joined the very extensive list of festivals taking place in the country this year. The Echo Festival is the latest addition to the Croatian festival line-up, taking place in the beautiful town of Makarska on the weekend of 22nd to 24th June 2012.

This intimate and friendly festival is perfect for those who love their dance and electronic music and want to enjoy it on Croatia’s wonderful coastline. As anyone who has been to Makarska can attest, the Festival will have a fantastic location (as well as being easy to reach from the nearest airport in Split) in one of the most beautiful spots on the Adriatic coastline, with plenty to enjoy in the town and nearby . The actual Festival site itself is a short walk from the centre of Makarska, on a bay with a private pebble beach that will boast two sound systems – the main beachside stage (so you can actually dance it up on the beach or even in the sea!) and in the licensed bar which has a fully shaded dancefloor.

The music programme will run from 12pm to 5am (that’s 17 solid hours!) with a mix of funk, disco, soul and reggae plus the best of UK bass, garage and deep house well into the night. Acts that have already been confirmed on the line-up include Cozzy D, Alexis Raphael, Lee Brinx and Max Chapman, with many more to be announced.

Echo FestivalBetter still, Echo Festival are offering a truly superb early-bird ticket offer – only £35 for the three day-event! Be sure to take advantage of this great deal and snap up your tickets very soon.

To book tickets, and for more details on the Festival, take a look at echofestival.com or www.facebook.com/echocroatia.

Sucata Rallies’ Charity Rally to Split returns for 2012!

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Sucata Split

News reaches us of a fantastically fun charity rally event that will take place through Europe this year, winding up in Croatia!

Sucata Rallies organise a number of “old banger” charity rally events that take place across Europe each year (others include runs through Europe down to Portugal and Budapest), with their fabulous Sucata Split event returning for 2012.

This year, the event will take place from 31st May to 4th June (a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK!), starting in Bruges in Belgium and ending – of course! – in the wonderful Croatian city of Split on the Dalmatian coast. Inbetween, participants will travel through seven countries; as well as the starting and end points in Belgium and Croatia, the route takes in France, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Slovenia with the Alps also getting a visit.

Teams must participate in old bangers that cannot cost more than £350, and are highly encouraged to dress up both themselves and their vehicle in fancy dress as much as possible! Each team is required to pay a very reasonable £25 per person (with a limit of £100 per vehicle) to register, and is then set a target of raising £250 per person that goes to the charity Gemin-i, who are involved in organising the event.

Sucata Rallies

Gemin-i is an educational charity that helps children around the world share ideas and work together for a brighter future, with the aim of encouraging them to take action, thereby promoting positive change around the world. They bring together over 40,000 children in 2,700 schools across 120 countries to educate them about some of the world’s biggest issues such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, human rights and conflict resolution. The charity does this through online resources and by helping children share their ideas via internet forums and debates.

In particular, money that will be raised by those taking part in the Sucata Split rally will support the HIV360 project. With someone becoming infected with HIV every 12 seconds, the HIV360 project raises awareness, connects people around the world and supports them to take action on HIV and AIDS. The project will reach tens of thousands of children across the world, and every £250 raised will help schools raise the understanding by their students of HIV as well as increasing their chances of avoiding infection. More on the charity can be found on their website www.gemin-i.org.

If you’re interesting in taking part in what’s no doubt going to be a fantastically fun event, read up more about it on the Sucata Rallies website and register yourself and your team – what are you waiting for?!

New Split - Brac - Hvar - Korcula - Dubrovnik catamaran line

A bunch of nobodies visit Croatia

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Croatia. A country for everyone – big spenders, the budget-conscious, adventure seekers, sun-worshippers, families, party-animals, culture-vultures…the list is endless. But it has now also been discovered that it’s a very suitable holiday destination for those whom the term “celebrity” is coined very, very loosely.

Channel 4’s Celebrity Coach Trip (don’t lie, we know you watch it too!) features a bunch of “celebrities” making their way across Europe on a coach holiday, taking part in a series of tasks in each destination they visit whilst also generally messing around/getting on each others’ nerves/trying to remind people of their glory days and why they were famous in the first place.

In the most recent series, the gang were lucky enough to enjoy four days (well, four episodes worth of filming) in Croatia, taking in the capital city Zagreb, the Plitvice Lakes National Park environs, the lovely town of Zadar and bustling Split. From judo to a cookery lesson in Samobor, a survival course to glass blowing and klapa singing, the group had a busy time and Croatia served as a very pretty backdrop (bar some rainy conditions in Zadar) – with some very friendly and well presented teachers and guides – throughout the shows.

Split, Croatia
Hilarity ensued in Split (no, really)

You can watch the episodes via Channel 4 On Demand – here’s the site’s Coach Trip page (viewable in the UK and Ireland only) or on YouTube.

In answer to the question I can hear on the tip of your lips – no, I don’t know what Croatia did to deserve Nikki from Big Brother.

Dubrovnik Old Town

8% more tourists visited Croatia in 2011 – 11.2 million in total

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Dubrovnik

A number of the newspapers in Croatia today reported on the preliminary final tourism figures for 2011, as released by the Croatian National Tourist Board – and it’s good news.

Officially, Croatia was enjoyed by 11,200,113 tourists during the year, which is up 8% on 2010. Of this figure, 9,907,827 were foreign tourists – which is also an increase of 8% on the year before – and 1,292,286 were domestic tourists, an increase of 4%. (These figures relate to tourists visiting the coastal regions of the country and the city of Zagreb.)

Tourists holidaying in Croatia stayed for 65,116,830 nights in total – a figure that’s up 7% on 2010 – with foreign visitors staying for 58,411,864 nights (up 7%) and domestic visitors accounting for 6,704,966 nights (up 5%).

Guests from Slovenia posted the highest increase in both tourist numbers – 12% – as well as the number of nights stayed when they visited the country, which went up by 11%. They were followed by visitors from Austria, of which there were 11% more in 2011, staying for 10% more nights; visitors from Germany (10% more, staying for 9% more nights); then visitors from Slovakia (7% more visitors, 8% more nights); visitors from Poland (6% more, 5% more nights); from the Czech Republic (5% more visitors who stayed for 5% more nights); and Italy (4% more visitors in 2011, 3% more nights).

These figures from the Tourist Board reveal increases in visitor numbers for all Croatia’s coastal regions as well as in the city of Zagreb. Dalmatia received the most tourist arrivals, 4,913,074, which is up 6% on 2010; these visitors stayed for 29,742,157 nights in total, which is also up by 6% on the year before. Istria was the second most popular region for visitors during the year, with 3,011,316 tourists visiting (10% more), followed by the Kvarner region where 2,185,601 people chose to holiday in 2011 (8% up). By comparison to the coastal areas, the city of Zagreb received considerably less visitors in 2011 – 664,171 – but this was a healthy 10% more on the year before whilst the number of nights stayed by tourists – 1,144,278 – was also up by 10%.

Tourism figures for December alone were also released today, revealing some promising increases in tourist numbers for a month that’s far removed from the peak season months of summer. 118,926 tourists visited Croatia during the month, which is 5% more than in December 2010; these tourists stayed for 295,094 nights in total, which 8% up. Not all regions posted increases for that month, however – Split-Dalmatia, Zadar and Sibenik-Knin counties all saw fewer visitors in December. Dubrovnik-Neretva county, on the other hand, saw a great 20% more visitors (12,652 visitors in total), staying for 25% more nights (31,374 nights). Given the push to promote the city of Dubrovnik as a year-round destination, these increases are surely a step in the right direction. The regions of Kvarner and Istria were also popular that month; Kvarner saw 24,909 tourists visit (8% up), whilst 22,505 visited Istria (9% up).

Let’s hope these increasing trends continue for 2012!

Sources: Croatian National Tourist Board; HRT; Vecernji

Fancy a break in the New Year? How about a 3 night mini-break in Dubrovnik for under £200!

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British Airways are currently running their “Goodbye Winter” sale and, although perhaps we in the UK haven’t (luckily) had the harshest of winters this year, it’s always nice to have something to look forward to for next year – right?

Amongst their deals to many of their destinations, I’ve noticed that they’ve also listed mini-breaks to Dubrovnik for some really rather excellent prices. As the airline fly year-round to this wonderful Croatian city (even in winter they fly four times a week – Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays) a mini-break is more than do-able. They’re advertising a deal that includes a return flight plus three nights in a three-star hotel (on a half board basis) from only £169 per person, which is based on two sharing.

I keyed in a few dates, and personally couldn’t find that price (although I’m not saying it doesn’t exist!); however, the best deal I could find was still a pretty amazing £193.50.

If you fancy ramping up the glamour, I’ve also come across the same flight + three nights package – but in a five-star hotel! – for only £247.

Their flights to Dubrovnik didn’t seem to be part of their sale, although they are offering one-way flights to the city during January, February and March from only £61.

In general, Croatia has had a particularly mild winter so far, especially so in Dalmatia, which is expected to continue into the New Year. Without all of the summer crowds, early 2012 could be a great time to visit!

Note: The BA sale ends on 24th January 2012.

Croatian food from London’s Borough Market

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Anyone that’s been to London’s Borough Market recently might have come across a stand selling a very good variety of Croatian food products, from oils to jams to cakes (such as smokvenjak – fig cake), as well as the classic Ajvar (a kind of relish made from red peppers that can be used to accompany dishes) and Paski sir (sheep’s cheese from the island of Pag). The stand is run by D’Issa (now Taste Croatia), who import and distribute top quality Croatian food delicacies and wine in the UK.

I popped along this afternoon to take a look myself (and, judging by the crowds, I think everyone else in London decided to come to the Market too!) and brought home a little haul of Croatian goodies to enjoy over Christmas! Take a look at the photo below – as you might note, I couldn’t stop myself from opening up the sheep’s cheese to try before I snapped away. (Which I’m glad I did – the cheese is very delicious and pleasantly mild. I don’t think it will last long…)

D'Issa Croatian products

Do pop along to Borough Market to take a look yourself – alternatively, check out D’Issa’s product range and more about them on their website [now] tastecroatia.co.uk.

Festivals in Croatia - Tisno

A new venue for Croatia’s festivals (well, some of them)

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Anyone thinking about attending one of Croatia’s (many) great festivals may have seen the announcement not so long ago the site used in the village of Petrcane – home to The Garden Festival, Electric Elephant, Soundwave, Suncebeat and Stop Making Sense – was a no go for 2012. Concerns from the owners of the site, the Hotel Pinija, on how the festivals impacted guests staying at the hotel meant a new venue had to be found for these festivals for next year.

These concerns by the site owners were perhaps not entirely justified, but that’s not an issue I’m going to discuss here! I did read a number of articles in the Croatian press, however, about the negative impact (i.e. loss of tourist revenue) that losing these festivals from the Zadar region would have. (So it’s good to see they haven’t moved that far – read on below.)

Festivals in Croatia - Tisno
Tisno – you could be here next year!

Today, many of these festivals announced a new venue for 2012 – in the village of Tisno, which is roughly halfway between the town of Zadar and the city of Split. My immediate thought is that this will mean a significant number of additional travel options for partygoers attending any of these festivals, as there are many, many flights from the UK (and from elsewhere in Europe) to Split. (Of course, attendees in previous years could also have flown to Split too – but this just makes things a little easier!)

This news on the change of venue is “hot off the presses”, so I’d advise taking a close look at the festivals’ websites and Facebook pages (and Twitter too) for additional information as and when they release it.

Check out the latest news from the following sites – more is surely still to come very soon.

  • The Garden Festival (4th – 11th July): The Garden Tisno Facebook group
  • Soundwave (20th – 23rd July): their Facebook group should have news today!
  • SunceBeat (27th – 29th July): updated website
  • Stop Making Sense (2nd – 6th August) updated website

There’s also some news from Electric Elephant (12th – 16th July) via their Twitter feed.

And for some early travel planning check out the following pages from Visit Croatia:

Alternatively, check out what other festivals are taking place in the country in our Festivals in Croatia section – more information being added all the time!

Other than that – start thinking about partying it up in the summer of 2012. It’s going to be a good one!