Croatia Online - News

We're just back from a short trip to London to take in the Earl's Court Boat Show and the launch of our Croatia Cruising Companion, covering the Dalmatian Coast and Islands. It's great to see it in print at last and it's been doing well on Wiley's stand at the show. Tomorrow is the last day so if you're in London and looking for something to do why not pay a visit. For more news on the Croatia Cruising Companion and the show, visit our sister site Croatia Cruising Companion. We had a good chat with a number of the charter companies exhibiting and gained some interesting insight on how Croatia compares with eg Turkey and Greece as a cruising destination. We'll be reporting on that soon on the CCC site. In the meantime today's posting on CCC will link you to an interesting article in the Sydney Times on cruising Dalmatia.

Onto land based news:

Travel News

It seems pretty definite that British Airways won't be flying to Split in the summer which is disappointing for many. See the immediately previous posting for more detail on what might lie behind the decision. We're waiting to see whether Ryanair will be back to Zadar in spring but that's looking more hopeful.

Croatian Politics

On 24th November we reported on the national elections that were due to take place the next day. As with the last general election, the vote itself is just a small part of the political process! These elections again resulted in a party with no clear overall majority and mandate to govern, though the result was much closer than the previous election. That means the two main parties have to negotiate long and hard with the smaller parties to see who can get a workable government together with enough seats to provide a mandate. As we suggested in our previous posting, that gives some of the smaller parties a disproportionate amount of power as "kingmakers" and in tight votes in Parliament. The other consequence is that, at the moment, Croatia is largely ungoverned leading to a number of important problems for which holding mechanisms are insufficient. For example, until a government is approved and formed, there is apparently no mechanism to pay pensioners their Christmas bonus which is obviously of great concern to a significant number of people. It's looking like HDZ, led by Ivo Sanader, will again be leading the government but there is a lot of negotiating and bargaining to take place before that result is official.

Time Out Publications in Croatia

We've started working on next year's magazine - A Visitors' Guide To Croatia - due out in April 2008. It will be the third year of the magazine which is growing in size and authority as each year progresses. We'll be preparing a fuller report in the next couple of weeks but can promise that the new magazine will be full of even more interesting features on contemporary Croatia as well as full, area by area, listings on where to eat, drink and stay, and what to do. Time Out now has a reputation in Croatia, as elsewhere, for being the first to discover what's new and what's best about the destinations it covers and there will be more than a few surprises in the new edition of the magazine. For those that can't wait till April, go to www.timeout.com/croatia to order a copy of the Visitors' Guide to Croatia 2007/8 or the full guide book.

Today's photo is of a spectacular sunset over Trogir two days ago. It was taken from the pedestrian bridge that links the main car park to the old town, over the canal that separates Trogir from the mainland. On the left is part of Trogir's ancient fortifications, now a music nuseum, music shop and cafe.