| |
The Comeback of Croatia!
The Comeback of Croatia - on Budget Travel
|
It's really comeback of Croatia! Take
a little bit of Venice, a tiny bit of Rome, and throw in plenty of
sunshine and clear Mediterranean waters and you will get Croatia.
As one looks at Europe on a globe, the
little country is practically dead center. Some 60 miles east of
Venice, across the flat and crystalline waters of the Adriatic Sea,
Croatia is a boomerang-shaped nation that soaks up Mediterranean
coastline even as it juts deep into eastern Europe's mountains and
farmland to Hungary.
Until the late 1980s, it was an epicenter of
tourism, with some five million foreign visitors flooding the city
of Dubrovnik alone each year. That was then. In the early '90s,
post-Communism set off a messy power struggle.
|
|
|
The last time most of us saw
Croatia, it was imploding live on CNN. Peaceful now for nearly a
decade, Croatia is again attracting Europeans to her secluded
beaches and her tangled streets. Yet for Americans, Croatia remains
forgotten. The whims of twentieth-century politics reshuffled it
into a blind spot between worlds, but it's gradually reentering the
mainstream. A baby democracy of royal parentage, it remains as
Italian as Venice, as Austrian as Vienna, and as much Caesar's as
Rome. |
 |
As a first-time trip reveals,
Croatia holds some of vacationdom's biggest surprises: a Roman
emperor's palace and one of earth's largest gladiator coliseums. The
most spectacular walled city known to Europe. Some of the most
scenic coastal drives on the planet. Olive oil, pizza, seafood,
truffles. Long afternoon siestas, charming cafes.
 |
| Best of all, it presents the U.S.
tourist with a refreshing price structure, though not as low as its
shambling economy might denote. Businesses are savvy to big-spending
Germans and Italians, so prices are not only quoted in the local
kuna (kn) but also often in euros , so learn the Euro to kn
exchange
rate to guarantee the best deals. ($1.15=U1 and $1=7kn.) Still, in
spite of this confusing pricing system, with my help Croatia can
give you a dream Mediterranean vacation at $25 a night for a room
with a view, $8 for a meal, and $2.50 for attractions. Try beating
those prices in haughty France or aggressive Greece. For more
information: Croatian National
Tourist Board.
Dubrovnik walled wonder
At the southernmost tail of the country's coast (in the region
called Dalmatia, as in the dogs), Dubrovnik has always been special.
Its skyline alone, one of the world's most stirring-ranking with
Manhattan, Hong Kong, or Cape Town-has awed for centuries. For half
a millennium, until Napoleon, it was an independent city-state,
accountable to no one and awash in riches, and that age endowed it
with treasures. |
Dubrovnik's Stradun |
©
croatia-nudistsbeaches-scubadiving.com 2004 All
Rights Reserved
|
