Croatia Travel Blog

Archive for November, 2009

Dubrovnik has become a major port of call for Mediterranean cruise ships, expecting to receive about 845,000 passengers on 580 cruisers. It’s been named as the 10th most frequented harbour in the world.

That means that on some days, there are nearly 10,000 passengers crowding into the narrow streets and cozy squares and shuffling along Dubrovnik’s famous walls. Today’s Toronto Star has a vivid description of what it’s like to be a cruise passenger in Dubrovnik during the high season. The photograph tells the whole story and it’s not pretty.

Merchants Demand Euro as Legal Tender

Of course Dubrovnik needs tourism in order to survive so they can’t complain. Or can they? This week a group of Dubrovnik’s merchants asked that Dubrovnik switch to the euro as a form of currency rather than the kuna. It seems that cruise passengers who arrive on Sunday find no place open to change their money and can’t spend anything! The Croatian National Bank quickly shot down that idea as a non-starter.

How to Beat the Crowds

Visiting Dubrovnik amid throngs of tourists is not a pleasant experience, as I can attest. For independent travellers who have more flexibility in designing their schedules there is a solution to this problem. The Dubrovnik Port Authority publishes a list of cruise ship arrivals on their website far many months in advance. The cruiser names, number of passengers, arrival times and locations is helpfully detailed. They have even colour-coded especially busy days.  I highly recommend checking the cruise ship schedule before you plan your trip to Dubrovnik. And if all else fails and you simply must be there on a crowded day, bear in mind that the crowds do thin out around lunch time when the passengers head back to the mother ship.

See more on visiting Dubrovnik.

Cruiser in Dubrovnik

The vineyards of Peljesac peninsula produce some of the finest wine in Croatia. Dingac, Plavac Mali, Postup are renowned throughout Croatia and produced in the dry soil of the Peljesac peninsula.

Now this centuries-old winemaking region has attracted an unlikely new vintner: AIG’s new CEO, Robert Benmosche. Reuters has reported that Mr Benmosche, who had recently come under fire for a 12-bathroom villa in Dubrovnik, has spent millions bringing California vines to his vineyard in Viganj to produce the popular Zinfandel wine. Recent tests have placed the origin of Zinfandel grapes squarely in Croatia, so for this CEO it’s just a return to the source.

While steering AIG back to financial health with taxpayer funds, Benmosche also hopes to put Croatia’s wine industry on the map. Rather than a lot of unknown vintages with unpronounceable names, Croatian wines will eventually be dominated by the well-known Zinfandel. Mr. Benmosche is sure that Croatian Zinfandel is a very good investment. Perhaps better than AIG.

Wanna buy a hotel? You’ll have an array of choices on the Croatian coast but there are a few catches. Reuters’ reporter Adam Tanner has penned a detailed article on the problems facing Croatia’s government as they try to unload hotels that dated from the Tito period.

You would think that owning a hotel on Korcula Island, for example, would be a license to print money but nearly 20 years after Croatia’s launch into privatisation, the hotels in Korcula are still state-owned. Buyers are shying away.

First of all, the hotels are fairly outdated and require a substantial injection of capital to bring them into line with today’s expectations. But investors want to see a return on the investment and, so far, what they’re seeing is a thicket of problems. Korcula residents also want a piece of the pie in the form of a stake in the company, just as Hvar residents did with the privatisation of some of  their state-owned hotels some years ago.

Although not mentioned in the article, islanders want a commitment from the hotels to keep staff employed, or at least paid, for an entire year, not just during the tourist season. Islanders want to see young people stay on the island and build lives, not just breeze in for a few months every summer. They have a point but from the POV of an investor, the tourist season is too short to make this kind of a commitment.

Some privatisations have gone well. Mr. Tanner refers to the lavish reconstruction of the Hotel Excelsior in Dubrovnik as an example. But other hotels in Dubrovnik (the ravaged Belvedere for example), Rab, Opatija, Trogir and Hvar are still waiting for their Prince Charming.

Having stayed in both state-owned and privately owned accommodation in Croatia, I can tell you that there’s a big difference. Many of the state-owned hotels are throwbacks to the 70s both in design, amenities and service. Concrete-block architecture, chunky TVs and irritable waiters provide a stark contrast with the newer luxury hotels with their enthusiastic staff. Let’s hope that the situation sorts itself out.

Read more about Croatia hotels.

Jadrolinija just published the coastal ferry schedule for the first half of 2010. Most notable is the introduction of the ferry “Dubrovnik” for the weekend route between Split, Dubrovnik and Bari, Italy. Introduced in April to replace the damaged Marko Polo, the Dubrovnik is  faster and will shave 40minutes from the Hvar-Korcula leg. The downside is that, for the first time, passengers (and their cars) will have to change ferries at Split since the Liburnija will continue to run between Rijeka and Split. At least for now. Jadrolinija has been thrown for a loop by the Marko Polo problem. Perhaps when the ferry is repaired she can go back to work on the coastal route? Stay tuned.

See the newest coastal ferry timetable here.

The pride of Jadrolinija’s fleet is the jumbo Marko Polo ferry, that plies Croatia’s coastal route from Rijeka to Dubrovnik twice a week. On the night of October 24, the ship’s course was abruptly halted when it ran aground near the island of Sit in the Sibenik archipelago. The accident was attributed to crew error (those guys are in BIG trouble) but the question was: what to do with the Marko Polo?

It turns out that it will cost about $4 million to re-float the stranded 128-meter long ferry and the ferry was way under-insured. Whoops.  Selling the ship for scrap metal could bring in up to $900,000. Plus, the coastal ferry has been a money-losing venture ever since new highway construction has made it faster and cheaper to drive from Rijeka down the coast.

The Marko Polo was considered a giant leap forward when it was introduced into the Jadrolinija fleet in 1973. Although the 1970’s style decoration has dated a bit, it remains a remarkably comfortable boat that still holds a special place in the Croatian consciousness.

So, no it won’t be scrapped, says Jadrolinija. On 20 November it will be lugged over to Mali Losinj for repairs, ready to resume service next year.

See more about Croatia ferries.

Marko Polo