Croatia | holiday | living - All about Croatia

After 1 1/2 month in Rijeka we finally managed to visit our families in Split and Hvar. And it was really best thing to do, because after raining Rijeka, sunny Dalmatia was real salvation. Mostly we were in Hvar. Among other, we took a walk through town centre.

In this time of year there are still no tourists, maybe only few in hotels. This is period of season preparations, houses are painted and decorated. My mother is planting flowers all around the house, she is known for her beautiful flower «jungle» in season time.

My father is turbo working in fields, because they have spent February in Australia, so he doesn’t have a lot of time to plant vegetables this year. Also, in «lemon fields» (few km from Hvar) he is installing self-watering system, great thing especially in summer months.

In the two days on Hvar we mostly eat grilled fish, of course fish caught by my father – fresh fish is very hard to find in Rijeka, so you can imagine our happiness with the menu. Unfortunately everything that is good lasts short: after two days we had to take ferry to Split and go back to Rijeka.

 
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Katica Križak

In Split shipyard one day can be more or less interesting, but for shore it is lot of different and hard work.

And it is certainly unusual to see is a woman’s working in shipyard (we are not talking here about office work; it is a question about job in shipyard under construction area).

Generally, those ladies are painting the ships and they are very good in that.

They are all young and educated with long working experience. Many of them have even very good accomplishment. We use to say here “situation force you to use any option you can get“. Well all I can say:” Hat down” for them. We all know that working conditions there are extremely dangerous and also death cases are not rarity on that kind of job.

Split shipyard is not only small place of work, its whole working town. Living and working in expectation of some better tomorrow is hope for this people surrounded with lot of metal.

Here are some photos of one ordinary day so they know, we didn’t forget them.

Salute to them.

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This year international event "Maslina (Olive) Split 2008" happened on 23rd February, the popularity of this event is visible by number of oil samples, more than 1000,  from different part of Croatia, and foreign countries like Slovenia, BIH, Italy, Montenegro, France, Albania, Espana, and even Australia and new Zealand.

The producer contested in the following categories:

Extra vergine olive oil made with different producing systems (the colour, taste, density were evaluated).

Extra vergine olive oil with different aromas

Conserved olives

Goat cheese

Bottle design

Label design

There was also exhibition of equipment and new knowledge regarding olive-growing - very helpful for the people working with olives.

The olive oil from the olives we picked on Hvar in November won 2 Gold medals, also my accountant Kusmanic managed to take several medals and a main price, so in 2008 we will have access to plenty of first class olive oil.

Small tip: If you are in Croatia, try to see if you can find a farmer from whom you can by the olive oil, as most of the oil you find in the stores has lower quality.

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What would you do if your husband came from work one day, with these words: „Honey, pack your things, we are moving to Rijeka in 10 days! " I almost fainted… After first shock, and few days of preparation, we left Split with two full cars and started the 400km long journey to Rijeka. Luckily it was a beautiful day, as if Dalmatia wanted to stay in the best way in our memories. We first went in Dugopolje, 20km from Split, where we entered the highway and started our four to five our long journey.

After passing imposing Krka bridge and low land behind Zadar, the road started to climb toward tunnel Sveti. Rok, the longest in Croatia, the few last kilometres before tunnel there is great view to the sea and the islands. As soon as we exited, it was obvious we where no longer in Dalmatia, the sea view was gone (-: and it was definitely colder. However, green mountains, with snow hats, high trees and small rivers were part of beautiful nature.

In Bosiljevo we switched to highway Zagreb-Rijeka. There was around 70km of road still under construction; where the speed is limited to 80km/h. around 30km before Rijeka weather became bad, foggy, which unfortunately is not rare in this part of country. But luckily weather cleared up before we reached our new home in Rijeka after 4 hours driving.

So when I am settled in Rijeka part of my plan is to write posts about Rijeka and Istria for you, my dear readers, so i hope you will drop by another time, to read about this part of our country. Until my next post: Greetings from Rijeka! - Katica

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This weekend it was time for renovation of our internet cafe in Split, since we opened it 3 years ago, we have only be doing the day to day maintenance, so me and 4 of my employees spend whole weekend on painting and fixing the computers. We all was very happy with the result (- :

So now we are ready for the season which we hope will start from Eastern or at least when the Croatian boat show is running in April.

So please come and visit this summer and see how nice we made everything, i think you will agree this is one of nicest internet cafe you have visited in Croatia.

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The Recently renovated waterfront (Riva) in the centre of Split was last Sunday unusually full with people wanting to see and touch the white, full-blooded horses Lipizzaners from Lipik (Slavonija) visiting the city in an humanitarian event organised to raise the money for their food. Lipizzaners are Lipik’s symbol, they even had Lipizzaner stable, one of three of that kind in Europe. In a tragic event during the Balkan war several horses where killed and the rest was "Kidnapped" by the Serbian army. After several years of negotiation between Croatia and Serbia the horses finally returned to Lipik at the end of 2007.

This Sunday the organiser did a great job in convincing the citizens of Spilt in support these wonderful animals. In front of St. Frane church they had arranged a carriage with two beautiful white horses, offering small tours around the fountain, for the kids there were two sweet ponies, which created a long line of exited kids. And two female jockeys were riding Lipizzaner through Riva all the time, giving chance for everyone to take a photo.

The event for the Lipizzaner horses also included human entertainment by a very funny moderator, singers (famous Croatian and Dalmatian) and break dancers. And last but not least also, traditional Dalmatian food (fritule, Dalmatian cheese) which was offered for free.

After the return of the horses to Croatia, the Lipik organisation for Lipizzaner horses are fighting to find the necessary founds to ensure the undertake of the horses and to rebuild of the stables in Lipik, but they need financial help. Considering the tradition of the Lipizzaner horses from Lipik and the exceptional genetic material these animals deserves to be secured. So if your are interested in supporting the Lipizzaner from Lipik please leave a comment and we will send you further information.

Here you can see our photos from Split

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