Lifestyle

December 22, 2022 - Whisper it quietly, but there is a positive population story in Croatia, as more families and foreign workers discover Velika Gorica.  Can you name the 6 biggest cities in Croatia by population? Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Zadar, and...  No it's not Pula. It's Velika Gorica, a name which may not be so familiar at first sound to foreigners, but one which is increasingly coming on their radar as a family destination with a high quality of life for full-time living. So much so in fact that it was recently named the best large town for education…

December 22, 2022 - The Croatian dream - to live in Croatia and get income from abroad. Meet the locals who are living that dream, and find out how you could, too, in a new TCN series. In the second in the series, meet Matina Lucic, who is enjoying life on her laptop in the Hvar wine village of Svirce. Croatia, great for a 2-week holiday, but a nightmare for full-time living unless you are very rich, so the perceived wisdom goes. The Croatian dream is to live in Croatia with a nice income from abroad, as many foreigners and…

December 21, 2022 – Meet Slavonia 365, full of life. A year ago, TCN started Vukovar 365, the new series to show that there is life in the east of Croatia every day of the year. After Vukovar reigned the stage for a while, it is time to go beyond and tell more inspiring stories of Slavonia. For our exciting opener, meet Iva and Mihovil of Castrum Gin. This young married couple worked in marketing and law in Zagreb, jobs they loved, but they decided to return and chase their dreams in their tiny home village of Kaptol near Požega.…

December 21, 2022 - This is certainly the most comprehensive, as well as one of the most educational, replies to content I have posted online in the last 10 years - with thanks to Anamarija Pandža for this superbly (and humorously) explained introduction to the wonderful world of Croatian language horrors.   I have had a LOT of reaction to my blogs (and now vlogs) over the last 11 years since I started writing about Croatia, but I can't recall anything quite like this. I recently started a YouTube channel called Paul Bradbury Croatia & Balkans Expert, a place where I am…

December 21, 2022 - The Croatian dream - to live in Croatia and get income from abroad. Meet the locals who are living that dream, and find out how you could, too, in a new TCN series. We start with the inspiring and very determined Tea Jurisic from Baska Voda. Croatia, great for a 2-week holiday, but a nightmare for full-time living unless you are very rich, so the perceived wisdom goes. The Croatian dream is to live in Croatia with a nice income from abroad, as many foreigners and remote workers do. For Croatians, if I read the comments…

December the 19th, 2022 - Minority languages in Croatia are either given no attention or are quite controversial, and with such a rich and tumultuous history which involves some of their speakers, some are given more rights under the Croatian Constitution than others. We've explored many of the dialects, subdialects and indeed languages in their own right as some linguists consider them to be which are spoken across modern Croatia. From the Dubrovnik subdialect (Ragusan) in the extreme south of Dalmatia to Northwestern Kajkavian in areas like Zagorje, the ways in which people speak in this country deviate from what we know as standard…

December 18, 2022 - Firebird: the most famous Croatian poster now available in a new limited series Mimi and Vanja Rakočević, father and son, owners of the Zagreb gallery Paravan at Martićeva 4 were motivated by the great demand for the works of our famous artist Boris Bućan, to create a unique limited series of firebird posters in Plexiglas in collaboration with the author himself. About one hundred copies of the Multipla Firebird were made in the size of 40x40cm. The item consists of six individual plans made of Plexiglas. Each multiple is numbered and signed on an aluminum plate…

December 14, 2022 - Christmas time often inspires generosity. In Croatia, like in many other places, it is the right time for dinners, receptions, parties, and events organised for charity. There are plenty of those happening all around the country, but there are also many other ways to practice helping those in need. For this holiday season, we are presenting some of the charities in Croatia which accept donations and help. You can, of course, donate and help any other time as well. The Croatian Red Cross The international Red Cross movement is one of the best-known humanitarian organisations in…

December 13, 2022 - Croatia is a largely Catholic country, and as such it has many traditions tied to saints, including various Christmas traditions. One of them is Saint Lucy's Day, which is today, on the 13th of December. The Croatian tradition for this day includes planting a little pot of Christmas wheat, which will serve as part of the decorations for the Christmas table. As Večernji wrote, although pots of wheat can be bought for almost symbolic amounts at markets and in all retail chains, the process of planting wheat is part of a tradition that takes most Croatians…

December 13, 2022 - Where is the best place to live in Europe? For this boy from Manchester, the answer is Croatia. Here are 8 reasons why. How to describe the mystery of Croatia, beautiful but maddening, chilled but flawed? In our latest book, Croatia a Survival Kit for Foreigners, which I co-wrote with TCN Editor Lauren Simmonds, I describe Croatia as a mixture of Absurdistan, with the best lifestyle in Europe, with a sprinkling of Balkan insanity on top. I can't get enough of it. Don't get me wrong, living full-time in Croatia is hard work, and as different…