Wednesday, 19 February 2025
Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas - The editor and big chief of The Dubrovnik Times. Born in the UK he has been living and working in Dubrovnik since 1998, yes he is one of the rare “old hands.” A unique insight into both British and Croatian life and culture, Mark is often known as just “Englez” or Englishman. He is a traveller, a current affairs freak and a huge AFC Wimbledon fan.

Email: mark.thomas@dubrovnik-times.com

Dubrovnik in numbers - part one 

14 – centuries since the founding of the city

45 – length of Dubrovnik Summer Festival in days

summer festival

1979 – Dubrovnik was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List

1234 – the highest mountain in the region, Snijeznica in Konavle

2629 – hours of annual sunshine (they aren’t all in the summer!)

hot dubrovnik

20 – kilometres from the airport to the city

1317 – the year the first pharmacy opened (the third oldest pharmacy in Europe)

72 – the size of the Lokrum island in hectares

4 – the number of entrances into the Old City

pile gate dubrovnik

1418 – the year that the Republic of Dubrovnik abolished slavery

29 – degrees Celsius – average summer temperature

1,940 – length of city walls in metres

dubrovnik walls

 

Expect to see a few hundred Mercedes driving around the streets of Dubrovnik; the Mercedes Global Training Event is getting underway. The first charter planes full of participants to the Mercedes training program landed at Dubrovnik Airport today.

Sales staff and sales coordinators of this luxury German brand will arrive in Dubrovnik from all over the world. In total around 15,000 employees of Mercedes are expected to visit the city until April. The first two planes, one from TUI Airlines and the other from Transavia, landed this morning at around 11 o’clock. According to reports on the website avioradar.hr the two planes brought 322 passengers.

The participants to the Mercedes event will be based at two Dubrovnik hotel chains, the Valamar Group on Babin Kuk and the Radisson Hotel in Orasac.

According to the latest information from Eurostat a quarter of all internet users in the European Union had security issues such as viruses or data loss last year. And the country inside the EU with the most number of problems was Croatia!

The list of countries where security problems are the most common is headed by Croatia and followed by Hungary, Portugal, Malta and France. And the least number of virus attacks were in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Ireland.

The main problem for internet users was the so-called Trojan, which enters into computers and invites other viruses to attack. In comparison to 2010 the number of virus attacks inside the EU fell, expect for Croatia. The greatest progress was made in Slovakia where the percent of users with problems fell from 47 percent to only 9 percent.

However when it comes to using the internet to purchase goods or services Croatians are not shy, only 14 percent of Croatians polled said that they wouldn’t use the internet for shopping purposes. Whilst in other EU countries that figure was much higher, Romania 37 percent and Sweden 34 percent. And when it comes to internet banking Croatians also feel safe, only 6 percent of people said that they wouldn’t use the internet to check their bank accounts.

Alexander Gerst, a German astronaut who lived on the International Space Station (ISS) and who is famous for publishing photographs taken by the space, has today published on his Twitter account a set of photos entitled - Croatian islands.

Obviously the view of Croatia from space impressed the German astronaut. While the International Space Station, where he stayed from May to November 2014, circled around the Earth Gerst busily snapped the view.

Today he published two photos showing the Croatian coastline, and the island of Brac near Split can be clearly seen.

croatia space

space

Benedict Cumberbatch is coming to the screen in Dubrovnik in his role as Hamlet. On the 13th of February at 8.00 pm in the Visia Cinema in the Old City of Dubrovnik a broadcast of the successful production of Hamlet by the National Theatre in London.

Benedict Cumberbatch, star of the globally popular Sherlock, appears in the title role as the Danish prince. Cumberbatch has won critical acclaim for his performance. “Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet comes into its own on the screen,” wrote The Guardian, with the Los Angeles Times saying that “Benedict Cumberbatch's 'Hamlet' is good and righteous.”

Hamlet at London's Barbican Theatre played for only two and a half months and all of the shows were sold out in minutes. The play, directed by Lyndsey Turner and produced Sonia Friedman, has been shown in over forty countries around the world and Croatian subtitles will be included in the Dubrovnik performance.

Tickets for Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch in Cinema Visia are available at 50 Kunas and can be booked via phone on 020 638-640

Dvorana Visia Dubrovnik

Visia Cinema to be the host for Hamlet 

The Mayor of Dubrovnik Andro Vlahusic is on an official visit to the United States where he will meet representatives of the producers of Star Wars, LucasFilm.

The eighth episode of Star Wars is planned to be partly filmed in Dubrovnik this year. And according to an inside source the mayor will meet with senior representatives, quite possibly George Lucas, on his trip to the United States. Lucasfilm are based in San Francisco, California and was founded by George Lucas in 1975. In 2012 Walt Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion.

During his trip to the United States the mayor of Dubrovnik also participated in the celebrations of the St. Blaise festivities in Los Angeles. The festivities in Los Angeles are traditionally organised by the Libertas Foundation and this year was a double celebration as the foundation also marked their 25th anniversary. The mayor thanked his hosts for their generous hospitality and wished them every success in their future endeavours.

Fresh on the heels that the Russian airline Red Wings has been granted permission to operate daily flights from Moscow to Dubrovnik comes news that another Russian airline is to fly more regularly to the city. S7 Airlines started operations between the Russian capital and Dubrovnik last summer season with once-weekly flights.

According to the Russian airlines recently released flight schedule for this year S7 has increased the number of flights per week to Dubrovnik. From the 2nd of June S7 will fly twice a week to Dubrovnik from Moscow, on Thursdays and Sundays, until the 4th of September. The flights leave Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport at 13.00 and arrive in Dubrovnik at 17.05. Tickets are already available online at start at around 200 Euros for a return ticket.

S7 Airlines has a fleet of 58 aircraft and operates to 87 destinations worldwide. It is also a member of the “Oneworld” airline alliance which includes British Airways, Cathy Pacific and American Airlines.

After a record year in 2015 this year has also started on the right foot for Zagreb Airport. January this year was the best January for Zagreb Airport since it started operations 54 years ago. In total Zagreb Airport handled 156,947 passengers in the first month of this year, an increase of 4.2 percent compared to the same month from 2015. According to information from the specialised website EX-YU Aviation this was the 23rd month in a row that Zagreb Airport has experienced a growth in passenger numbers.

Although the number of flights through Zagreb Airport in January 2016 was slightly down on 2015, by around 2 percent, passenger figures rose. This is an indicator that flights to the Croatian capital had a higher capacity percentage. Also the reintroduction of flights by the LOT from Warsaw assisted in pumping up the numbers.

Construction work on the new Zagreb Airport is well underway and due to be completed by 2017. The construction of the new Zagreb Airport is an investment worth 331 million Euros. The new terminal will spread over 65,000 square metres. Once opened the new Zagreb Airport will attract even more international airlines to the capital.

zagreb new airport

Visualization of new Zagreb Airport planned to open in 2017

The Voice of Dubrovnik

THE VOICE OF DUBROVNIK


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