When it comes to New Year's Eve in Dubrovnik, it's always better to leave your car parked at home and use the public transport because of special traffic regulations. Just a reminder – all buses are free from 5 pm.

During the New Year's Eve from 8 pm the traffic on the city lines will be considerably intensified.
Here are the last departure of all the bus lines:
- lines 1A, 3, 4 and 6 will have the last departure at 4 am from Pile;
- lines 1B and 8 will run until the last departure at 3:40 am from Pile;
- Line 10 from Cavtat will be intensified, with more departures than usual until 11pm, while from Dubrovnik from the central bus station it will have additional departures at 1, 2, 3 and 4 am;
- line 12 will have additional departure to Slano at 3 am from the central bus station;
- Line 35 will leave to Brsecine at 1:30 am from the central bus station.

On the New Year’s Day – January 1st, lines that won’t operate are: 15 Dubrovnik - Ston, 16 Dubrovnik - Plat, 16A Dubrovnik - Srebreno, 23A Dubac-Brgat-Srebreno, 30 Vodovađa - Cavtat, 31 Vitaljina – Cavtat and 35 Dubrovnik-Brsecine.

One of the most loved concerts of the year was held last night in the Revelin Fortress. The traditional Christmas concert by the Dubrovnik Brass Band is always greatly anticipated and this year was just as spectacular as always.

This long-standing Dubrovnik band didn’t disappoint with a rich repertoire of Christmas songs and evergreen classics. The fortress was packed to the rafters and the audience joined in the festive spirit singing along to the band.

Check out the photo gallery by Zeljko Tutnjevic

Zagreb is the place to be in 2018, according to the online holiday accommodation giant Airbnb. The online agency has published a list of the top twenty trending destinations for next year and Zagreb is listed in 18th position.

Using data for bookings in the first half of next year compared to the first six months of this year Zagreb has received a 175 percent increase in bookings. The leader of the pack is Gangneung in South Korea with over a 2,000 percent increase in bookings, second is Bournemouth in England with 353 percent and Edmonton in Canada with 284 percent.

As this online agency is one of the most important booking systems in the world, with over a million accommodation units on offer, it is safe to say that Zagreb will have a busy start to 2018.

“Not far from vacation hot spots like Dubrovnik, the Croatian capital of Zagreb, and its bustling medieval old town, is becoming a hot place to visit,” commented Airbnb.

The full list of Airbnb for 2018

1. Gangneung – South Korea (2,175%)
2. Bournemouth – UK (353%)
3. Edmonton – Canada (284%)
4. Indianapolis – USA (256%)
5. Da Nang – Vietnam (255%)
6. Columbus, Ohio – USA (254%)
7. Gazimagusa – Cyprus (234%)
8. Bilbao – Spain (234%)
9. Hanoi – Vietnam (212%)
10. Matinhos – Brazil (175%)
11. Cardiff – Wales (206%)
12. Guarapari – Brazil (205%)
13. Minneapolis – USA (193%)
14. Oita – Japan (190%)
15. Dunedin – New Zealand (185%)
16. Mar Del Plata – Argentina (181%)
17. Fernie – Canada (179%)
18. Zagreb – Croatia (175%)
19. Mykonos – Greece (173%)
20. Mazatlán – Mexico (169% booking increase)

December will be the perfect ending to a record breaking tourism year in Dubrovnik. It seems that the motto ‘’Dubrovnik – a city for all seasons’’ is right, because there are still numerous guests enjoy Dubrovnik in the winter. Compared to the same period from last year, there are around 20 percent more tourists in the city – reports HRT.

Along with guests from neighbouring countries, the most numerous are those from distant destinations. Dubrovnik can be considered almost exclusively an avio-destination, because around 70 percent of tourists visit the city by plane. During the winter months, the line from Istanbul by Turkish Airlines runs to Dubrovnik four times a week and allows for further promotion of Dubrovnik in distant eastern markets. At the same time, three times a week, planes from Dubrovnik fly to Frankfurt - a link to the United States, Canada and Australia.

For New Year's Eve, however, in Dubrovnik most tourists will come from neighbouring countries. In hotels and private accommodation about 6,000 guests are expected. The perfect ending to 2017 in Dubrovnik.

Every year the most popular world destinations such as New York, Edinburgh, London, Vienna, Berlin, Paris and Dubai are traditionally on recommendation lists of destinations known for great New Year’s Eve parties.

When it comes to Europe, several web portals have made a list of most desirable European destinations for New Year’s Eve. To our proud and joy, the city of Dubrovnik has found its place on this prestigious list.

The British capital of London is always a ‘’must visit’’ destination on all lists. The city topped the list of New Year’s Eve destinations because it is completely dedicated to fun and entertainment on every corner.

Paris in France has always been known as a city of love, thus that is what this city will be for New Year’s Eve, a hot spot for romantic celebration on boats sailing the Seine River.

The Portuguese island of Madeira is an ideal destination for fireworks lovers. In 2006, Madeira made it to the Guinness Book of Records with the largest fireworks in the world.

The popular New Year’s Eve at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany traditionally attracts more than a million people with its more than a two-kilometre long stage for music, light and other shows.

Although it is not the first choice for many in Croatia, this year Dubrovnik offers a great New Year’s Eve party on the Stradun. The city expects around 6,000 visitors to pack the world’s most beautiful street, however, thanks to many bars and restaurants tucked into small side streets, almost an intimate atmosphere is guaranteed to those who would like avoid crowds this year.

The American author of the series ''Conversations with God'' is coming to Croatia next year.

Neale Donald Walsch, the man who indebted humanity with his books and work, also known as an actor, screenwriter and speaker, will hold a seminar titled ‘’Change your emotions before they change you!’’ at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb on the 25th of March 2018.

Before writing the ‘’Conversations with God’’ series, Walsch worked variously as a radio station program director, newspaper managing editor, and in marketing and public relations. In the early 1990s, he suffered a series of misfortunes; a fire that destroyed all of his belongings, the break-up of his marriage, and a car accident that left him with a broken neck. When he recovered, Walsch was alone and unemployed, thus, he was forced to live in a tent in Jackson Hot Springs, just outside Ashland, Oregon, collecting and recycling tin cans in order to eat. At the time, he thought his life had ended. Completely depressed, Walsch began his writings after working his way out of homelessness. He also started working periodically as a radio talk show host.

Walsch’s first book, ‘’Conversations with God’’, was published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. It remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 135 weeks. Six of his other books have made it to the Times list in the years to come. He has published 28 books and his works have been translated into 37 languages.

One of the most popular newspapers in the UK, The Sun, has published an article entitled “Dubrovnik was a filming location for Star Wars: The Last Jedi AND Game of Thrones – but the locals really don’t want you to visit.”

Dubrovnik has attracted a number of A List film productions over the past few years, it all began with the HBO serial Game of Thrones, such as Star Wars, Robin Hood and Knightfall. All of these mega productions have brought with them a new profile of tourists to Dubrovnik, film fan tourists.

By far the most attractive is Game of Thrones, which can be seen with the fact that over the past few years’ American tourists have been extremely numerous in the city, and without any direct flights from the US to Croatia. The Sun suggests that this influx of new tourists is just too much for Dubrovnik. “The success of the new Star Wars film is bound to attract Dubrovnik even more attention – probably not the most welcome thought for many residents,” writes the author of the piece in the online version of the newspaper.

In reality film fan tourists are far from being the main problem with the overcrowding of Dubrovnik through the summer months. Around two million tourists visited Dubrovnik this year, however half of this number were cruise ship passengers. The challenges that Dubrovnik tourism industry faces is mainly centred around this massive number of cruise ship passengers. Due to the fact that they come over a brief period of time and block the city’s infrastructure. Film fan tourists have never been mentioned at any level in the city as a possible problem, quite the opposite, in fact many new businesses have opened to cater for film fans. And with the latest James Bond set to film in the city at the beginning of 2018 Dubrovnik can look forward to a whole new demographic of film tourists.

Read the article in The Sun here

Just when the Old City harbour had been brought back to its pristine norm the south winds blew again and once again carried in more waste. The city cleaners and public services were once again called into the ancient harbour to collect tonnes of pollution. Fishing out large logs, bamboo and unfortunately plastic waste has been keeping the cleaning services busy for most of the day and a digger was called in to scoop up larger amounts.

Before Christmas the harbour was almost completely clean after suffering from tonnes of floating waste, and with the changing of the wind to a northerly direction the rest of the pollution had blown out into the Adriatic. However, a strong southerly wind has been blowing for the past few days and has once again picked up the pollution and dropped it into the harbour. The cleaning services will have their work cut out to pick up all the waste before the New Year.