Dubrovnik has been declared as the best "City Break" destination in Croatia in Bol, Brac where yesterday Croatia Tourism Days 2016 began. A total of seven hotels of the City of Dubrovnik were awarded, Villa Dubrovnik earned two first prizes and two employees of Dubrovnik was declared the best.

At last night's ceremony the awards were given by Croatian Tourist Board, the Ministry of Tourism and the Croatian Chamber of Economy in terms of destinations, the sustainable tourism, attractions, the awards for the business sector (Tourist flower - Quality for Croatia), and people in the tourism industry (Man - Key to success in tourism, an annual award "Anton Stifanic") and prizes for the top three for secondary vocational and art schools.

Dubrovnik was awarded as the best city break destination, along with other many, many awards and recognitions. On the other hand, Konavle were awarded as the most successful destination for rural tourism.

In Dubrovnik went several awards in the category 'Man – Key to success'. Katija Gretel-Krmek from hotel company ALH won an award for employee of the year as the best sales and marketing in tourism and Mateo Gverovic from the Valamar Riviera was awarded as the best chef .
Dubrovnik hotels have earned the highest number of awards in the category "Tourist Flower - Quality for Croatia", which is another confirmation of the high quality hotel accommodation in our city. Valamar is the best conference hotel in Croatia, the best resort hotel is a 5-star Dubrovnik Palace Hotel, while the best resort hotel category 4 * is Hotel Neptune, and in the same category the third place went to the Valamar Argosy.
The best wellness hotel in Croatia is again one hotel located in Dubrovnik - the Valamar Dubrovnik President, the best boutique hotel is Hotel Dubrovnik Palace and two awards went to the hotel Villa Dubrovnik, which is the best single luxury hotel and the best luxury hotel in Croatia.

ACI marina Komolac got an award in the category of Best medium-sized marina again this year and it won third place.

When visiting Dubrovnik, you can't miss Minceta, one of the four fortesses of Dubrovnik City Walls. As the highest point of the Walls, this fort has a magnificent view on Dubrovnik and it's considered as one of the symbols of the City. 

However, Minceta is not there just for beauty purposes, even though it's really beautiful, but also for the defence – it represents one of the key points of the Dubrovnik defense system to the mainland due to its location on te north side.
Minceta Tower is named after the Dubrovnik aristocratic family Mencetic, which offered land for its construction. It is a large circular tower, based on a broad and solid bulwark. Its height and impressive volume dominates the northwestern part of the City. In the time of Dubrovnik Republic, Minceta with its fortification function seemed almost indestructible defense stronghold.

The fort was originally built in 1319 as a high reaching quadrilateral fort according the designs of local architect Nicifor Ranjina and has been like that for over 100 years. Then, in 1461 the famous architect Michelozzo di Bartolomeo of Florence built a new round tower around the earlier quadrilateral fort, adapted to the new technique of warfare and joined it to the new system of low scarp walls. Juraj of Dalmatia continued his work, he built the bottom of the fortress and gave it the recognizable overhead part, the crown.

Minceta Tower also had a part in the Game of Thrones filming – its base was used as the exteriror of House of Undying in the town of Qarth. All the GOT lovers must know the scene from season two - the place where Daenerys Targaryen walks around trying to find the entrance into the House of Undying looking for her dragons. Oh yes, we remember her screaming: ''Where are my dragons?''

The globally popular conference forum TEDx is coming to Dubrovnik. On Friday the 28th of October the first ever TEDx event to be held in Dubrovnik will take place in the Marin Držić Theatre in the heart of the Old City. The theme for this conference will be “Living Tomorrow,” and over the six hours of the event an international panel of fifteen speakers will bring forward ideas and influences.

“The atmosphere of the exchange of differing ideas from a wide range of speakers will be interesting to experience in Dubrovnik,” commented the organisers of the event.

TED, or Technology, Entertainment, Design, events have proved extremely popular over the past years and this first ever TEDx is a spin-off from the initial idea, where X stands for independent. These are non-profit conferences, or melting pots of ideas, in which guest speakers are also unpaid. The TEDx in Dubrovnik starts at 1pm in the theatre and is scheduled to finish at 7pm, with tickets available at the door. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

The international guest speakers in Dubrovnik will include Davor Ljubimir , Branimir Brkljač, Božidar Jukić, Mihovil Španja, Rebecca Charry Roje, Aleksandra Kolarić, Srećko Koralija, Tomica Šćavina, Ljoba Jenče, Cody McClain, Rambo Amadeus, Mihaela Lekić, Gaella Gotwald, Siniša Car, Elizabeta Planinić. And there will also be a music program with two local artists, Maja Grgić and Lovro Barišić.

Dubrovnik will look forward to an afternoon of exchanging ideas and along the way finding solutions to the challenges of Living Tomorrow.

For further information on the speakers and the themes please download the attachment.

Dubrovnik Tourist Board promo movie named Dubrovnik & Time won one another prestige award on the 9th festival 'ART&TUR' IN Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, that was held from 19th to 22th of October. The video has won the second place in the 'Tourism destinations – cities' category. The international competition had a total of 301 movies from 52 countries on this festival.

The main objective of the festival is to promote creativity in tourism, so the contents of the ART & TUR Festival were enriched with complementary film events, such as workshops and photographic exhibitions.

With this award, promo movie Dubrovnik & Time hits a total of thirteen. It produced by BALDUCI FILM Zagreb and directed by Herve Tirmarchea.

Every week our resident "Style Guru" will be scanning the streets of Dubrovnik for the latest and greatest in fashion.

Is Dubrovnik about to be the scene of another Bollywood blockbuster? One of the biggest stars in India is currently in Dubrovnik and it looks like she is filming here. Huma Qureshi published a photo on her Twitter account in Dubrovnik along with the comments, “In gorgeous Dubrovnik, Croatia... Surprise coming up...shooting something super fab...can't wait to share with you all.”

Qureshi is an actress and model who has earned several nominations for her on screen performances. She is also well known for her work in making commercials after an award winning Samsung advert. So Dubrovnik could well be the location of a new international advertising campaign. It is also believed that the Indian advert film maker Vivek Daschaudhary is also in Dubrovnik.

Dubrovnik sprung to fame in India and with the Bollywood community after the blockbuster movie “Fan” starring Shah Rukh Khan was filmed in the city in the spring of 2015.

It seems that some people are so happy to be in Dubrovnik that they just want to closer to the stone. No, this English tourist hadn’t fallen over, slipped on a banana or felt unsteady; she simply started rolling around on the Stradun to the obvious amusement of her friends.

She seemed extremely happy just to be in Dubrovnik and, as far as we could gather, was just taking the opportunity to get up close and personal with the city.

The Guardian newspaper has placed Croatia is third place as the most attractive destination for solo travelling. If you are travelling on your own then Dubrovnik should be on the list of places to visit.

This leading UK newspaper has published a list of the top ten destinations for solo travelers and India and China are ranked in the top two positions, with Dubrovnik in third place. Take a cruise along the Croatian Adriatic coastline and visit Montenegro, recommends the UK publication.

Other destinations in the top ten include skiing in France, West Africa, Colombia, Spain, Morocco and Japan.