A flight of steps led to the upstairs balcony, where Zlata showed me to the guest room, filled with 19th-century furniture and fading black-and-white photographs. The shutters opened to a view of the river. After an al fresco dinner of roast chicken and a jug of the local wine, I climbed into my wooden bed and fell into a deep sleep.

This was Croatia, but a very different Croatia from the one experienced by most visitors to the newly fashionable islands and coast.

Page 2: country guide - Istria
Page 3: country guide - villas, hotels, activities
Page 4: other operators and travel information

()Country guide

TEN YEARS after Operation Storm ended the Serbian occupation of the country, Croatia has grown up. Long talked about as the hottest new destination in the Med, Croatia is bursting with confidence, as more and more of us discover the charms of its Adriatic islands and coast.

The number of UK visitors rose by almost 40 per cent last year to more than 190,000. This is still a far cry from the 1980s, when nearly half a million British tourists a year crowded out the coastline of what was then part of Yugoslavia. Those days are gone, however, and few people want them to return.

“We are preserving our islands and coast and we see ourselves in the future as a quality destination rather than mass market,” says Josip Lozic, director of the Croatian National Tourist Office in London.

The war in the 1990s may have damaged tourism, but it created an opportunity for a new beginning. Many of the old-style concrete block hotels were either destroyed or taken over by refugees; those that remain have been modernised and restored, while others have been replaced by smaller and more intimate hotels.

“The big trends are towards villa holidays, agrotourism, restored farmhouses and cottages. . . lots of upmarket villa operators are introducing Croatia for the first time,” says Josip Lozic.

Not that the big boys are staying away. First Choice and Thomas Cook both reintroduced Croatia last year, and Crystal now has a dedicated Croatia brochure. Thomson, which was the first major tour operator to return to Croatia in 1997, is trebling its programme for 2005, with new flights from Gatwick and Manchester to Dubrovnik and resorts on the Dalmatian coast.

But they still have some catching up to do. Bookings with Holiday Options, the only British operator to cover the entire Adriatic coastline from the Slovenian to the Montenegro borders, have grown from 1,200 in 1999 to 22,000 last year — with more flights than First Choice, Thomas Cook and Thomson combined.

“We took a risk when everyone else was ignoring Croatia because we could see the potential was there,” says its chairman, Jonathan Oakes. Five years later, the bandwagon is rolling.

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