Feel the atmosphere of Cavtat

It is said that is better to see once than hear hundred times. And we know that it is true, especially if we are talking about a beauty of the Cavtat. We also created a video about this magical place, capturing all important historical building, monuments of famous people and promenade with its restaurants and shops. We are sure that after watching this video you will feel the atmosphere of this place as we felt it. 

Spirit of Cavtat

Although monuments and historical buildings are very important, Cavtat is not only about them. Walking the streets of this small town, we’ve realised, that the most important thing about it is its spirit – the provincial atmosphere, which is sometimes so hard to find in touristic places.

listen to ‘Erasmus student from Dubrovnik talking about atmosphere in Cavtat on Audioboo

A small market with local products is situated on the main square of the town, facing the sea. Its rural atmosphere is striking, as you walk on by it. One of the best products offered by locals are self-made donuts,called fritule, which I decided to try.

Small market with traditional croatian products

Fritule, small donuts

While talking about the unique atmosphere of Cavtat, it is impossible to forget about the fishermen, that work in there, because small boats are parked alongside the boardwalk, and fishing nets are lying on the pavement next to it.

The climate of this small city in Dalmatia is not something that I can properly describe with words or even with pictures. If you really want to know how it feels to be here, you just have to visit. And when you do, you will know what I mean. Until then listen to the tourists enjoying a sunny day in Cavtat talking about their impressions.

listen to ‘Tourists talking about Cavtat’ on Audioboo

Cavtat, jewel of Konavle valley

Our amazing Erasmus time in Dubrovnik is slowly coming to the end. As a part of live team at the 32nd annual Circom Regional conference, which was this year held in Cavtat, we also visited city and all interesting places around. We tried hard to investigate all the important informations about history and interesting places to see. We also provided recordings of local people and tourist, shooted a lot of pictures and video to bring the best blog about remarkable Croatian jewel of Konavle valley- Cavtat.

Where is Cavtat? 

Cavtat, the heart of Konavle valley, is small city with around 2000 inhabitants. It is located 20 km from Dubrovnik. Cavtat is favourite destination for those who are visiting Dubrovnik, and want to take a break from busy city full of tourists and huge traffic. Small city is directly next to the see and boats anchor along the promenade. Salty scent of sea water mixed with light wind will caress your soul and the atmosphere of peaceful and calm city will amaze you. Nevertheless Cavtat have a lot of things to offer. In Cavtat there is a lot of nice hotels and small apartments where you can stay. Prices in restaurants are cheaper than in Dubrovnik, in compare with the rest of Croatia is Cavtat reasonable choice.

What to do in Cavtat?

listen to ‘The resident of Cavtat talking about its attractions’ on Audioboo

Cavtat offers you more than you expect. Quite small city have a lot of interesting places to see. You can enjoy delicious Mediterranean cuisine and have some fresh fish or other sea specialities in one of the restaurants, or just enjoy beautiful moments in Café. It also offers stunning beaches, or walking along the promenade, where you can see number of palms which create unforgatable and picturesque view. Cavtat is a born place of many famous people which play important role in Croatian history. There is a lot of historical and artificial places to visit, which you can´t miss on your walk along the promenade. If you prefer sport and adrenaline you have to try Sea Kayaking in Cavtat.

The best view on Cavtat you can see from the Hotel Croatia or from the way to the mausoleum of Račić family. During the day you can buy some original homemade croatian food. It is provided in small local market where you can find also handmade crochet tablecloth, souvenirs, pictures, postcard and a lot of other stuff. Also some olive oil, wine or traditional flavoured levander oil or other extracts and tincture oil.

Haven´t you try traditional Fritule, also called Uštipci? Don´t you know what it is? It is a festive Croatian pastry resembling little doughnuts, made particularly for Christmas. They are somewhat similar to Italian zeppole and venetian Frìtole, but are usually flavored with brandy and citrus zest, containing raisins, and are topped with powdered sugar. Charm of promenade is that it is also a port for small and middle size yachts and boats. I would not even imagine Croatia without cats and dogs. Also in Cavtat, you can find some friends to cuddle with.

If you are interested in recommendation about what to do in Cavtat from local crazy hero, listen to his funny speech. He will tell you what to do in case you don't want the police to arrest you. :)

listen to ‘What you can do in Cavtat’ on Audioboo

How to get to Cavtat? 

You can get to Cavtat by car, by boat from Dubrovnik, by bus or by bike. Cavtat also offers incredibly beautiful beaches, where you can swim in crisp and clean water. Whatever are you as the visitor interested in, Cavtat is surely worthy to visit. You will never forget to amazing sunset in Cavtat. Croatia is the only place in the world where you can see breathtaking sunset every day at every place.

Change. Challenge. Create.

Key words of an event on which people from all over the world meet every year. Really big concentration of inteligence on a squere meter. Inspirational  speechs about media problematic. Expertly workshops, extensive discussions and nice afterdrinks. CIRCOM Regional Annual Conference.

The 32nd year took place in beautiful croatian small town Cavtat. After the registration and welcome drink in Hotel Croatia on Wednesday the conference had been opened on Thursday 8th of May. The first discussed topic was regional public service. After that professor Mark Deuze from University of Amsterdam talked about his experience of media life and work of a journalist. Other topics discussed during the first conference day were social media, public service broadcasting and also European elections and investigative journalism. The conference welcomed media theory experts, but also specialists from real life practice. Except domestic personalities there were also successful people from foreign countries like Nikki O'Donnell from BBC, Rens Van Stralen of RTV Noord, Ewa Wolniewicz from TVP Wroclaw or Jean Marc Dubois from France 3. Many new knowledge mostly about regional broadcasting arised through the first day of the conference.

On Friday the problematic of reporting on Ukrainian crises was rigorously covered by a special guest journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, who is a founder of the new Ukrainian public channel. Technology predictions about the future of journalism were set by Nic Newman from Reuters. The winner of Prix CIRCOM for Investigative Journalism Guy Lynn from BBC London and Anders Svenson of SVT Tvärsnytt, who was commended in this cathegory presented the work of investigative journalists. Antony Dore from BBC London explored how news centre at New Broadcasting House transformed thinking on sharing, multi-skilling and closer work between teams.

listen to ‘Anna Dyda, TVP, Poland’ on Audioboo

We were there as a part of live team to bring the freshest information. Check the summary of our tweets!

The event ended with Announcing of 33rd CIRCOM Regional conference. The place was indicated by unexpected riverdance performanced by a journalist Carla O'Brien. See you in Ireland in 2015!

Our impressions from the CIRCOM Regional Conference

listen to ‘Alicja Piasecka, erasmus student’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Adrian Wnęk, erasmus student ’ on Audioboo

Famous people of Cavtat

Cavtat is a birthplace of many famous people who had a strong influence on Croatian history. On your walk along the promenade you can´t miss their monuments, which are the great proud of this small city. 

Baltazar Bogišić

Baltazar Bogišić  was Croatian scientist, legal and historical writer, a member of a number of other academies and scientific societies, and holder of several European awards. After studying at various European universities and graduating in Venice he received his doctorate in philosophy and law. He was also private scholar in Paris, where he published several papers on the legal and historical issues of Dubrovnik . He was a representative to express the historical legal school. He was one of the biggest Croatian bibliophile. You can see his monument at the beginning of the promenade in Cavtat, next to the harbour. 

Frano Supilo

Frano Supilo was a Croatian journalist, politician and writer. Supilo was elected to the leadership of the Party of Rights in 1895. He started the magazine Red Croatia and was its chief editor until 1899. It has developed a political idea of unification of Dalmatia with Croatian and soon with Ante Trumbića becomes the most prominent representative of the Dalmatian Liberal Party of Rights. Along with Stjepan Radić, Frano Supilo seems to be the greatest tragical figure of modern Croatian politics. The monument of Frano Supilo is situated at the end of the promenade, next to the Church of Our Lady of Snow.

Vlaho Bukovac

Vlaho Bukovac was a Croatian painter, born as Biagio Faggioni in the town of Cavtat south of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia. His life and work were eclectic, for the artist pursued his career in a variety of locales and his style changed greatly over the course of that career. Bukovac received his artistic education in Paris and then he became a student at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. He is probably best known for his 1887 nude Une fleur (A Flower), which he created during his French period and which received attention in various reviews and publications during his lifetime.

If you are looking for the House of Vlaho Bukovac, you can find in exactly in the urban core in Cavtat. This house is special not only by its architecture and gardens, but primarily because of the heritage of the famous painter and Bukovac family.

listen to ‘The owner of local souvenir shop talking about the house of Vlaho Bukovac’ on Audioboo

Live reporting from Circom Conference

The main reason of our trip to Cavtat was the Circom Conference, that was hosted there in Hotel Croatia. As a part of live media team, we were supposed to follow the events live and report on them on twitter. This assignment was supposed to show us the importance of social media in the words of today’s journalists all over the world. The main focus of the conference were regional media, about which we were able to find out a lot during presentations from journalists coming from all over the Europe.

Journalism has many aspects and while discussing it you cannot miss some of them. As students of mass media communication, we are already aware of many things connected to this topic, but the advantage of this conference was that we could see how these different aspects wirk in other countries and compare it to ours.

While being a part of live-reporting team, we actually did look like modern-day journalist, that were trying to use new media in order to spread the news about the conference. Some of us were even mistaken with journalists from one of the best media company in the world…

We were not only learning about how the regional media work, but also about their content, how it should look like and what is the most important thing about media. In today’s, where news travels faster than the best cars, journalists are the ones responsible for presenting it in the right, truthful way.

Even though the conference was really interesting, as students, who normally dine in the canteen, we were not only happy about the presentations, but also about… the food :)

Trinity of Cavtat

Probably the most known buildings in Cavtat are Church of St. Nicholas, Racic family Mauselum and Rector’s Palace. If you are in this small city you can’t miss any of those buildings. And it’s really easy to go to all of them.

When you are at the beginning of the promenade on the right sight you will see a Church of St. Nicholas. It’s quite small, but still, looks really nice. You have to go up only few stairs and you can go inside the church. The interior is modest. There is one main hall and on the left there is also an aisle. In the whole church we can see only few pictures and even the altar isn’t richly decorated. The church was built in the 15th century, so it’s in renaissance style. However it’s interior is in baroque style. Probably the only worth mentioning thing from the interior of the church is the altar, which was created by well-known Dubrovnik painter Carmello Reggio Palermitano, who lived in Dubrovnik at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Visiting of church shouldn’t take you more than five minutes.

When you go out of the church it’s worth to go straight along the promenade. At the end of promenade you will see a sign leading to the Racic family Mausoleum. It’s located on a hill, so you have to walk up on stairs for few minutes. For someone who isn’t fit, it might be a little bit tiring, but for most people it shouldn’t be a problem to come at the top. And then, you can admire one of the most charming cementaries I have ever seen. Close to the cementary there is a Racic family Mausoleum, which was built in 1921. It’s a small building devoted to Racic family, which was very important for Cavtat and did a lot for this city. To go inside the Mausoleum you have to pay 10kn, but if someone doesn’t want to spend money he can stay outside. From the outside you can also see a big part of interior.

listen to ‘The owner of local souvenir shop talking about the mausoleum’ on Audioboo

Undoubtedly at the end it is also worth to go to the Rector’s Palace. From this place there is really nice view for the Cavtat’s promenade. What’s more, if someone is interested in art and architecture, he will have an opportunity to admire renaissance building of palace. Today in Rector’s Palace there is a library and archives of Baltazar Bogisic. However, to be honest, for me the best reason to go there is just to have a nice view for the Cavtat’s center. In conclusion if you are in Cavtat you have to see those three buildings. They are in different places of the center, but visiting them all should take you around 1 hour, maybe a little bit more. But is's really worth. All of this monuments create something what we called the Trinity of Cavtat.