We have a new blog address

Dear visitors,

If you want to find out what's new on our blog, please follow the link: Sunny Blogosphere

Party with people from all over the world on Ultra Europe spectacle!

ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL – the world’s premier dance music event – is coming to Croatia from 12th-14th July for ULTRA EUROPE, attracting people from all over the world with just one goal – sharing the positive energy trough dance! Taking place at the beautiful Poljud Stadium in SPLIT (12th & 13th July) and at our Hotel Amfora in HVAR (14th July) for the very first time, ULTRA has confirmed to organize ULTRA EUROPE exclusively in Croatia for the next 5 years.

Check out how it was in Miami this year! Some things in life just have to be experienced!

The press conference presenting Ultra Europe festival locations, updated line-up and the record-breaking ticket sales was held at the Poljud stadium in Split last week. Ultra Europe has far exceeded all the expectations and it could easily enter the list of top ten electronic music events in the world at its very first edition. The interest for this event is coming from more than 75 countries of the world with over 60 percent tickets sold-out, has broken all the records. Organizers have confirmed at the conference six more world class acts, who will join 30 performers so far confirmed for the premiere edition of Ultra Europe.

CAZZETTE

Stadium of Poljud will be the place where the first two days of festival are to be held and all the fans can expect a spectacle like no other. The capacity of the stadium will grow to 40 thousand places with VIP area for 3000 people, while the stage will be biggest ever seen in the entire broader region. Specially designed area and production with the capacity of 8000 people are expected on the Carl Cox & Friends stage, while 2500 fans will be partying on the Regional Stage where the leading clubs and new-coming artist will be performing in front of the fans. The last day of Ultra Europe is to be held on the already sold-out exclusive beach party in Hvar, where we expect more than 5000 fans on a 3800 square meters pool area located at the most beautiful beach resort on the Adriatic coast.

 Ultra Europe is the only festival in the world that will include a special component of TheYacht week, with more than 250 boats that are part of the Ultra Europe Regatta to Hvar on July 14^th. Following the example of the US version of the festival, the YouTube live broadcast will be introduced via UMF TV channel. Ultra festival in Miami set a record with over 10 million unique viewers of the live broadcast, so the organizers hope to repeat that success on Ultra Europe with the help of more than 20 cameras, which will be filming for over 5 million people.

Joe Bašić, the director of Adria MM Productions, who are representing the Croatian partner and co-organizer of the festival, thanked Heineken and other partners who recognized the importance of this event, ORYX Rent a Car and Red Bull Adria.

Adam Beyer

The conference presented new artists who will perform at the Ultra Europe festival. The world-famous British duo Chase & Status, Sweedish Dub House duo Cazzette and Progressive House DJ Deniz Koyu will be performing on the main stage in Split along with other world-famous EDM acts Afrojack, AVICII, Armin Van Buuren and Hardwell. Carl Cox & Friends stage lineup will be upgraded with the renowned UK DJ Yousef and the Swedish techno DJ and producer Adam Beyer. Many Australians who bought a ticket for the last day of Ultra Europe festival at the hotel pool of Amfora will surely be thrilled that the Australian duo Nervo will perform. Including the mentioned, the total number of announced acts for Split and Hvar is 30, while the organizers are waiting for confirmations from at least five more performers. 

NERVO

Until the beginning of Ultra Europe festival, some will certainly decide to warm-up on Umagination – Road to Ultra event, which is to be held in Umag on June 8^th with renowned acts such as Laidback Luke, Martin Solveig and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike duo.

As the world’s most famous outdoor electronic music festival, ULTRA has won “Best Music Event” by the International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) six consecutive years, from 2005 to 2011, “Best International Dance Music Festival” by the Ibiza DJ Awards in 2008 and “Best Festival” by the Village Voice Media New Times consecutively five years running from 2005 through 2009. Originally created as a pure electronic music festival in 1999, ULTRA has grown through the years to present not only the genre’s hottest, biggest and best headlining artists (The Prodigy, Swedish House Mafia, The Chemical Brothers, Tiësto, Avicii, David Guetta, deadmau5, Underworld, Kraftwerk, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Moby, Fatboy Slim and Justice to name a few), but also crossover headline bands that incorporate electronic elements in their music and have a history or new beginning in the dance music community and culture (The Cure, The Killers, New Order, Duran Duran, The Black Eyed Peas, Erasure, M83, Santigold, The Ting Tings, Cut Copy, Empire of the Sun and Bloc Party). In 2012, global pop icon Madonna appeared as a special surprise guest—the festival’s gift to their fans.

We are looking forward to the worlds leading EDM artists! Are you?

 

Hvar Time Capsule

Hvar buried a time capsule today.

In light of celebrating 400 years of the oldest public theatre in Europe, Hvar’s Mayor Pjerino Bebić initiated a Time Capsule (Škatula za sne) project. 

Everyone was invited to contribute with anything which they considered to represent a cultural wealth of current times. The idea was to burry this ‘box of dreams’ for a hundred years under a palm tree in the park.   

Klapa Šušur was singing the 'Škatula za sne' song during the event

In 2113, the Time Capsule will be dug from the ground and future people of Hvar will find out what life was like today. Citizens contributed with photos, stories and memories, and special commission was formed to decide which of the objects will represent our way of life the best. 

They chose around 200 objects, like agave lace made by Benedictine nuns, photos and videos of Hvar, traditional Hvar products (honey, olive oil, prošek - sweet dessert wine), photo and video camera, Mayor’s mobile phone with all the contacts etc. The burial was scheduled for March 24^th but was delayed due to bad weather.

The ceremony was a theatrical media event and grand finale was letting go of red balloons into the air to celebrate 400^th anniversary of Hvar’s historical theatre.

Hvar can mean the most cherished memories

Rare are the ones who have a chance to travel the world, yet choose to return to one place over and over. We sat with our beloved guests, the Jacksons, yesterday in our Adriana to find out more about the incredible story of their love for Hvar. 

John and Barbara Jackson are a lovely and lively couple from London. They are well known faces to people of Hvar because they have been coming here for 41 years now, two or three times a year, always early and late in the season. John says that once people get here, they will always come back.

They were both journalists and their main hobby in life was travelling. Since 1972 they have been holidaying on Hvar, first with their children, later on alone or with friends and grandchildren, but they never wanted to own a house here because they cherish their freedom. Amazingly, the Jacksons were coming here during all war years even though it was a life threatening adventure, especially once when they came by car.

Geoges Buj from the Hvar Tourist Board gave The Jacksons a Certificate of honorary guests of the Hvar Tourist Board and the lace made by Benedictine nuns out of agava threads (under UNESCO protection)

Meeting the Jacksons is like travelling through time. They talked about how things used to be, about the golden years of Hvar tourism, about their favourite ferries from Rijeka, better airport connections in the eighties, the people they met and watched them grow up or get older... Their favourite hotel was Palace and now it’s Adriana. They are huge fans of long walks. They used to walk from Hvar to Sveta Nedilja. They walked to Milna hundreds of times and yesterday was no exception. Barbara enjoys swimming in September and October, but John doesn’t like two things about swimming: you have to take your clothes off and get wet! They know everything there is to know about Hvar history, tradition and way of life. All their memories are happy ones; Hvar has always been a family time for them. Barbara loves to watch Croatian news (Dnevnik) every night and she always brings Croatian soap powder Plavi Radion back to England; she says it takes care of everything. 

Dubravka Novak, our Room Division Manager, gave them models of traditional boats and olive oil made of the olives in the garden of Hotel Pharos

Mr and Ms Jackson celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary two years ago in Hotel Palace with their four children and eight grandchildren, family and friends from New Zealand, Australia and England. Their eldest son held a speech at the celebration and he said that Hvar still smells the same. He hasn’t been on Hvar in years and fragranced air is his memory of Hvar when he was a small boy. The Jacksons are planning to return many times more and celebrate their Diamond wedding anniversary on their favourite island, where else?