Your ultimate guide to Croatia

So what is the coolest, most compelling example of Croatian design? It’s actually a 4500-year-old collection of symbols engraved on a grey pot called the Vinkovci Orion. Looking rather like a superbly conceived set of contemporary pictograms, the symbols are the best-known product of the so-called Vučedol culture, a civilization of pastoralists and metalworkers who settled in the region in around 3000BC. It’s a story told with passion and verve by the gripping new Vučedol Culture Museum near Vukovar, a bold new building that slants dramatically out of a hillside, rather like a secret base you might have seen in a James Bond movie. The museum has significantly boosted tourism in an area that was already on the rise: in Western Europe people might talk about the Bilbao Effect. Here it’s the Vučedol Effect.   Sat beside a gorgeous stretch of the Danube river, historic Vukovar and the nearby wine-producing town of Ilok have been quietly touted by in-the-know travellers for quite some time. Driven by growing awareness of the new museum, the Vukovar-Vučedol-Ilok strip is now one of the fastest-growing destinations in Croatia, picking up the European Union’s EDEN prize for cultural tourism in March 2108. Substantially damaged during the war in 1991, the town is nevertheless returning to what it was before the conflict: a pretty Baroque town sprawled along a bewitchingly attractive stretch of Europe’s greatest river. Many of Vukovar’s most handsome buildings have been returned

Experience bygone grandeur and contemporary comfort at Palace Hotel. A city of one million inhabitants, as with any metropolis, the face of modern Zagreb changes year after year. But deep in the heart of the capital, time moves more slowly. The grand facades of Austro-Hungarian architecture found here were built to last. They offer a flavour of Zagreb as it was when the city was a key cultural and administrative hub of the Habsburg empire. Having welcomed the upper echelons of Habsburg-era society since 1907, the Palace Hotel offers a luxurious taste of Zagreb as it once was. Located in the prettiest part of the city, overlooking the splendour of the three glorious parks which have impressed visitors for over 200 years, you couldn't be better placed to discover the delights of Zagreb, both old and new. Hotel Palace © Ivan Zovko Fully renovated and containing everything you'd expect from a modern premium hotel, each of the Palace's bright 123 rooms carefully balances the old and the new, where modern facilities complement the antique-style furniture. Elaborate stairways and walkways bridged by stained glass concave roofs provide a visual theatre as impressive to today's city break visitors as it was to the high society of yesteryear. Lit by chandeliers, the ornate wooden flooring of the hotel's cafe and bistro are perhaps the best place in the city to sample Zagreb as it once was. There you can relax on antique furniture after a meeting in one of the hotel's

Croatia produces some of the finest wines you will ever try. You may know it, you may not. But it's a fact. The country may not have as famous or developed a reputation as a world leader in winemaking like, say, France or Italy, but those in the know have been aware of Croatia’s brilliant wines for many years. This year alone, Croatian wines have swept the boards at each of the leading, internationally-recognised wine competitions and trade fairs. Croatia’s wine products are of too high a quality and some too small in production to ever become ubiquitous on UK supermarket shelves; you’d have to go to a specialist wine trader to pick them up. Croatia itself has terrific specialist wine stores where, if you really know what you’re looking for and you’re willing to travel, you can pick up the very best Croatian wines. But not everyone who likes wine is an expert and not every place you go while on holiday has a specialist wine store. However, wherever you go you will find supermarkets like Spar, which has well over 110 outlets in the country. Here, you can pick up some truly excellent wines to treat yourself or to take home.