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Best known as the supposed birthplace of Marco Polo... the latest discovery, which has been posted on Facebook by the Univerity of Zadar - a translation of which is below.In the underwater archaeological research of the submerged Neolithic site of Soline on the island of Korčula, archaeologists found remains that surprised even them. Namely, under the deposits of sea mud, a road was discovered that connected the sunken prehistoric settlement of the Hvar culture with the coast of the island of Korčula.These are carefully stacked stone slabs that were part of a four-meter-wide communication that connected the artificially created island...

Searchers have located the wrecks of five B-24 bombers that crashed into the Adriatic Sea during World War II, three of which are associated with 23 still-missing crew members. The search mission – conducted over a two-week period in August off the coast of Croatia – was a partnership between Project Recover and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. It was the culmination of a lengthy process of researching military records and obtaining needed permits from Croatia, Mark Moline, the mission leader and a cofounder of Project Recover, said in a phone interview Thursday. Along with the B-17, the B-24 Liberator...

Co-funded by the European Union, the Pelješac bridge, which formally launched on Tuesday, stretches between Komarna on the mainland and Brijesta on the peninsula of Pelješac, providing easier access to popular tourist spot Dubrovnik. The launch of the 2.4 kilometer (1.5 mile) cable-stayed structure is being hailed as a historic moment for the country, with hundreds of people turning out to be the first to cross on foot as the bridge opened to pedestrians and then to motorists. Up until now, both residents and tourists had to cross through Bosnia-Herzegovina when traveling to and from the region of Southern Dalmatia...

Greek rescue forces are desperately trying to save two people trapped onboard a stricken ferry amid fears that 14 passengers were missing nearly eight hours after the ship burst into flames. A Super Puma helicopter had attempted several times to approach the Euroferry Olympia, an Italian liner en route to Brindisi, when the fire broke out at around 4am. Four lifeboats carrying an estimated 279 people had meanwhile headed for the Ionian island of Corfu, where authorities were hoping to match arrivals with the passenger list assembled by crew. By midday, Hellenic navy ships, and at least three coastguard vessels,...

Encrusted with tiny shells and smelling strongly of the sea, a 2,400-year-old Greek jar lies in a saltwater bath in Durres Museum, on Albania's Adriatic coast. Part of a sunken shipment of up to 60 ceramic vessels, the 67-centimeter (26-inch) storage jar, or amphora, was the top find... Launched in July, the month-long survey was the first step in compiling an underwater cultural heritage map that could eventually plot the position of sunken fleets from ancient and mediaeval times believed to lie along Albania's 360-kilometer (220-mile) coastline... The light-brown clay amphora, probably used to store wine or oil, was found...

Venice was almost completely flooded on Monday, with rain-soaked tourists evacuated from St Mark's Square as fierce storms lashed Italy. Water transport services were halted across Venice as 75 per cent of the city centre flooded to 156cm (61inc) by early afternoon, the highest level since 2012. Residents and visitors were wading through waist-high water in St Mark's Square before the mayor gave orders to evacuate the area. Police wearing hip waders carried a number of children to safety as stranded tourists waited to be ferried to higher ground.

18th century map of the Inner Austrian districts of Görz and Trieste created between 1789 and 1797. Credit: University of Bristol ====================================================================== A lost world in a former empire in Europe has been brought to life thanks to University of Bristol researchers who used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyse 47,000 multilingual pages from newspapers dating back to 1873. The study, published in Historical Methods, aimed to discover whether historical changes could be detected from the collective content of local newspapers from the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca. The findings reveal a series of political and cultural events...

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. ~ Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) (speech, Fulton Missouri, 5 March...

Voting begins Sunday on a referendum on whether Venice and its surrounding region should secede from the rest of Italy, in an attempt to restore its 1,000-year history as a sovereign republic. La Serenissima — or the Most Serene Republic of Venice — was an independent trading power for a millennium before its last leader was deposed by Napoleon in 1797.

A bomb at a vocational school in the port city of Brindisi on the Adriatic coast in Southern Italy has killed two students and injured another five as classes were preparing to start this morning as reported by David Batty for The Guardian. The school was named in honor of the wife of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone after both were slain almost exactly twenty years ago as reported by Nick Squires for The Telegraph: "the prosecutor, his wife and their three bodyguards were killed on May 23 1992, when the Sicilian Mafia planted half a tonne of explosives on the...

Norwegian coast (click for full size) Adriatic coast (click for full size) Another on the Adriatic, under moonlight

For sale: A beer-drinking wolf! The sign on a winding road leading from Montenegro's capital to the spectacular Adriatic Sea coastline illustrates how just about everything has its price in the world's newest country. Since 2001, close to 80 percent of Montenegro's state assets have been sold, mostly to foreigners. Two telecommunications companies, a shipyard, an aluminum factory, the only brewery, most of the hotels, capital markets, and the oil import and distribution industries are already in private hands. Outsiders, particularly from Britain, are snapping up prime seaside properties, sending real estate prices soaring. The embrace of foreign investment comes...

ZAGREB, Oct. 3 — Croatia looked set on Friday to extend its fishing jurisdiction to one half of the Adriatic, in a move likely to anger neighbours Italy and Slovenia and possibly slow down Zagreb's European Union membership drive.

<p>OHRID, Macedonia. &#8212; To judge by my own reaction, perceptions are lagging reality a bit when it comes to the former Yugoslavia. The beautiful lakeside town of Ohrid, Macedonia, was the scene this weekend of a conference bringing together leading officials from the Balkans. The years of upheaval in the formerYugoslavia,all agree, are past. The horrible, bloody and uncertain decade of the 1990s is over. The lives and the opportunityfor progress lost are to be mourned. But it is time to move forward, and that was the agenda at Ohrid.</p>

Patriarch Celebrates Divine Liturgy in Ravenna; Plans to Sign Declaration with Pope VATICAN CITY, JUNE 9, 2002 (ZENIT.org).- A step toward full unity between Catholics and Orthodox was taken when, for the first time in a millennium, a patriarch of Constantinople celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Byzantine basilica of Ravenna. John Paul II, at the Vatican, applauded today´s event, which he said helps "encourage us to continue on the road toward full unity between the Christian East and West." For the first time since the schism of 1054, an Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople celebrated the Divine Liturgy in...