News Feature

Croatia gets 'smashing' new tourist attraction

24 January 2008

Officials in one Croatian town are aiming to give visitors a "smashing" time with an interestingly-themed park.

According to Ananova, Belica's star attraction will be dedicated to the potato, featuring potato-plant flower beds, a potato-themed children's play area - with swings and slides shaped like spuds - and plaques describing various potato types.

Following a contest to choose the theme of the park, all competing suggestions were mashed by the entry from a local farmers' union.

Mayor Zvonimir Taradi explained: "Families in Belica have been living from potatoes for years, and when it came to a choice of what to dedicate the new park to, it was an obvious selection."

He has already unveiled a potato monument, an occasion on which he took the opportunity to praise the spud for providing a steady food source and livelihood for many generations in Belica.

Croatia follows in the food-themed footsteps of Australia with the creation of the new park.

Robertson, an area in New South Wales, specialises in potato cultivation and draws an abundance of annual tourists to its Big Potato, an artefact said by locals to be a giant fossilised piece of dinosaur waste. ADNFCR-1197-ID-18440335-ADNFCR