Croatian Souvenirs: 12 Authentic Things to Bring Home

Walk down Stradun in July and you will pass the same three souvenirs a hundred times: a fridge magnet, a printed apron, a keychain shaped like the city walls. Most of them were made several thousand kilometres away and have nothing to do with Croatia beyond the word printed on the front.

That is a shame, because Croatian craft is genuinely worth carrying home. This is a guide from people who run a small shop inside Dubrovnik’s Old Town — what is actually made here, what it should cost, and what quietly gets sold as “local” when it isn’t.

How to tell a real Croatian souvenir from a printed one

Four checks, none of which require any expertise:

1. Turn it over. Handmade ceramics carry small irregularities — a thumbprint in the glaze, a base that isn’t perfectly level. Factory pieces are identical to each other.
2. Ask who made it. In a genuine shop the answer is a person’s name, not a shrug.
3. Look at the price honestly. A hand-painted ceramic piece cannot cost €3. If it does, someone in a factory was paid almost nothing for it.
4. Check for the same item next door. If four shops on the same street sell the identical object, it came from a wholesaler.

1. Hand-painted ceramics

The most rewarding thing to bring back, and the hardest to fake convincingly. Croatian potters work in a Mediterranean palette — olive, sea blue, terracotta — and each piece is finished by hand, so no two glazes fall the same way.

A ceramic mug survives daily use and keeps reminding you of the trip every morning, which is more than most souvenirs manage. If you want something purely decorative, a decorative ceramic tile or a ceramic bell travels flat and safe in a suitcase. Our full handmade ceramics collection is made by potters working within a few kilometres of the Old Town.

2. Dalmatian lavender

Grown on Hvar and across the Dalmatian islands, and genuinely different from French lavender — the coastal soil and salt air give it a sharper, less sweet scent. Sold as dried sachets, oil, and soap.

Buy it loose or in simple cloth bags rather than in elaborate gift packaging, where you are mostly paying for the box. A handmade scented candle carries the same scent in a form that survives a checked bag better than a glass bottle of oil.

3. Art prints of the city

A photograph of Dubrovnik is something anyone can take. An illustration of it is someone’s interpretation, and it dates far better on a wall at home.

Our art prints are drawn by illustrators working here — including a Croatia cat print and a Balkan cat print that place the city’s cats where they actually belong: in the middle of everything. Prints roll into a tube and weigh nothing, which makes them the single most luggage-friendly souvenir on this list.

4. Stone house ornaments

Dubrovnik’s Old Town is built from Korčula limestone, and miniature stone houses echo those same walls, arched windows and terracotta roofs.

The Dubrovnik stone house ornament and the twin-tower version are small enough for hand luggage and heavy enough to feel like the real material they imitate. Wrap them in clothing rather than paper — stone chips at the corners.

5. Konavle embroidery

From the Konavle valley south of Dubrovnik, worked in red and black geometric patterns on white linen. Real Konavle embroidery is slow work and priced accordingly; printed imitations are everywhere and obvious once you have seen the real thing side by side.

Look at the reverse. Hand embroidery has a worked, slightly messy back. A print has none.

6. Olive oil and olive wood

Croatian olive oil regularly places among the best in the world, and Istrian producers in particular win international awards year after year. Buy from a producer or a specialist shop, not from a supermarket shelf aimed at tourists.

Olive wood — bowls, boards, spoons — is dense, water-resistant and effectively lasts forever. It also survives baggage handlers, which cannot be said for a bottle.

7. Ties — genuinely a Croatian invention

The cravat came from Croatian soldiers in the 17th century, whose neck scarves the French court copied and renamed cravate. It is a real piece of history rather than a marketing story, and a well-made Croatian tie is a good gift for someone who would never wear a fridge magnet.

8. Handmade jewellery

Small enough to carry, personal enough to matter. Croatian silverwork and enamel work follow Mediterranean motifs — waves, olive branches, sea creatures. A pair of enamel earrings weighs nothing and does not break in transit, which puts it ahead of almost everything else here on practicality alone. The rest of our handmade cat earrings are made by the same jewellers.

9. Licitar hearts

Red honey-dough hearts, decorated and glazed, on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list. Traditionally from northern Croatia rather than Dalmatia, so treat them as a Croatian souvenir rather than a specifically Dubrovnik one. Decorative, not edible after the first few weeks.

10. Rakija

Fruit brandy — travarica with herbs, medica with honey, orahovica with green walnuts. Buy from a producer where you can taste first. Remember the liquid limits: it goes in checked luggage, and in a bag you are willing to lose if the bottle doesn’t survive.

11. Sea-salt from Ston

Harvested at Ston, in salt pans worked since Roman times, an hour up the coast from Dubrovnik. It costs very little, weighs little, and is one of the few edible souvenirs you will actually finish rather than leave in a cupboard for three years.

12. Something for the cats

Dubrovnik’s Old Town cats are, by any honest measure, one of the city’s genuine attractions. They sleep on the walls, run the side streets and appear in more holiday photographs than most of the monuments.

Our whole shop grew out of them — cat figurines, t-shirts, and a Dubrovnik snow globe with a cat inside it. If you are shopping for someone at home rather than yourself, our guide to the best gifts for cat lovers goes through that in more detail, and if you are buying around December, we have a separate piece on handmade cat Christmas ornaments.

What to skip

• Printed magnets and keychains. Almost all imported, and identical in every second shop.
• “Handmade” lace at suspiciously low prices. Real Croatian lace from Pag or Hvar is expensive because it takes weeks. Cheap versions are machine-made.
• Game of Thrones merchandise. Filmed here, made elsewhere, licensed by no one local.
• Anything a street vendor describes as “very old family piece”. It isn’t.

Where to buy

Inside the Old Town, walk one street off Stradun before you buy anything. The main street pays the highest rents in the city, and those rents come back to you in the price.

We are on Zlatarska 3, a short walk from the cathedral — everything we sell is made by people we know by name. If you would like to see the rest of what Dubrovnik is worth doing besides shopping, our city guide covers that, and there is a shorter piece on what to buy in Dubrovnik specifically.