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Living along the Sava

The Brod-Posavina County is a county on the Sava, a county on the border where cultures meet and get intertwined. This is a region rich in history, natural beauty, tradition and customs, abundant dinner table and noble vines. Famous artists created their works of art, for both the ‘big’ and ‘small’ audiences, and stories and legends were created here. Discover the world of the fairy tales of the ‘Croatian Andersen’ and get to know the magnificent masterpieces of the great Ivan Meštrović. Let the cycling routes take you to the Fortress of Brod and the pedunculate oak that is several centuries old! Eco and ethno villages are responsible for providing a special experience that, beside a lavish dinner table, offers a recipe for an ideal vacation away from the city rush.

FORTRESS OF BROD

Meet

Slavonski Brod proudly reveals the most important historic structure of this county representing a unique and monumental example of the military fortification from the 18th century. The construction of the Fortress is a result of forced labour of the peasants and speaking of its endurance is the piece of information that an enemy would need 46 days to conquer it. Today it is enough to knock on the door and all the secrets hidden in this star-shaped fortress will be revealed. We will tell you two of them: the Tambura Museum and Ružić Gallery with a unique collection of the Croatian art from the second half of the 20th century.

In Slavonski Brod, one of the important strategic towns that controlled the border crossing towards Turkey and connected the main commercial routes, between 1715 and 1780 Austria constructed the great Imperial and Royal Slavonian Border Fortress Brod on the Sava River, which together with the established Slavonian Baroque towns, Osijek and Stara Gradiška, belongs to the great defence system on the border to the Turkish Empire.

STARA KAPELA ECO AND ETHNO VILLAGE

Taste

Spend some idyllic moments in an autochthonous Slavonian village on the slopes of Požeška Gora. This pearl of rural tourism will take you a step back to the way of life as it used to be lived by our grandpas and grandmas. Take a peek into the chests hiding cultural values and autochthonous customs. It is a space where there is complete silence during the nights, while in the mornings the birds invite everyone to a carefree day.

The village has a long tradition and its historic roots date back to the distant 1275 when the Town of Potok Fortress owned by the Gorjanski noblemen existed here. In the surroundings of the Fortress, there is a village scattered on the hills nearby. The Turks invaded the region in the 15^th and the 16^th centuries taking most of the population into slavery. With the uprising of fra Luka Ibrišimović, a friar, in the second half of the 17^th century, the Turks were expelled and the village became a part of the Military Frontier. Stara Kapela got its present look in 1760, when upon the order of the Empress Maria Theresa, the village descended to the valley. The present chapel dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord was built in 1860.

Twenty kilometres of pedestrian and cycling trails have been built on the surrounding hills and the rest stops with tables and benches and replicas of the old gazebos serve as a belvedere reminding of the glorious past when the place was a part of the military frontier with the Ottoman Empire. On the trail, there is plenty of educational content including approximately 120 plant species described in Croatian and Latin.

PRAŠNIK RESERVE

Feel

This forest vegetation reserve is a must of any nature lover. It is situated on the territory of the Stara Gradiška Municipality hiding the last remnants of the Slavonian oak rainforest. Enter the treetops of more than 1,000 pedunculate oak trees and listen to what these three-hundred years old trees have to tell you! Located in the forest area of the Stara Gradiška Municipality, this special forest vegetation reserve covers the surface of 52 hectares of the last remnants of the Slavonian oak rainforest that is nowadays used for scientific research and the needs of the rangers.

In ancient times, such forests covered the whole territory between the Sava and Drava. Prašnik is a unique secondary rainforest of old Slavonian pedunculate oak and is considered a rainforest because it was never utilised. Between the old trees that are rather sparse, there is also the young mixed forest. The oak trees are between 250 and 300 and more years old, with a diameter of 70 to 220 cm, and individual giants are above 40 metres high. The volume of such trees astonishingly reaches as much as 50 m³.

MONUMENTAL IVAN MEŠTROVIĆ GALLERY

Meet

Get to know one of the most prominent Croatian artists whose works of art are famous around the world! The Ivan Meštrović Gallery, situated in his native town of Vrpolje, reveals to its visitors the creative opus of this internationally renowned sculptor. Ivan Meštrović, a world-renowned Croatian sculptor, was born in Vrpolje in 1883. After having lived in Vrpolje for a year, he returned with his parents back home to Dalmatia and the village of Otavice.

Vrpolje, the place of birth of Ivan Meštrović, proudly keeps the memory of the great artist. In his honour, in 1972 a memorial gallery was opened in Vrpolje with a permanent exhibition of his works. Today the exhibition consists of 35 sculptures, 16 lithographic sheets and a larger number of documents and photos telling about the life and work of Ivan Meštrović.

Find more information on the tourist offer of the County on its Tourist Board’s website.