Fairytales, beaches & hiking

Lying on a fertile plain edged by a southern spur of the Gorski kotar mountain range, Ogulin is a pleasant, beautifully situated market town, famed for its autumn cabbage crop. It grew up around a castle built by the Frankopan family, feudal lords of territories that stretched all over northwestern Croatia.

It subsequently served as a key strongpoint on the Habsburg Empire’s so-called Military Frontier, a belt of heavily garrisoned territory that ran along the border of Ottoman-controlled Bosnia.

Frankopan Castle

The Frankopan Castle now holds a regional museum displaying everything from medieval weaponry to agricultural equipment, and also boasts a memorial room recalling the days when the castle was used as a prison - Josip Broz Tito and other communist leaders were detailed here in the late 1920s. In the courtyard of the castle is Ivana’s House of Fairy Tales, celebrating the prolific local children’s writer Ivana Brlić Mažuranić.

Outdoors