Croatian Defenders Park

Croatian Defenders Park is a small public park in the centre of Ivanić-Grad, a town in Zagreb County about 40 kilometres east of the capital, on the edge of the Sava lowland and close to the Moslavina hills. As the name suggests, it honours the people who took part in the Homeland War of the 1990s, and it is a place of memory as well as a green space. The park is open all day and all year and is free to enter, which makes it easy to include in a short walk through the town.

The design is simple and quiet. Paths run among lawns, trees and flower beds, with benches in the shade, and a memorial in the park commemorates the defenders from the town and the area. Ivanić-Grad, like many towns in Croatia, has monuments and plaques to remember those who died in the war, and the park gives them a calm setting where residents can gather on commemoration days. For a visitor, it is a gentle place to pause, rather than a sight in the usual sense.

One reason to come is the local museum. The Ivanić-Grad Museum was opened in recent years on the grounds of the park, in the area of the former city school, and it houses a small permanent exhibition on the history and heritage of the town. The collection is modest and tells the story of Ivanić-Grad from its early history through the medieval period to the twentieth century, with an emphasis on local life. It is worth a short visit if you want to understand the town and its region.

Ivanić-Grad has some distinctive features that the museum helps to explain. The town sits in the middle of an old oil and gas region, and the discovery of oil here in the early twentieth century shaped the local economy. It is also known for its spa, which uses naftalan, a medicinal oil, for the treatment of skin and joint conditions, a therapy that is unusual in Europe. The countryside around the town is a mix of farmland, fish ponds and woods, and the Moslavina hills, listed in this guide, lie to the east.

Plan on about half an hour for the park and an hour more for the museum, depending on opening times, which you should check in advance. The park suits quiet strollers, families with children and anyone interested in recent Croatian history. It is also a convenient place to rest if you are travelling by car between Zagreb and Slavonia.