Metravel city quest
City Slunj: free walking route “Quest: The Village Built on Waterfalls” along the sights. 10 points. Approximately 2 h. Quests and legends - straight from your
Slunj lies exactly halfway between Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes, and every day thousands of people drive through it without slowing down. A mistake.
Two rivers meet here: the clear Slunjčica tumbles into the Korana over a series of travertine cascades, and a village stands right on those cascades, among the falling water. The houses are built over the stream, the water once turned their millstones, and some of the mills were still working within living memory of the present owners. The place is called little Plitvice. Our route follows public streets, viewing spots and bridges; private courtyards that offer tours are a separate, optional extra and may be closed for the season.
The town above the village has a history of its own: a border fortress, four centuries of war, a French marshal who gave his name to a whole region, and a boy who left from here and brought his homeland its first Olympic medal. And down by the water, the usual town scale gives way to houses over the stream and crossings between the banks.
The route starts on the old town square: from the church it leads past the monument to the athlete to the fortress, and then down to the water and along the Rastoke cascades.
What to do: 1) Read the story and the task at every stop. 2) Find the place on the map. 3) Look around and answer the question.
The start is on Zrinski and Frankopan Square, with a view of the tower of the Holy Trinity Church. Let's go!
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
From Zrinski and Frankopan Square you can see the tower of the Holy Trinity Church rising among the low buildings of the town. Its ornate roof lifts above the neighbouring houses, and the silhouette of the church becomes part of the general view of the old centre.
Milan Neralić was born in Slunj in 1875. In a small border town where men had served in the military for generations, he chose a pursuit that grew straight out of that service, and he raised it to an art.
The ruins of Stari grad stand above the meeting of the rivers. Fortified Slunj is known from 1323, and the fortress was built by the Frankopans, one of the two great Croatian noble houses, which held half the country.
The figure of John of Nepomuk stands by the water as a memorial to the patron saint of bridges. It was first placed on the bridge in Rastoke in 1886, and the later fate of the monument turned out to be bound up with the fate of the town itself.
From the old pedestrian crossing you can see another bridge, raised high above the Slunjčica valley. It was built in the middle of the last century to a design by Krunoslav Tonković, when a new road changed the traffic through the town.
An optional stop: the village begins just ahead, and it is better not to enter it on an empty stomach. This is no longer Dalmatia with its grilled fish, but the mountain cooking of Kordun and neighbouring Lika.
Opening hours: In season usually daily from morning to evening; in the off-season some Rastoke venues are closed — check on the spot
This is the very spot from which every second photo of Rastoke is taken: wooden houses stand right above the falling water, little bridges run between them, and below, the water steps down into the Korana.
From the spot on the bank, the old bridge over the Korana is seen from the side, beside the mill buildings and the falling water. It keeps a different scale of crossing from the high road above the valley.
It is easy to think of Rastoke as scenery, but the village was not built for beauty. It was built for work.
The last stop is where it all happens. The Slunjčica ends here: it drops in steps and flows into the Korana, and from this spot you can hear both rivers at once.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.