Seven days – seven castles

What first comes up on your mind when one says – castle or palace? Medieval castles in Ireland and Scotland? Maybe 18th century central European castles? Huge Russian palaces? Or something else? Maybe not so famous but again very interesting and important buildings in Croatia are castles or villas, houses of noble citizens from the Austro-Hungarian period. List of castles and fortresses in Croatia is long so here we will presented 7 castles that you can see in 7 days while visiting Slavonia region.

Wealthy and noble landlords used to live in those castles since 18th century until the begging of the 20th century. Those nobleman and their families and friends used to spend time in huge saloons and beautiful gardens making parties, balls or just making big sales and plans for future. Today you can feel part of those noble times visiting those castles and (if you have enough money) you can sleep in some of them. It’s very nice if you meet locals that can tell you some of the stories about those buildings; many castle stories are covered with mystery just like the lives of their owners.

Maybe today we don’t have such noble people, many of those castles are not in good state but again as years go by they will be bigger and bigger “tourist target” and source of income. Nowadays we have modern roads and electricity but land around those castles is authentic and very interesting because majority of those castles retained same shape and look of the gardens and patios.

Advice: you should not expect that you will see knights with swards and watchtowers with cannons – these castles and palaces are noble places with fancy bedrooms and luxury dining rooms, gardens and ballrooms. Only knights you can see are ones during some summer festival such as one in August in Orahovica.

Here’s the list of the castle and their locations: 1. Castle Eltz in Vukovar, 2. Castle Turković in Kutjevo, 3. Castle Prandau-Normann in Valpovo, 4. Castle Esterházy in Darda, 5. Castle Pejačević/Schaumburg-Lippe in Virovitica, 6. Castle Pejačević in Našice, 7. Castle Hilleprand von Prandau/Mailáth in Donji Miholjac

PS. enjoy watching this video with amazing castles all around Croatia: