Location

The City of Varaždin is situated in north-western Croatia, on the southern bank of the River Drava. Being a museum city in its own right but also a modern seat of Varaždin County and an intersection of roads leading from Central Europe to Zagreb and the Adriatic Sea, Varaždin is an attractive and almost inevitable tourist destination.

With a history going back eight centuries, Varazdin has numerous sights bearing witness to its rich history and culture. The name Varaždin was mentioned as early as 1181, and the city was awarded the status of free royal borough by the 1209 Charter of the Croatian-Hungarian King Andrew II. By the end of the 18th century, at the peak of its prosperity, when the city was a home of many Croatian noblemen and landowners, craftsmen and artists, Varaždin was the capital of Croatia. Nobility, craftsmen and merchants, artists and scientists created the city history, leaving as their heritage all the luxury of Baroque edifices, masterpieces, collections and their music. This rich heritage has been proudly guarded by many generations to be rediscovered by visitors in museum collections, under monastery balustrades and in secret gardens.


Today

Varaždin with its 50,000 inhabitants has always been a meeting point for people, ideas and visionaries who have left their works behind. Today, as a part of the Central European circle, the City is open to new technologies and economic development, trying to be better, innovative and advanced, to be a lovely place in which to live, work and create. It is in such a creative environment that craftsmen still use their bare hands to make clay, wood, and glass come alive. Rich cultural history and continuous economic activities started by crafts and trade are today marked by the Technology Park and the most attractive free zones in Croatia. They have all defined today’s Varaždin as the central city of educational, economic and cultural activities in the region.



Historic City Core

What makes Varaždin different from other cities is its unique art and monumental heritage, with its best preserved and rich Baroque urban complex, proposed to be included into the UNESCO World Heritage List. In a rather confined area, besides the Old Town complex, there are Rococo and Secession palaces and villas, and one of the oldest city halls in Europe. In Varaždin, the examples of secular architecture find their place among the known sacral structures like churches and monasteries offering their rich collections. The City Cemetery, an unavoidable intermezzo of your walk, Varaždin’s old city core trimmed by pearls of park architecture: the first Varaždin park was designed at the end 19th century by the gardener Zepela, known by his design of the Vienna’s Ring garden.