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In search of Tesla: the road to Smiljan
Nikola Tesla’s father was an Orthodox priest. Nikola was baptised in his father’s church on the day after his birth. And it is at that church, dedicated to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, where crowds now gather to understand more of the life and ...
New night trains in 2021
The privacy of a cosy compartment is part of the appeal of the overnight train. The pandemic has changed attitudes and travellers are now mightily aware of the importance of space and privacy. So it is no wonder that demand for night sleeper ...
The D'Annunzio affair: remembering the Free State of Fiume
Gabriele D’Annunzio was an aviator, poet, playwright and populist who in his manner presciently anticipated the current crop of populist leaders. His ‘invasion’ of the Adriatic city of Fiume in 1919 precipitated an international crisis. One hundred ...
Recalling the Ragusan Republic
A powerful earthquake in 1667 destroyed most of Dubrovnik's buildings. The city was at that time the capital of the Ragusan Republic. The city was rebuilt and these days is a strong tourist magnet on the Croatian ...
The Art of Drystone Walling
With the art of drystone walling recognised by UNESCO as part of Europe's cultural heritage, communities across the continent are now seeing these traditional walled boundaries in a new light. Rudolf Abraham has gone in search of drystone wall ...
Hidden europe 57
We have this year visited the Baltic twice already. It's a region of Europe that's at its best in winter, we find, and sedate Binz was the perfect place to pen the editorial for issue 57 of hidden europe which is published tomorrow. Let's ...
A Blissful Stretch of Summer: The Croatian Island of Silba
Take the slow boat to Silba to discover a Croatian island which is the ultimate summer escape. Rudolf Abraham, who writes regularly for hidden europe, files a message in a bottle from his favourite Croatian ...
Cashing in on Casanova
Were it not for a librarian, we would surely never have ventured to Duchcov. We have always held librarians, and indeed libraries, in high regard. We're of one mind with Dervla Murphy who once described Heaven as an infinite library and Eternity as ...
A Resort in Ruins: The Rise and Fall of Kupari
The ruins of the holiday resort of Kupari (near Dubrovnik on the Croatian coast) are a sobering reminder of an all-too-recent war in Europe. Guest contributor Duncan JD Smith unpicks the unusual history of ...
Socialist Architecture in Yugoslavia
In Tito's Yugoslavia, architects offered an ideological space between East and West - aligned neither to Soviet-style communism nor to the capitalist tradition. The result was some assertively different architecture, not all of it memorably ...
Bosna-gauge Railways
Had the Balkan region narrow-gauge rail network survived, it would surely today be a cherished asset in promoting tourism over a wide region - in much the same way as the narrow-gauge Rhaetian Railway network has been important in attracting ...
Recalling Tito
From Skopje to Moscow, from Sarajevo to New Delhi, the names of roads and squares recall Josep Broz Tito, who was President of Yugoslavia from 1953 until his death in 1980. But what happened to all the Tito towns in former Yugoslavia? Titograd ...
Slow train to Sarajevo
Twenty years ago this autumn, the Dayton Peace Accord brought a measure of peace to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Join us as we take the train from Zagreb to Sarajevo, travelling through a region which still bears the scars of ...
Of princes and politics: nation-building in the Danube wetlands
The map of the Danube Valley is changing. Aspiring micro-nations are popping up on the west bank of the river. We've clocked Celestinia, Enclava and Liberland within the last three months. The governments of Croatia and Serbia are not ...
Liberland: Bring your wellies
Have you applied for Liberland citizenship yet? Probably not. Though by all accounts lots of folk have been begging the Liberland government to give them passports.Liberland may yet turn out to be merely a publicity stunt, but President Jedlicka ...
Zvoncari: Rijeka Carnival and the bell ringers of Kastav
Shrovetide is carnival time across much of Europe. A few days of madness in the run-up to Lent subvert the normal order of urban and rural life. Guest contributor Rudolf Abraham reports from Rijeka on a little piece of cultural street theatre that ...
Of alkari, lace and wooden toys
Rudolf Abraham has over the years written about many of Croatia's most remarkable landscapes for hidden europe. Now he returns to the country in search of something more subtle: Croatia’s remarkable craft traditions and festivals. Rudolf argues ...
Hidden Istria
Istria may be defined by its coastline, but the hinterland warrants a visit too. Rudolf Abraham, co-author of the new Bradt Guide to Istria, invites us to join him in a search for mediaeval frescoes, truffles and an enigmatic pillar of shame. Along ...
Lastovo (Croatia)
At ten o'clock yesterday evening, well after the sun had dipped below the waters of the Adriatic, the car ferry arrived in Ubli. The little port at the south-west corner of the island of Lastovo has a hangdog sort of feel. Long before sunrise ...
The ghost of Beeching
Is cutting public transport links in rural areas and across its borders really the right way for Croatia to gear up to join the European Union this summer? We look at how the pieties of the market are playing havoc with rail services in the north ...
End of the line for the peace train
Europe's railway geography was reshaped last night. New timetables kicked in, bringing a host of novel travel options. Newly-built rail routes opened in Holland and Austria. A new high-speed service now links Amsterdam and Brussels. And northern ...
Zagreb street art
When you paint something on the street, it is no longer your own. It becomes public property. Street art demands of artists that they 'let go', that they have the courage to relinquish ownership of their work. Rudolf Abraham takes a look at the ...
The Schengen factor
Schengen is more than just a village on the banks of the River Moselle in Luxembourg. The Schengen programme of free movement across borders helps shape modern Europe geographies. It explains why trains now rumble by night through Hodos and why ...
Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb
Nicely multi-ethnic, assertively multi-confessional, the cemetery at Maragoj is a fine spot to fire the imagination of the living. The cemetery in Zagreb's northern suburbs is one of Europe's most evocative burial ...
Once were pirates: in search of the Uskoks of Senj
Ever heard of the Uskoks? Rudolf Abraham, a regular contributor to hidden europe, takes us to the Zumberak hills west of Zagreb in search of displaced Adriatic ...
Europe by Rail: Balkan images
hidden europe editors Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries showcase a new book which they have edited. Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide for Independent Travellers was published in March 2011. This well-established title from Thomas Cook Publishing ...
Posavina: Croatia’s Lonjsko polje and Turopolje
Rudolf Abraham is the perfect guide to the wetlands of north-east Croatia, as we join him on a tour of the Lonjsko polje region with its distinctive wooden architecture and storks’ ...
Portoroz airport reopens
The little airstrip at Portoroz in Slovenia has never featured prominently in Europe's flight schedules. The airfield is south of the town of Portoroz, and built on water meadows near the Dragonja river. But Portoroz airport is back in the news, as ...
Train service changes for 2010
The Balkan region gets a new rail service tomorrow, with the launch of a once daily direct train between Belgrade and Sarajevo. It is a mark of how much the mood in the region has improved over recent years that routes severed during the nineties ...
Orbiting Zagreb
Pluto must be very small and very far away. And so it is in Davor Preis' ingenious model of the solar system that invisibly orbits Zagreb and its ...
Zagreb's literary ghosts
While many European cities decorate their squares and boulevards with statues of kings and generals in heroic poses, Zagreb takes a different tack. The Croatian capital gives its prime spots to poets, philosophers and novelists. Rudolf Abraham ...
Adriatic small states: Montenegro and more
Montenegro's reappearance on the political map of Europe as an independent state encourages us to look at geopolitical curiosities in the Adriatic region. We examine Ragusa, Poljica and some former Italian island ...
Istrian interludes
hidden europe explores the coast and its hinterland in Istria, nowadays part Croatia and part Slovenia. On the coast, echoes of Venetian style mingle with Habsburg elegance and Slavic confidence. Inland, we encounter the endangered cultural ...
Europe's lost synagogues
Shoah survivors and their descendants come and stand silent in the synagogue where once an entire kehillah worshiped together. hidden europe finds out what has become of some of Europe's former ...
Uskok outposts: where Croatia meets Slovenia
Living on the old military frontier at the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Uskoks made a decent living. They are still there. Nowadays their homeland is where Croatia abuts onto Slovenia. Join us as we visit a few Uskok ...
Life in Lovas
Take one village, a seemingly pleasant and unassuming place not far from the Danube. Look more closely, and there is more to life in Lovas than first meets the ...
Spring, storks and trains: a visit to Brcko
Brcko is one of those places that lie at the heart of hidden europe. When we visited this small Bosnian town recently, we were amazed to find that the train to Croatia only runs in warm ...
A noble commune
If the demeanour and bearing of folk waiting at the bus stop in Velika Gorica looks that little bit more distinguished than in other towns in Croatia, it is merely that there is more blue blood in Velika Gorica than anywhere else in the region. ...
Velebit: a mountain in Croatia
Just behind the Dalmatian coast of Croatia is the great mountain massif of Velebit. This limestone upland is neglected by most visitors to the coast and islands. Guest contributor Rudolf Abraham invites us to explore one of Europe's great ...
All change: 2009 rail schedules
It is often said that Europe is experiencing a new "age of the train" as travellers rediscover the pleasures of rail travel. We take a look at what the 2009 timetables have to ...
Medvednica
Many European capital cities have a nearby space of open country that is cherished as a place to escape from the city. For Zagreb, that space is Medvednica. Kelly Schierman explores the mountain of the honey ...
Footnotes to history: lost microstates
We have all heard of Europe's microstates: Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, etc. But who now remembers the microstates of history? The Banat Republic, Carnaro, North Ingria and the Bavarian Soviet ...
From Abisko to Kosterhavet: the centenary of European national parks
The great majority of Europe's citizens will probably not visit a national park in 2009. But for all of us, their very existence is a reassuring reminder that even in a crowded continent there is space to experience wilderness and peace. As Europe ...
A hundred years of change: Jovici
Krste Jovic has lived in Jovici (Croatia) for almost a century. Regular hidden europe contributor, Rudolf Abraham, introduces us to Krste's home village. Wars, struggle and strife sear the history of a coastal region now known mainly for its sun, ...
Tito toponyms
The cult status surrounding Josip Broz Tito, the onetime president of Yugoslavia, shows no sign of diminishing almost thirty years after his death. The capital of Montenegro, Podgorica, was until 1992 called Titograd. And we report from the extreme ...
Seasonal diversions
Christmas-tide travellers, if they are lucky, might get a privileged glimpse into the lives of others. The results are not always comforting. Dervla Murphy, writing in Through the Embers of Chaos, recounts an invite to a post-Christmas soirée in ...
Trieste connections
The slow train to Trieste hugs the Adriatic coast, giving gorgeous views of the Miramare, a fabulous folly of a fortress built on a rocky plinth by Archduke Maximilian, the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. The train brings the ...
European lazarets
In more recent centuries, the island of Comino, off the coast of Malta, served as an isolation hospital. The great archipelago off Finland's southwest coast includes the tiny island of Seili, which for over three centuries was a hospital, initially ...