Our Family's Adventures in Croatia & Beyond: A Weekend in the Croatian Countryside: Slavonia

A post by the entire family

J.D.: We entered Slavonia from Hungary by crossing the Drava River. It was interesting that the Hungarian border patrol seemed to take the border crossing more seriously than other border officials we've encountered. In this way, the experience was similar to what you might find entering the United States.

Laura: We chose to stay for a couple of nights in a vineyard in the heart of Slavonia, about 50 kilometers from the Hungarian border. The vineyard is called Enjingi, which is the last name of the wine maker.

Caroline: The vineyard is really nice. There's a pond and up the hill, there are four cats and two dogs! Down the hill, there are cows and hay. You'll really like it if you go there!

Caroline: P.S.: I tried a little wine!

Alison: As soon as we arrived, I got pretty excited. Slavonia has grass and everything else I've been looking for for the 5 months we've been here. There was no WiFi though. However, the place was a breath of fresh air! Literally, it smelled great! The apartment was pretty basic by American standards, but we all really enjoyed it.

Laura: And the hospitality was, in what we've discovered to be typical Croatian style, fantastic. As soon as we arrived, Ivo--the wine maker--gave us a tour of his wine cellar, including a taste of many of his wines. He was so generous to us, and his staff was kind as well (and made great breakfasts).

Caroline and Ivo in Ivo's wine cellar

J.D.: The days were hot, but when the sun went down, the cool refreshing breeze swept down from the hills. This made sitting on the balcony incredibly comfortable, especially with a glass of Ivo's wine.

Laura: We got to see beautiful sunsets (we'll post some photos of those on the Sunset Page) on the longest days of the year, and we got the best sleep we'd had in days. Plus we liked having the entire place to ourselves. We highly recommend trying Enjingi wines and going to Ivo's vineyard. And I think I can speak for all four of us when I say that we enjoyed being off the beaten path.

Caroline & Alison; sunset on the vineyard

Laura: On the way home from Slavonia, we stopped at several interesting places, including Jasenovac and Čigoč.

Jasenovac was the site of a World War II concentration camp, set up in 1941 by Croatia's Ustaše government for Serbs, Jews, Roma (gypsies), and Croatian political prisoners. The buildings are no longer there, but earth mounds mark the camp buildings and hollows mark the graves and extermination sites, and there's an imposing stone flower monument to the victims. It's a powerful place.

Stone flower monument in Jasenovac, built in 1966

For more information on this concentration camp, check out this on-line exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac/frameset.html.

Čigoč, labelled the European Village of the Stork, is a small village with wooden houses. You can find a stork's nest on nearly ever roof in the village.