Sokolac Fortress — Brinje

Rising abruptly from the meadow above the small town of Brinje, Sokolac ('the Falcon Nest') is one of the finest surviving Frankopan castles in Croatia — a compact three-storey stone keep with corner towers, built in the 14th century by the powerful noble family that dominated Kvarner and northern Lika through the Middle Ages. Its most remarkable feature is the two-storey chapel of St. Mary in the west wing, considered one of the purest Gothic ecclesiastical interiors in Croatia and remarkable for its rib-vaulted ceiling springing from slender polychrome columns. The castle sheltered King Sigismund of Hungary on his return from the disastrous Battle of Nikopolis in 1396, and later played a key role in the Croatian Military Frontier as a lookout against Ottoman raids up the Josipdol road. Restoration work has stabilised much of the structure and a small on-site exhibition run by the Brinje tourist office explains its history in Croatian and English. The setting is quietly beautiful — grasslands sloping down to the meandering Gacka tributary — and it makes an excellent picnic stop just off the A1 motorway between Zagreb and Split.