Ravna Gora Village

Ravna Gora is the historical heart of Gorski Kotar — the mountain village where in 1874 a group of Croatian intellectuals, foresters and lawyers gathered under the great oak in the town square and founded the Croatian Mountaineering Society, one of the very first in Europe. That oak still stands (protected as a natural monument) and the village has consciously preserved its beautiful 19th-century mountain-Habsburg character: pastel plaster houses with steep pine-shingle roofs, an elegant parish church, and a lovely main square with a bandstand and cafés. The excellent little Museum of Gorski Kotar occupies a restored merchant's house and covers everything from mountain forestry to the WWII partisan war (the village was a major resistance base and burned twice by German troops). A signposted 40-minute walk from the centre leads to the Great Beech (Velika Bukva) — an 8-metre-circumference giant estimated at 500 years old and one of the largest beech trees in Croatia. Excellent food at Konoba Gremmy — the local speciality Zličnjaki (potato dumplings with cabbage). A perfect base for exploring the whole region.