Skrad Village & Railway Viaduct

The mountain village of Skrad, 683 m above sea level, was once known as 'Little Switzerland' by 19th-century Austrian aristocrats who came here on the Zagreb–Rijeka railway to escape summer heat. The line — built in 1873 as one of the finest feats of Habsburg mountain engineering — still passes right through the village on a spectacular series of stone viaducts and through nine tunnels within a five-kilometre stretch, one of the densest railway engineering ensembles in Europe. The main viaduct above the Kupica valley is a slender 200-metre stone bridge on nine arches, and standing beneath it looking up is one of Skrad's must-do photographs. The village itself has preserved several elegant villas from its Belle Époque heyday, a small ethnographic museum in the old post office, and the little Vidikovac viewpoint (a 20-minute walk from the centre) with a magnificent panorama over the Kupa valley to Slovenia. Skrad is the natural base for hiking to Zeleni Vir and Vražji Prolaz. The tiny railway station is still a request stop on the Zagreb–Rijeka line — a wonderfully atmospheric way to arrive.