Zagreb escape| Hiking in Lonjsko Polje

I was looking for a sport in Zagreb that is enjoyable and not so difficult, hiking came to my mind immediately and in few days I found myself in Lonjsko Polj.

How did it all start?

It all started with the hiking club membership.  I joined https://zagreb-matica.hr/ with an annual membership of 100 kn. Croatian language is important if you want to get the most of the hiking club activities which include lectures that will give you the needed information on hiking, first aid, ….etc but if your Croatian is not as good as it should be, you can still join the club and get benefit of the other advantages such as having 10% discount on hiking clothes and tools in some of the main shops in Zagreb, getting insured in case you have any accidents during the hiking trips and being able to join the club trips of course.

First activity

My first trip was to Lonjsko Polje,  a place that is not much visited by Croatians and not even by tourists. The trip started with a boat trip in both rivers Kupa and Sava which was very enjoyable, specially as it was a sunny day. It was interesting to meet the boat captain who is a woman.  The second part was hiking with a tour guide who was speaking Croatian but with the help of a volunteering translator I got to know that the river at this area was flooding to the extent that the flood used to reach Ban Jelačić Square in Zagreb.

After a short walk we head to a lecture and watched a film about the area which is considered  the largest protected wetland in both Croatia and the entire Danube basin. It was a bit weird to watch a film about the birds and animals in the area while we could see it in person.

We then had lunch which was one of two options, Golash which is meat and Fiš which is river fish soup,  that was followed by a Buhtle, a Croatian dessert filled with apples.

Trip highlights 

The most interesting part was a short hike to see the birds but unfortunately we couldn’t see much birds and instead we were hunted by thousands of mosquitoes that attacked us with no mercy. We were not warned to bring with us any mosquito protection spray or similar. After being disappointed of not seeing any birds we visited a small village where they had some farm animals and finally there we saw few birds sitting in their nests on top  of the houses.

The hiking level of this trip was easy and it is mostly for seniors which was intentionally planned so I don’t be hard on myself on my first hiking trip.

This is not the first time we escaped Zagreb you may want to check our escape to Samobor mask carnival

Now I leave you with photos and a short clip so you can feel the experience.