Description of Medvednica Mountain

The map of the Medvednica mountain will help you to move about its peak safely and the following text will uncover some local places of interest and perhaps entice you to visit them.

These are just some interesting places which can be visited on the Medvednica mountain:

• Chapel of Our Lady of Sljeme
• Chapel of St. James
• Horvat's 500 stairs
• Queen's Well
• Veternica cave
• The medieval Medvedgrad fortress
• Kameni svatovi
• The French Mines
• The Mirror

There were human settlements on the mountain Medvednica even back in the ancient times. During the Middle Ages, the main events took place around the medieval towns of Medvedgrad and Susedgrad and two of today's Zagreb urban city cores: Gradec and Kaptol. During the feudalism events were concentrated around feudal estates and castles in Gornja Bistra, Golubovec and Gornja Stubica.

The name Medvednica was mentioned for the first time in 1142 AD in the king's deed of donation to Gradec. Medvednica is also often called Zagrebačka gora (Zagreb's mountain), but that name is restricted only to the part which has belonged to the city of Zagreb from the 16th century onward. Its other parts were also called the Vrabec mountain, Markuševac mountain, Bistra mountain and Stubica mountain after the names of the nearby small towns. The name of the highest peak - Sljeme - was used for the first time at the end of the 18th century, which was the folk name for the mountain top range.

It is indeed rare for a European metropolis to have a nature park in its vicinity as it is here in the Croatia's capital.

The foot of the mountain can easily be reached by tram or by bus from various parts of Zagreb. From there upward you can use marked mountaineering tracks. Some of them are on the Zagorje slope and lead from the local villages and towns towards the peak. You can reach those from Zagreb, by busses for Jablanovec, Gornja Bistra, Kraljev Vrh or trains for Stubicke Toplice, Donja Stubica and Gornja Stubica.

The special tour is the cable car ride from Gračanski Bliznec to the very peak of Sljeme. The cable car has been operating since 1963.

The climate on the Medvednica mountain is typical for Central European mountain ranges. The average annual precipitation is around 1300 mm (Zagreb - Grič 840 mm), also the reason for rich spring wells everywhere. The average annual temperature is around 7ºC (Zagreb 12ºC). There is a snow cover approximately for 100 days in a year, the thickest being in February. The skiing slopes are also covered with artificial snow when necessary. There is much more sunshine during the winter on Medvednica than in Zagreb or Zagorje, so it is not surprising that winter is the most visited season on the Medvednica mountain.

The first climbers' hut was the wooden pyramid built on Medvednica at the peak Sljeme in 1870. The first climber's lodging was built just beneath the peak in 1878. Today, there are many climber's and skiing lodges, restaurants, picnic places, shelters and walking tracks. These are just some of them:

• The Red Cross lodging
• The "Grafičar" lodging
• The "Risnjak" lodging
• The "Željezničar" lodging
• The "Runolist" lodging
• The "Ivan Pačkovski" lodging
• The "Janica" hotel
• "Lojzekov izvor"

We wish you a very pleasant stay at the Medvednica mountain.