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HOTEL
CASTLE GJALSKI - KRAPINA-ZAGORJE
Croatian Author's Country Manor House Hotel
The
Hotel Castle Gjalski and Restaurant (Dvorac Gjalski Gastronomie - Curia
Nobilitare Gredicze) makes for a convenient and comfortable central
location to explore the
Krapina-Zagorje
countryside
of Croatia.
From
the main highway, 20 minutes north of Zagreb it looks like a roadside
motel, with a large sign just saying “Hotel Restoran” (Hotel-Restaurant),
but upon closer inspection the Hotel Castle Gjalski offers a very pleasant
surprise. A small and elegant 19th Century manor house of the
Croatian gentry, the “castle” gets its name from Croatian
novelist and politician Ksaver Šandor Gjalski who was born here
in 1854 and owned it 
until
his death in 1935. His best known work “Under
Old Roofs” was a collection of short stories accounting the economic
decline of the Croatian aristocracy to which he belonged. His writing
was said to connect the romanticism of the 19th Century to the modernism
of the 20th from his love for the rural countryside of the Hvratsko Zagorje
region of north Craotia meeting a larger European cultural view. Gjakski’s
presence is still felt in the upstairs lounge where photos and art connect
the house’s current life as a hotel with its historic past.
The
sixteen bedrooms of the hotel are all in the mansion itself on upper and
lower floors. The grand reproduction art and antique style furnishing filled
hallways, rich woods and wallpapers, while not original, retain the 19th
Century
romantic flavor. The hotel has a popular restaurant on the
ground floor serving local Croatian dishes and an outdoor patio with fountains
and
green space for enjoying a drink of local wine or beer under the Stella
Artois umbrellas. In the early evening, the fresh air of the Zagorje
hills mixes with the aroma
of a roast lamb on the spit in the restaurant’s open hearth cook
house, where the wood fired coals begin early for long slow roasting. Single
rooms start around 60 euro including breakfast, double rooms slightly
higher.
If
traveling by car, the advantage of the hotel’s location with
its large sign makes it easy to find if vacationing in the unfamiliar
hill lands of Croatia, where the back roads can be a bit daunting for
the uninitiated. The Zagorje-Krapina region of Croatia offers a variety
of opportunities for exploring with a lot to do packed into a relatively
small area. The castles of Trakoscan (see Romantic
Castle Trakoscan)
and Veliki Tabor, the antique thermal spring spa of Tuheljske Toplice
with
its massive
family recreation center and swimming pool, the ethno village of Kumrovec
with its Marshal Tito Museum (see Tito
Birthplace Kumrovec), the Church of
St. Mary in Belec, the Archeological Park of Husnjakovo, the Bedekovcina
Lakes and Croatia’s “Baroque City” of Varazdin (see
Varazdin
"Little Vienna"). © Bargain
Travel Europe
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SEE ALSO:
ZRINSKI
CASTLE MUSEUM - MEDIMURJE CAKOVEC
OSIJEK
- TVARDA FORTRESS & NIGHTLIFE
VINARIJA ZDJELAREVIC - WINE TOURING HOTEL
STAY IN A CROATIAN CONVENT - LUZNICA CASTLE
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