The first public park in south-eastern Europe, opened in 1794, with five lakes and a Swiss chalet.
Bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac opened this park to the public in 1794, making it the first public park in south-eastern Europe — earlier than most of the great municipal parks of western Europe, and a genuinely radical act at the time.
It was laid out first in the formal French manner and then redone from the 1830s in the English landscape style by Bishop Juraj Haulik, which is what survives: 316 hectares of woodland, meadow, five artificial lakes and a scattering of follies.
What is in it
The five lakes, connected by streams, with rowing boats in summer on the largest.
The Echo Pavilion, a small classical folly that does what its name says.
The Vidikovac, a belvedere on the highest ground with a café.
Bellevue, the Swiss Chalet — a wooden alpine cottage entirely out of place and much loved — and a series of other nineteenth-century garden buildings in varying states of repair.
Most of the park is genuine forest, not municipal planting. Oak and hornbeam, with paths that go quiet within five minutes of the entrance.
The zoo
Zagreb Zoo occupies a corner of the park and has been there since 1925. It charges admission.
It is small by western European standards and has been criticised on those grounds; it has also modernised significantly, runs conservation breeding programmes, and is much better than it was. If you have children it is a reasonable couple of hours. If you do not, the park is the reason to come.
The stadium
Across the road is the Maksimir Stadium, home of Dinamo Zagreb.
On 13 May 1990 the match between Dinamo and Red Star Belgrade ended in a riot that is widely treated as one of the moments Yugoslavia visibly began to come apart. There is a monument to the Dinamo fans who went on to fight in the war outside the west stand.
The stadium itself has been in a state of half-demolition and dispute for years, and its future is one of Zagreb’s longest-running municipal arguments.
Practical
Free, open dawn to dusk, and enormous.
Tram 11 or 12 to Bukovačka, or 4, 7 or 12 depending on where you start. Fifteen minutes from Ban Jelačić Square.
Allow half a day if you want to walk the far end, an hour if you just want the lakes.
Weekday mornings it is close to empty. Sunday afternoons the whole city is here, with prams, dogs, joggers and picnics, and that is arguably the better time to see it.
