Zaprešić

Zaprešić sits on the western edge of the Zagreb urban area, but its visitor identity centres on the Novi Dvori estate of Ban Josip Jelačić. First recorded in the late 16th century as Curia nova, the property now brings together a manor house, agricultural buildings, a Romantic landscape park, St Joseph’s Chapel and the Jelačić family’s neo-Gothic mausoleum. The former granary houses the Matija Skurjeni Museum and visitor information centre, while the restored threshing barn and corn crib preserve the appearance of a working aristocratic estate. An avenue of horse chestnuts, planted around 1890, forms the main approach to the manor. The mausoleum was commissioned in 1884 by Đuro Jelačić in accordance with his brother Josip’s wishes and designed by Hermann Bollé. Zaprešić remains closely connected to Zagreb: ZET bus 172 runs from Črnomerec, and the railway station belongs to the capital’s suburban network. This makes the town particularly suitable for a day trip combining the Novi Dvori heritage walk, the museum, the golf grounds and lunch in the estate’s former gardener’s cottage.

Zaprešić is not organised around a conventional old-town core; its defining landscape is the aristocratic estate of Novi Dvori. The complex combines a manor house, working farm buildings, woodland park, chapel, family tomb and museum spaces. Its final private owners belonged to the family of Ban Josip Jelačić, turning the estate into the city’s principal historical emblem. At the same time, Zaprešić stands on the western rail and road approaches to Zagreb and functions as a well-connected suburban centre. That combination of a preserved Jelačić estate and everyday metropolitan links distinguishes it from the more isolated castles of the surrounding Zagorje region.