I like to mark the end of a season with a trip to a place whose surroundings celebrate one new season.

Gorski kotar is an ideal place, untouched by nature, where you can happily wish a warm welcome to autumn.

Aside from celebrating the end of one season and the beginning of another, this is the right time to thank one period for what it brought to you and let it go, recharge your batteries and prepare for new beginnings and challenges.

In places like this, I like to rent a small house where you can enjoy the peace and quiet and your privacy, but also the nature.

This time we chose a small house in Skrad, which is located in an ideal location for all nature lovers and outdoor activities.

The famous Zeleni Vir and Vražji prolaz are located right here.

But let's start from the beginning ...

1. DAY

From Pula, we headed towards Fužine and Lake Bajer.

We stopped here to take a walk around the lake and were pleasantly surprised by a hiking trail with several rest areas where you can have a drink, exercise or enjoy the view from a bench overlooking the lake.

Apart from Bayer, there is also Lake Lepenica which is actually bigger than Bayer, but we finished our walk earlier because we were hungry.

As all restaurants required a reservation for a place, we tried our luck at the restaurant "Eva" in Lokve, where after a great lunch, we set out to explore Lokvarsko Lake.

In the restaurant parking lot, we came across stairs leading to a promenade around the lake.

In fact, Lokvarsko Lake impressed me a lot more than Bajer, it is somehow more special to me, wild, so the walk was wonderfully relaxing.

We didn't manage to walk all the way through it this time, but we left it for another time because we had to head towards our accommodation.

Gorski kotar is full of small wooden holiday houses, we booked ours via Airbnb at a great price, and every morning we were woken up by our neighbors roster and ducks walking along the stream around the house.

2. DAY

Zeleni Vir & Vražji prolaz

After breakfast in the cottage house, we prepared for a long walk and drove down to the Mountain Lodge Zeleni Vir.

The road is quite bad and narrow, so good luck if you opt for this road too!

Here we took the tickets for the park.

Ticket price: 25.00 kn / person

Prepare good sneakers for this walk and get dressed for sports. It has a lot of moisture so it can be quite slippery, but it’s really beautiful and worth a few hours in.

We certainly spent a little over 3 hours here.

Highlight of the day in Zeleni Vir: meeting chamois.

Lunch: Rural tourism house Krizmanić in Gorenci

Delicious food, great hostess and nice peaceful environment. The restaurant is located in a private house and is surrounded by residential houses.

3 DAY

Ravna Gora, Stara Sušica Castle & Large carnivors visitors Center

Highlight of this roadtrip:  Large carnivors visitors Center

The Stara Sušica castle is beautiful, like from a fairy tale, but you don't have access to the castle itself.

Right next door is the Large carnivors Center which is so fantastic, made purposefully,  you can’t stay indifferent to the lifes of these beautiful creatures.

The host introduced us to 3 large carnivores that live in this area: wolf, bear and lynx.

The center is small, but each square is well used and interactive. After talking to the guide, we explored everything the Center has to offer and were thrilled!

On the way to Zagorje we stopped in the neglected Severin na Kupi, then in Karlovac and then continued to Klanjec.

Here in Klanjec, we also booked the most wonderful cottage hosue in the middle of vineyards via Airbnb, and the hosts welcomed us with homemade pumpkin cake, brandy and wine.

DAY 4

Ethno Museum Staro Selo, Kumrovec: 25,00kn / person

Trakošćan Castle: 40,00 kn / person, magical castle and surroundings

We also wanted to visit the Museum of Krapina Neanderthals, the Museum was open until 17.00, but the last entrance was at 16.00, so we were late, but we managed to see the external site.

Vuglec Breg, for dinner

Vuglec Breg completely delighted me, the location is magical, the food and wine fantastic as well as the atmosphere. Everything was perfect!

There is still a lot of unexplored territory left for us to visit, but still, we saw a lot and enjoyed every second of the new sights before us.

I hope this post has served you as an inspiration for some future roadtrips!