Medvedgrad – the town above the city

If you are coming down to Medvedgrad from the direction of Sljeme or the Grafičar mountain lodge, you should leave the car here 45.87573087543226, 15.940033790976015, because the road beyond is one-way. It is about a 700 m walk from this car park to the fortress.

If, on the other hand, you are coming from the direction of Zagreb, the car should be left here 45.872806716972086, 15.939236192912414. You can drive right up to the fortress itself, where there is a large car park, but those last 400 m are cobbled and ideal for stretching your legs a little through the beautiful forest of Medvednica.

We also advise that before setting off for Medvedgrad you check the centre’s opening hours on their website medvedgrad.hr. They vary often, depending on the season, the weather, public holidays, organised events and so on.

Medvedgrad sits in the southern part of Medvednica Nature Park. It is one of the largest medieval noble towns in Croatia. Built in 1254 at the initiative of a certain Bishop Philip, it served to defend the bishop’s estates and Kaptol.

Medvedgrad changed hands many times – it had over 150 rulers. It was held by kings, counts, barons, bishops, bans and various other magnates. It is also interesting that Medvedgrad, despite standing in an exceptionally important strategic position, was never besieged in its entire history.

In our article on Sokol grad in Konavle, we wrote that it is the best-kept fortress in Croatia. We still think so, because Sokol grad has restored every last corner of itself, interpolated a museum display into all of it perfectly, and yet preserved as much of the original fabric as possible.

Medvedgrad would, in our judgement, come right after Sokol grad in terms of how well it is kept. It delighted us in a different way. The degree of interactivity and the imaginative use of multimedia content held our attention for the entire visit!

Before visiting Medvedgrad we had been up on Sljeme, and we overheard a couple of “locals” talking about how they were not in the least impressed by the fortress and the centre. There is nowhere in the fortress to have a coffee and warm up, apparently there is nothing to see, and they found the ticket expensive for something “you can walk round in 10 minutes”.

Our opinion is exactly the opposite! We think there are plenty of places to eat and drink coffee on Sljeme, so we are glad that facilities like that are not disfiguring a historic place such as this one.

We have already said, too, that the centre’s display delighted us, adults and children alike. We spent a full 45 minutes exploring the exhibits and looking round the fortress. We would rank the centre’s museum and presentation side among the very best of what Croatia has to offer, alongside the Krapina Neanderthal Museum in Krapina and the Vučedol Culture Museum near Vukovar.

The degree of interactivity and the imaginative use of multimedia content held our attention for the entire visit!

Add to that a fortress that is interesting in its own right, the best view of Zagreb, and the beautiful nature surrounding it, and a visit to Medvedgrad is a first-rate experience for the whole family, with a perfectly fair ticket price.

The legend of the Black Queen

Although numerous legends have been spun around Medvedgrad with all sorts of protagonists, the most intriguing figure is without doubt the Black Queen. Known for her cruelty, her political scheming and, towards the end of her life, her leaning towards the occult and alchemy, to this day she tickles the imagination of visitors to the castle and far beyond.

She is Barbara of Cilli, queen of Croatia, Hungary and Bohemia and Holy Roman empress, married to Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg. She was the daughter of the powerful count Hermann II of Cilli, one of the most powerful magnates in the Europe of his day and a Croatian ban, himself the son of Katarina Kotromanić of Bosnia, a daughter of the Kotromanić and the Šubić of Bribir families.

They say Barbara of Cilli was exceptionally beautiful and liked to dress in black. Besides Medvedgrad, she also stayed at Kalnik. In the forest behind Medvedgrad there is a spring she reportedly used to visit alone, and it came to be called Kraljičin zdenac (the “Queen’s Well”). According to tradition, she kept trained ravens that she would set on those who displeased her, and the birds would peck them to death. The ravens were not her only weapon. Many are said to have met their end thrown from the castle walls or in cages with wild boars. The Pope wrote of her in very negative terms, accusing her of godlessness.

According to one legend, she made a pact with the devil, who drove off the Turks that had reached Zagreb, and when the time came to pay the debt she tried to cheat the devil himself, so that a curse followed her all her life. She died of the plague on 11 July 1451 in the Bohemian town of Mělník.

Legends of her cursed treasure, supposedly buried in tunnels connecting the castle with Kaptol, have stirred people’s curiosity for centuries. Some even went as far as digging at various locations, but the treasure has never been found.