Vukovar, 35 km east on the Danube, is the most visited day trip from Osijek — a city that was effectively destroyed in the 1991 Yugoslav siege and has rebuilt slowly since. The water tower, still pockmarked with artillery damage, is preserved as a war memorial and has become the symbol of Croatian resistance. The Eltz Castle and the Vučedol Culture Museum — covering the Bronze Age culture that preceded the Greeks along the Danube — are both excellent. The atmosphere in Vukovar is heavy; it is a town still processing what happened to it.
Đakovo, 40 km southwest, has one of the largest neo-Romanesque cathedrals in Croatia, a remarkable 19th-century structure visible from the surrounding flat plains. The Lipizzaner stud farm outside town breeds the horses used in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Both can be combined in a day.
