Velika Gorica
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Velika Gorica

Velika Gorica

Town south of Zagreb best known for Zagreb Airport, with a compact centre and Turopolje heritage.

Velika Gorica is a town of about 35,000 just south of Zagreb, best known internationally as the location of Zagreb Airport. It is a satellite city of the Croatian capital, functioning largely as a residential and commercial suburb. The town has its own identity and history — it developed as a market town in the medieval period and has a compact old centre with a few historic buildings.

For most travellers, Velika Gorica is where you land when flying into Zagreb rather than somewhere you go specifically. The airport is about 15 km south of the city centre, and buses and taxis run regularly to Zagreb. If you have time between flights or need an overnight before an early departure, the town is perfectly functional. The Turopolje region around it, a flat agricultural plain with traditional wooden architecture, is of interest to those exploring the area around Zagreb.

Guide

Getting There

Velika Gorica is 15 km south of Zagreb and easily reached by bus from the Zagreb main bus station or by taking the airport bus and stopping short. Zagreb Airport, which serves the capital, is about 3 km northeast of the town centre. Buses between the airport and Zagreb city centre pass through or near Velika Gorica.

By car, Velika Gorica is on the road south from Zagreb toward Sisak. The drive from central Zagreb takes about 20 minutes outside rush hour. The town has no train connection.

Guide

Things to Do

Velika Gorica's main visitor draw is the Turopolje Museum, which documents the history of the Turopolje region — a flat agricultural plain with distinctive wooden architecture that has been largely depopulated by the growth of Zagreb. The Turopolje Noblemen's Hall is the town's most historically significant building, a seventeenth-century courthouse that once served the minor nobility of the region.

For those in the area with time before a flight from Zagreb Airport, a walk through the town centre and a coffee takes less than an hour. The nearby village of Staro Čiče preserves traditional Turopolje wooden architecture in a form largely lost elsewhere in the region.