While you visit Ilok, we’d also recommend visiting nearby Šarengrad, a traditional fishing village on the Danube, the village of Bapska, the Mahovo Mammoth Valley with giant straw sculptures along the Vukovar-Ilok road, and the famous Vučedol Culture Museum exhibiting a valuable archaeological collection of items dating back to the time of the Vučedol culture, including the famous Vučedol Dove.
When should you visit? Ilok and its surroundings are recommended at any season. In the winter, you’ll be captivated by a snowy idyll and the view of the frozen Danube, you’ll surely enjoy winter walks around town and its surroundings, or you may decide to treat yourself to a romantic sleigh ride drawn by Slavonia’s famous Lipizzaner horses. In the spring, you’ll be delighted by the awakening of nature, the greenery, the flowering of Ilok’s orchards, and the sight of people working in its numerous vineyards. Summer is a time that brings the seductive swaying of golden-yellow fields of grain, staggeringly beautiful fields of yellow sunflowers, flowering meadows, and sweet fruit ripening in orchards and vineyards, already hinting at the quality of grapes and future wine.
The Danube also gives you the chance to enjoy the joys of summer, fishing, and various sporting activities. In the autumn, Ilok’s traditional harvests are the biggest attraction and joy for winegrowers, winemakers, and their many visitors. During the harvest season, you’ll surely savor all the varieties of excellent quality grapes, particularly Traminac.
Don’t miss out on the unique opportunity to visit Principovac, which is where Traminac is grown, thanks to which wine connoisseurs have − dubbing it the Prince of Principovac − given Traminac a title it deserves. For your experience to be unforgettable and your pleasure complete, be sure to stay at the luxury Principovac Country Estate. Offering high-quality accommodation and service, this premium country estate has a famous belvedere at the top of the building offering a spectacular vista of the vineyards, the surroundings of Ilok, and even parts of the region of Srijem. Ilok and its surroundings can never let you down − they can only delight!
Particularly the great kindness, benevolence, and special charm of the people of this region.
This is evidenced by the words of a wine lover and a man who has contributed significantly to the development of viticulture and winemaking in this region, Prof. Nikola Mirošević:
− In this environment, beneath the vistas of the Franciscan monastery, this spiritual line of defense, I love experiencing Danubian dawns and dusks, writing an intimate diary of experiences lived alongside these honorable people. (…) For, to them, much like to Strauss, this blue river is a metaphor for an indelible history… Ilok’s royal Traminac has survived and revels in being a lasting link between the past, the present, and the future.
Author: https://www.ilok.hr/ / Slobodan Bukvić, Croatia Airlines, “Croatia”, Winter 2019/20
Photography: Ivan Ripić
