There are but a few towns in Croatia with such an exceptional past and present and so many old pictographs like Vukovar.
The area around Vukovar is a true treasury of cultural heritage. No wonder, especially when taken into account that life has existed in this area since the prehistoric period. So, if one wishes to learn more about the past of this region, one must take a long step back into the past, five thousand years back, which is how far back the history of settlements in this area reaches. This time we will not go so far into the past, but only until the 18th and 19th centuries when in the town center buildings were built, so characteristic for Vukovar, by which it is recognizable.
The streets of a town are the guardians of history. They keep many secrets. Numerous footsteps have left their marks on them, striding the paths of their youth. Streets are trustworthy witnesses of past times for they have survived and outlived many centuries, occurrences, and wars, but they have also seen a lot of love stories and listened to gentle whispers.
Streets, like people, are the soul of a town. They imprint their seal on the town, a seal resulting from the encounter of nature and human imagination. While walking the streets of the town, try to get a feel for their longevity, their duration, the effort taken with the aim to give the town its distinguished look with its notable baroque historic core.
About beauty is not discussed, it is in the eye of the beholder, but when something is beautiful, it is beautiful and that’s it.
Such is Vukovar.
Its baroque center delights architects, art historians, painters, photographers, museologists, tourists, passers-by, romantics…
The luxurious palace, churches, and buildings in its center look like movie sets. The center of Old Vukovar can be recognized by the houses with baroque arches and pillars built in the typical fashion of the provincial baroque favored under the rule of Maria Theresa. Those houses used to be craftsmen’s workshops and stores that eloquently spoke of the economic power of Vukovar’s more affluent bourgeoisie.
At the same time as Old Vukovar was being constructed in the 18th century in the discernable baroque style, the space of New Vukovar was developing, but with a visible distinction in style. Most edifices in that part of the town on the left bank of the river Vuka are marked by a pure and restrained late baroque classicism. A thus rounded up baroque complex remains a dominant stylistic layer of the historic Vukovar with numerous architectonic monuments of extraordinary sculptural and aesthetic value.
In order to bring visitors as close as possible to the rich past of Vukovar and to show them in the most interesting and picturesque way the civic life in the 18th and 19th centuries that Vukovar has always cultivated, we went a step further.
The Vukovar Tourist Guides Association, with the support of the Vukovar Tourist Board, is implementing the Creative Tourism project, which will enrich the tourist offer of the Croatian baroque city on the Danube River through living history and
storytelling. As part of this project, two costumes were made, male and female, characteristic of the high bourgeoisie of Vukovar from the beginning of the 19th century.
A tour through the baroque center in a costumed accompaniment with stories about the Eltz family will make your stay in Vukovar unforgettable.
Author: turizamvukovar.hr
