As the oldest settlement in Gacka, Otočac offers a plethora of true values: landscape, tradition, and gastronomy, along with a rich cultural and historical heritage. Numerous activities, events, hotels, and private accommodation are an exceptionally good invitation to come, stay, but also to return as well. It is one of the oldest Croatian settlements. It is mentioned for the first time on the Baška tablet (Bašćanska ploča) from the end of the 11th century (1100 AD), a valuable, angular, stone monument of the Croatian literacy and culture. Otočac can be reached from highway A1, by exiting at the exit no. 10 for Otočac. As a recommendation, be sure to visit the Gacka Museum.
Gacka Museum is a county museum located in the heart of Otočac town in a building built at the end of the 19th century.
A visit to the Gacka Museum takes up to forty minutes, while its permanent exhibition consists of six units, where the objects from six museum collections are exhibited.
The story of Otočac and Gacka begins with the Japodic archaeological collection that bears witness to the first known inhabitants of this area – the Lasinj and Japod culture – while leading the visitor with its story all the way to the Middle Ages and the establishment of the defensive island town – Otočac. Historical collection objects exhibited in the permanent exhibition’s second unit, where armaments and the depiction of the Croatian War of Independence’s chronology are exhibited, bear witness to newer history.
The third and fourth units are dedicated to works of art. At the same time, they are in the unit containing the items from the local amateur painter Željko Barković Barkan’s Art collection’s exhibited works, which are the works created on art colonies LIKOM GACKE and the works of authors that were exhibited in the Gacka Museum, while Stojan Aralica’s Memorial collection exhibits works of art and personal objects of this academic painter who decided to leave a part of his legacy to his home town a few years before his death. The fifth unit introduces the typical life of Otočac and Gacka region until the middle of the 20th century to the visitor and within its ethnographic collection depicts how everyday rural life in the house and outside once looked like. The visit to the Gacka Museum finishes on the building’s first floor with an exhibition about the Otočka pivovara, a part of the exhibition cycle dedicated to the industrial heritage of Otočac.
The Museum can be visited every business day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and group visits for a minimum of 15 persons are also possible on the weekends and outside of business hours, for which a notice must be given in advance. All information about the Museum and visit organization can be found at the website www.gpou-otocac.hr
Author: www.tz-otocac.hr
