Vukovar Voyage Tips and guide

Vukovar, The Hero Town, is a city in Slavonia (eastern Croatia) along the Danube River.

Although the city has a long cultural history, today it is most noted for its fate during the war in the early 1990s in the former Yugoslavia and often called "The Hero Town". It is the first city in Europe to be completely devastated in the period after World War II. The Siege of Vukovar is famous among military analysts as 2,000 self-organized Croatian civilians and volunteers from all around the Croatia defended the town for 3 months against 40,000 heavily armed Serbian soldiers and 110 tanks, resulting in a pyrrhic Serbian victory. The city was defended up to the last street and therefore it was a modern model of a Stalingrad battle.

The city has long had a highly mixed population of different ethnicities, including large numbers of ethnic Croats and Serbs. As a result it suffered greatly during the war between the Croats and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army in the early 1990s. The three-month siege of the city in 1991 and the subsequent occupation by Serbia destroyed or damaged much of the city's infrastructure and resulted in a massacre of Croatian population. As a result, it is difficult to find employment, and much of the population has left; around 30,000 still remain. Those who remain in the city live together nonviolently, although there is still animosity between ethnic groups. Today, it is a living war and massacre monument. The war damage is still very obvious throughout most of the city.

Consider travelling to Osijek, the regional centre of Slavonia, by train or air, then proceeding to Vukovar (an hour's drive).

The city has direct bus connections with Osijek (approximately every hour), Zagreb (numerous times a day), Ilok and Vinkovci, and daily to the Serbian cities of Sombor and Novi Sad. There are also seasonal buses to the Dalmatian coast and cities in Germany.

Infrequent trains operate to Vukovar from Osijek and Vinkovci. The station, Borovo-naselje, is around 4.8 km (3 mi) north from the main area of Vukovar. There is a daily direct train to Zagreb at 15:00 from Zagreb Central Station and returns 06:00 from Vukovar.

Vukovar lies on the EuroVelo VI route between Osijek and Ilok.

Highways lead to Vukovar from all directions.

Map of Vukovar

The town is best explored on foot. All the main areas of interest are within a short walk of each other.

• 45.3580618.994171 Dr Juraj Njavro National Memorial Hospital (Nacionalna memorijalna bolnica „dr. Juraj Njavro”). The hospital in Vukovar is the same one used during the siege of the city. Make sure to act politely and respectfully because after the "Fall of Vukovar", the Serbian army dragged all wounded people (including children) and massacred them at the "Ovčara" site, making this building a living UN critic as UN forces located outside the hospital did nothing to prevent it. The above-ground portion of the hospital has been restored into a typical modern facility, but the basement area (which was the only part of the hospital used during the siege due to the continuous shelling of the above-ground parts of the hospital) has been made into a museum. The museum is very well-designed and gives a chilling feel of what the hospital was like during the siege. While you're in the hospital, if you're lucky you may see Dr. Vesna Bosanac, who was the hospital director during the war and still works there and is regarded as something of a national hero in Croatia because she saved many lives.  (updated Mar 2026)

• 45.35753618.9949862 Eltz Manor and Vukovar City Museum (Dvorac Eltz, Gradski muzej Vukovar). An 18th-century Baroque-style palace that is home to the Vukovar City Museum. The manor, as it previously appeared, was depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 20 kuna banknote, issued in 1993 and 2001. The palace suffered substantial damages and destruction in 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence. However, after four years of restoration, it was completely restored to its pre-war appearance in 2011. It was the main residence of the Eltz family during the existence of the Lordship of Vukovar.  (updated Jul 2022)
• 45.34711619.0073453 Church of Saints Philip and James (Crkva Sv. Filipa i Jakova). This is the main Catholic cathedral in the city. It is the 3rd longest church in Croatia and also has the 3rd most significant library in Croatia with several books (incanabulae) from the 15th century. It was horribly damaged during the war. There have been slight reconstructions since the war (Namely, a simple roof was added in order to keep out the rain. The church also has a new organ.), although the cathedral is generally the same as it was in 1998. The walls of the church still bear many holes from mortar shells and grenades, and there is still graffiti that was left by the Serb soldiers, including images of Orthodox Christian crosses and a slogan that translates into English as "God forgives. Serbs don't." If you have extra time and money, you may want to hire a Croatian translator and arrange a visit with the priest, as he is extremely knowledgeable about Vukovar, the siege, and what occurred at the cathedral during the siege. As it is placed on a hill over the Vukovar centre it has a great lookout over the city and the Danube river.  (updated Mar 2026)
• 45.32819.0384 Memorial Cemetery of the Victims of Homeland War in Vukovar (Memorijalno groblje žrtava iz Domovinskog rata u Vukovaru). The cemetery has the graves of many who died during and after the siege. At the centre of the cemetery is a memorial statue. The statue has a symbolic flame at its center, and the stones present the image of the Christian cross facing outward in all directions. While walking among the graves, there are several interesting things to consider: Graves labeled 'Hravtski Branitelj' are the graves of untrained volunteers who helped defend the city. People who died after November 18 were usually tortured to death. There are also many graves where you can see that an entire family died on the same day.  (updated Mar 2026)
• 45.336319.0595 The Vučedol Culture Museum (Muzej Vučedolske kulture) (transport from the city centre is easiest by taxi (10 min) or bicycle along the Danubian cycle path). Opened in 2013, it is one of the most architecturally striking and intellectually rewarding archaeological museums in Croatia. Built into the Danubian bluffs at the original Vučedol archaeological site 4 km downstream from the city centre, the museum presents the story of the Vučedol culture (c. 3000–2200 BC) with exceptional clarity through original artefacts, reconstructed ritual and domestic spaces, and innovative multimedia displays. The centrepiece is the original Vučedol Dove — a ceramic vessel in the form of a stylised bird, decorated with incised geometric patterns and found at the Vučedol site in 1938. The vessel is dated to approximately 2800 BC and served a ritual function; it is now the symbol of both the museum and the city of Vukovar. The museum also presents the Vučedol Orion — the lunar calendar inscribed on a ceramic vessel and decoded in 1978 as the oldest known solar-lunar calendar in Europe (4 calendar sectors corresponding to the solstices and equinoxes, and the constellation of Orion used as a seasonal marker). The museum is open year-round; allow 2 hours. The museum is housed in the baroque Eltz Manor, which is horribly damaged from the war, but it is still in use. The museum has various exhibits to see. Many of the pieces are archaeological artifacts, including a right-footed ceramic shoe from several thousand years ago (Vučedol culture) that the museum staff seem to be particularly proud of. The museum also periodically exhibits paintings from the Bauer collection which is considered one of the more significant collections of Croatian modern art.  (updated Mar 2026)
• Tank Graveyard Street (Trpinjska Cesta, Trpinja Road) in the northwest part of Vukovar, specifically in the Borovo Naselje neighbourhood: a location of one of a greatest battles in Europe. In the time of a siege Serbian army, equipped with 110 tanks tried a breakthrough with tanks against a lightly armed Croatians led by national hero Blago Zadro, but it resulted in a greatest tank destruction site ever, with tanks mostly being destroyed on many unconventional ways . Today, although rebuilt it still gives an unexplainable chilling feel of a battle, and one tank is left as a memorial.
• Ovčara massacre site: The Ovčara field is a short drive from the main area of Vukovar. After the fall of the city to the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army, the Serb soldiers gathered 200 of the hospital's doctors and injured patients and massacred them in the Ovčara field. Today at the massacre site there is a memorial and a nearby museum.

• Walk the streets. It's as moving as visiting any war museum.
• Football: HNK Vukovar 1991 were promoted in 2025 and play soccer in HNL the top tier. Their Stadion Borovo is not up to top tier standards so they now play at Stadion HNK Cibalia (capacity 10,000) in Vinkovci.
• Vukovar Film Festival (Vukovarski filmski festival). Festival is dedicated to films made in Danube region and neighbouring countries – Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Moldavia, Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. It usually takes place over five or six days in early September. (updated Mar 2026)

Local specialities are based around smoked pork meat and freshwater fish.

Smoked meat: Be sure to try šunka (smoked ham), kulen and švargl (check Wikipedia for details).

Fish dishes: The Danube area in Croatia has very strong tradition in fishing and fish based dishes. Be sure to try the spicy fish soup which is very common in Slavonia. But also try to get your hands on some smoked catfish steaks or šarani u rašljama (carp baked in wooden forks over an open flame) which are more traditional to the Danube subregion of Slavonia and Syrmia (Croatian: Srijem).

Other dishes: čobanac and paprikaš (meat stews)

Local cuisine tends to be very spicy due to extensive use of red paprika, so if you don't like hot food ask in restaurants to make your food less spicy.

Cakes and sweets: There's a funny thing called poderane gaće (Torn underpants) which are made from pancake-like dough and are sweetened with sugar or honey. There are numerous cakes and pies indigenous for the region but they can rarely be found in restaurants. It's best to ask the locals, people are very friendly and very hedonistic in regards to food so they might just invite you for a treat.

Try the local beer, Vukovarsko pivo.

There are hotels in Vukovar; however, they are somewhat expensive. You may choose to visit Vukovar as a day trip and then sleep in a nearby city such as Osijek.

	WARNING: There are active mines in the woods around the Vukovar cemetery. Only walk through the cemetery's paved and grassy areas. Avoid the woods.

Osijek and Novi Sad are about an hour's drive away.