Osijek

Osijek is the largest city in eastern Croatia and the capital of **Slavonia**, and it is about as far from the Croatia tourists know as the country allows. There is no sea here, no white stone and no islands. Slavonia is a **wide agricultural plain** between the Drava and the Danube, with some of the most fertile soil in Europe and a continental climate, hot in summer and cold in winter. The city sits on the **Drava** with fields around it. Its heart is **Tvrđa** — a complete eighteenth-century baroque fortress built by the Habsburgs after the Ottomans were driven out, and **one of the most complete baroque military complexes surviving in Europe**: barracks, squares and churches inside the walls, most of them now university buildings and cafés. East of the city lies **Kopački Rit**, one of the largest floodplain wetlands in Europe and home to hundreds of bird species. Note: Osijek was **on the front line** during the war of the 1990s, and nearby Vukovar endured the war's worst siege — the subject is personally sensitive for many people in the region.