Varaždin

Varaždin is a small town in Croatia's far north near the Hungarian border, described as the country's **baroque capital**. The label is not marketing: Varaždin genuinely **was Croatia's capital** between 1767 and 1776, when the royal council and the ban moved there. Then a great fire in 1776 destroyed most of the town, the capital was moved to Zagreb, and it never came back. The irony is that the fire is what preserved its form: the town was rebuilt in one go in the baroque of the day, so its centre remains **stylistically unified** — palaces, churches and coloured facades with almost no later additions, because the town stopped growing once it lost its status. At its centre is the white **Stari Grad** castle with its round towers and grassed moat. At its edge is **Varaždin Cemetery**, not an ordinary graveyard but a **designed botanical garden**, ranked among the most beautiful cemeteries in Europe. Note: it is very small — one day covers it, and it is often visited as a day trip from Zagreb (about 80 km).