Okić Castle Ruins

The old town of Okić
An ancient fortress, a rare example of preserved Romanesque architecture in continental Croatia.Okić-grad, an ancient fortress considered one of our oldest fortified cities and a rare example of preserved Romanesque architecture in continental Croatia, is located on a secluded, rocky peak of the Plešivica ridge, only 5 kilometers from Samobor. For centuries he watched over this area and repulsed attacks, he did not give up under the onslaught of Mongol tribes, he was not destroyed by the Turkish siege on three occasions. However, the ravages of time have taken their toll, so today the Old Town of Okić only testifies to the times when it played an important defensive role with the remains of its walls.The first record in which Okić-grad is mentioned dates from 1193 in the document of Bishop Kalan from Pécs, but it is believed that the fortress may have existed earlier, during the time of the Croatian national rulers. Okić played an important role in helping King Bela IV. on the run from the Mongols, so he is mentioned in the charter granted by the king to the market town of Samobor, and it is significant that Ivan Okić then allowed the construction of Okić's double city of Lipovac, as a fortress that will further help defend this area.For centuries, the town was ruled by the princes Okićki, Babonići, Bevenudi, Frankopani, Matijaš Korvin, Ivan Horvat and finally the Erdödy family, in whose time, as early as 1616, the Okić fortress became a ruin.Today, the Old Town of Okić is not trying to be occupied by armies, but by mountaineers and excursionists, attracted by walls located at 499 meters above sea level from which the view of Posavina, Pokuplje, Zagreb, Medvednica and Plešivica can be seen. The first of them was the Karlovac writer Dragojla Jarnević, who wrote the first pages of Croatian mountaineering in 1843 with her ascent to Okić, overcoming the harder, southern ascent - and barefoot.Fortunately, thanks to hard-working mountaineers, today the ascent to the Old Town of Okić is much easier, it takes only a 10-minute walk from the Maks Plotnikov Mountain Lodge to the remains of the fort.samobor.hr/visit/stari-grad-okic-p444