3 Best Sights in Slavonia, Croatia

This majestic single-nave church is the highlight of Osijek's downtown skyline. At 292 feet tall, its red-brick neo-Gothic steeple is the second-highest structure in Croatia. Built between 1894 and 1898 on the initiative of the famous Đakovo-based bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, it has five altars and the walls are painted with colorful frescoes.

This Franciscan church and monastery overlooking the Danube, first constructed in 1349, holds the remains of St. John of Capistrano, a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest. In 1456, at age 70, he led a successful battle against the Ottomans, which earned him the nickname "Soldier Priest." He died three months later in Ilok of the bubonic plague but was said to have performed miracles even on his deathbed. The church—which also holds the remains of Nicholas and Lawrence of Ilok, both of whom made expansions to the monastery complex during their reign—was given a 20th-century neo-Gothic facelift by Hermann Bollé, the same architect who helped design the cathedrals in Đakovo and Zagreb, as well as Zagreb's Mirogoj Cemetery. The tourist information center is next door; if the church is closed, contact them to arrange a visit.

Đakovo's centerpiece is its majestic red-brick neo-Gothic cathedral, which towers above the city and is a stunning first sight as you arrive into town. Commissioned by the Bishop of Đakovo, Josip Juraj Strossmayer (1815–1905) and consecrated in 1882 after two decades of construction, the cathedral was called the "most beautiful church between Venice and Constantinople" by Pope John XXIII.