Bakar Hides Numerous Surprises
While strolling through Bakar, you will be amazed by many intriguing sights. No matter how many times you travel through town, you will always be greeted with something new. Many people miss something while visiting that they later see in other people’s photos. We’ve prepared this article to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
Underwater Tunnel
Let’s start with an invisible behemoth – a unique underwater tunnel connecting the two shores of the bay. On the surface, you can only see the tunnel’s entrances, but if you don’t know what they are, you might pass by without noticing them. Built in 1978, this 395-meter-long concrete wonder was the fastest way to transport materials from one side of the river to the other. Today, it is an industrial heritage monument in the making. Soon, it will welcome the first tourists.
Springs of Drinking Water
Bakar is a town by the sea, but a true force of freshwater lies beneath it! The roaring and boastful sound of the Jaz spring that plunges into the sea next to Bakar will convince you of this. Next to Jaz you can see the Perilo, a place where laundry used to be done. In other words, here too freshwater springs from the underground. Beside these springs, our region has many more hidden water stories. Explore the Bakar water roads!
The Charter of Maria Theresa
Next to Jaz is a monument commemorating an important moment from the town’s past. If you look closely at the stone mooring, you will notice that it is not a mooring, but an elegant stand with the replica of charter of the Hungarian-Croatian Queen and Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, dated April 23d, 1779. This charter proclaimed Bakar a free royal town, which at the turn of the 18th century ensured the town’s prosperity, making it the largest Croatian town at that time.
Façade Heads
Not one, but dozens of riddles are hidden on the façades of Bakar ‒ the mysterious stone heads. If you look up often enough, you will notice that Bakar’s façades are adorned with numerous stone faces. In some places you can find them above the doorframes and in visible places, and sometimes they are in hidden corners of the town. It is still unkown why the locals loved them so much. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the one to resolve the mystery, starting with a tour of the heads on the tower of the Co-Cathedral of St. Andrew, where you can spot them most easily.
Revived Bakar Spigots
Bakar conceals several old spigots or špinas, i. e. public fountains. Step by step, we bring them back to the spotlight, restoring their function. Visit them following a tourist map of the Bakar špinas – along each you can also find short interpretive texts. Be inspired by a drop of acquatic curiosities of the town between the land and the sea!
