Zagreb Old Town and WWII Tunnels Walking Tour

Zagreb's Upper and Lower Town sit close enough to stroll between in minutes, but a 350-metre tunnel cut straight through the hill separating them has a stranger story than either half does on its own.

Built for a bombing raid that never came

In 1943, with Allied air raids a real fear, Prime Minister Nikola Mandić ordered a public shelter carved into the hill beneath Gornji Grad, Zagreb's Upper Town. Construction finished in 1944: 350 metres long and up to 5.5 metres wide, running between Mesnička Street and Stjepan Radić Street with several side passages branching off. The bombing raids it was built to survive never actually hit the tunnel, and it fell into disrepair once the war ended.

A second life nobody in 1943 could have predicted

The tunnel resurfaced decades later for reasons that had nothing to do with its original purpose. In 1993 it hosted the Under City Rave, one of the first raves held in Croatia, and in that same turbulent decade it served again as a genuine air-raid shelter during the Homeland War. It sat mostly forgotten after that until a 2016 renovation reopened it as Tunel Grič, now used for art exhibitions, wine festivals and Zagreb's Advent market as much as for tourism.

Above ground on the way

The walking route through Upper and Lower Town takes in St. Mark's Church, whose tiled roof – laid in 1880 by architects Friedrich Schmidt and Herman Bollé – carries the coats of arms of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia alongside Zagreb's own emblem, and Ban Jelačić Square, the 17th-century square still functioning as the city's everyday centre.

Booking

The City and WWII Tunnels Walking Tour runs about 2.5 hours with a live guide, covering both the tunnel and the Old Town route above ground. For a tour built entirely around Zagreb's 20th-century political history rather than its architecture, the Communism and Croatian Homeland War Tour goes considerably deeper into the same turbulent decades.