Places · Međimurje
This Isn't the Croatia You Know
Beyond the coast lies a quieter, greener Croatia — and the place AUREMA calls home.
Say Croatia and most people picture the sea. We love that Croatia too. But ours is green.
Say Croatia and most people picture the sea.
Islands. Stone towns. Blue water. Summer light bouncing off the Adriatic.
We love that Croatia too. But ours is green.
AUREMA comes from Međimurje, in Croatia's far north: a small landscape of vineyard-covered hills, fields, gardens, rivers, thermal water and the everyday rhythm of towns and villages.
It is not the Croatia most international travellers arrive expecting. And that is precisely what makes it interesting.
A place known from the inside
AUREMA did not choose Međimurje because it needed a destination. AUREMA began here because this is home.
Andrijana, AUREMA's founder and host, was born here, grew up here and still lives in Čakovec today. That changes the way a retreat can introduce a place.
There is no need to turn every moment into sightseeing. The destination can reveal itself through ordinary things: the road between villages, vegetables picked locally, a long lunch, a view across vineyard hills, an evening by the river, a walk through Čakovec or the simple act of entering someone's home.
The Nature of Coming Home unfolds across two real homes. For the first three days, Sukha Vacation House — the home of Andrijana's friends — becomes a private gathering place for the group. For the final two days, the retreat moves to Čakovec and into Andrijana's own home.
Hospitality is not a theme added to the programme. It is part of how the place is experienced.
Between hills, thermal water and two rivers
The retreat moves through different sides of Međimurje rather than staying in one setting.
There are the green hills of Upper Međimurje, the landscape around Sveti Martin, vineyards and viewpoints. There is thermal water and the slower pace that comes with it.
There are the Mura and Drava river landscapes, which give this part of Croatia another character entirely.
And then there is Čakovec: Andrijana's city and the more urban part of the experience, where the retreat shifts towards creativity, everyday local life and the feeling of being hosted rather than simply accommodated.
None of these places needs to compete for attention. Together, they make the retreat feel less like a tour and more like being introduced to someone's home region over several days.
Food tastes different when it has a story
One of the simplest ways to understand a place is to eat there. Not only in restaurants, but closer to the source.
During the retreat, guests spend part of a day picking local vegetables and then cooking lunch together. It is intentionally uncomplicated.
The point is not to perform farm-to-table travel. The point is to slow the distance between where food grows, who prepares it and the people who eventually sit down to eat it.
A meal becomes more memorable when you know something about how it arrived on the table.
The luxury of not being famous
There is a particular freedom in travelling somewhere that is not trying to be everything to everyone.
Međimurje does not need to compete with the Croatian coast. Its value is different. It can be quiet without feeling empty. Rural without being remote. Local without being staged for visitors.
For AUREMA, that makes it the right place to begin.
The retreat is not designed around collecting landmarks. It is designed around becoming familiar with a place slowly enough that small details start to matter.
The curve of a road through the hills. A familiar table. A favourite view. The route back to the house.
By the end, the landscape should feel a little less like somewhere you visited and a little more like somewhere you know.
Come north
You may not come home from Međimurje with the photograph everyone immediately recognises. You may come home with something better.
A memory of a table, a river, a garden, a road through the hills or a house whose door was opened to you. A place that feels a little like your own.