Guests

Barabrith is open again! Still the only all vegan accommodation anywhere in Croatia! We are not on the coast but we are near Plitvica National Park and have  a few places of interest close by. As ever there a few dates when we will be away so please email well in advance to avoid dissapointment.

Spring warning! Please note we live in the countryside and the wooden house that we use for guests does not have central heating or even wood stoves. There are electric heaters in each room but they can only do so much! The dinning room/pool room does have a wood burning stove and can been kept nice and warm but it might be the only guest room that is really toasty!

Barabrith offers a “surrounded by nature” countryside experience in the Kordun region of Croatia.  We are situated about a kilometre off  the main road from Zagreb to Plitvice National Park, an hours drive from the park. We have three rooms each with a double bed (one room is accessible through one of the others). We offer facilities to shower and to use the outdoor barbecue. Our space is vegan and so non vegan foods are not welcome anywhere on site. All our buildings are no smoking zones. We are happy to share our own meals with guests, for no extra cost, if you are around at the right time!

The wooden house guest accommodation.

Facilities;
We have three rooms in an old wooden house each with a double bed. The larger room is accessible through one of the other rooms but seeing as its bigger and has an extra sofa bed in it (useful for quarrelling couples!) we charge the same of each room.

Malcolms room is the biggest bedroom with four windows a double bed, mosquito net, a sofa and a vintage English rocking chair!! The skull and cross bones duvet cover is optional!
Malcolm’s room also has paintings by Malcolm and his mother inlaw Edith on display. Access to this room is through the middle room.
The middle room has one window, a double bed, a chair and a mosquito net. Space in the chest and wardrobe can be made available for long staying guests. Access to Malcolms room is through the middle room.
The Little Room has a double bed, mosquito net, table and chair. It currently has a small exhibition of black and white photographs of wooden houses in rural Croatia on display.

There is a toilet with a washbasin in the wooden house. The shower is in the main house approx 20 meters away it is accessible 24 hours. We have a gazebo that overlooks our fields and woods and is also accessible to guests 24 hours. Barabrith is partially covered by approx two hectares of woods and guests are welcome to go and wander around in them. If you are fond of playing pool this may also be an option as we have a vintage 7ft pool table that doubles as our dining table.

We are open all year round, we live here! But the wooden house is only heated by electric heaters and whilst we can offer two duvet’s or extra blankets we can not guarantee the rooms will be “warm” during the winter when temperatures in Croatia can dip to minus 15 or lower at times!

The main house where we eat – unless we are in the gazebo – and sleep. The shower room and second toilet are through the right hand door. The dining room – aka the pool room – is through the left door.
The view of our woods from the gazebo August 2019.

Cost;
The basic cost is £35 (approx 40 euros) per person per night. That includes bedding, a towel, a mosquito net, use of shower, and the use of the kettle in the kitchen.
For guests that stay two nights in a row we will charge £30 (35e) for the second night. Prices for longer stays are negotiable.

We get a lot of good sunsets at Barabrith

Food;
Guests are free to use the barbecue facilities but our kitchen facilities are private. Guests are required to only bring, cook and consume vegan food on our land. We can advise on places locally where you can find vegetarian/vegan food to eat. If you are around in the morning when we eat breakfast we will share it with you and the same for our main meal of the day which is usually between 4pm and 7pm but we can are flexible about the time. There is no added cost to sharing our food. We eat a vegan diet and use fruit and vegetables we grow ourselves whenever possible. We also tend not to use sugar as a sweetener preferring alternatives like date syrup instead.

Animal companions (pets) are welcome at Barabrith as long as they do not endanger any of the animals already here! Nancy (above) and Sid (below) are two of the most talkative and friendly cats you will have ever met. The neighbours dogs do bark a lot but are not usually dangerous!

Booking;
We ask for bookings to be emailed to us at least a week before the date. Your booking is not confirmed until we reply by email to say it is. For bookings to be fully confirmed we require at least half the payment in advance. You can pay either by bank transfer or by PayPal – our PayPal account uses the email info@barabrith.org which is also our email for any other enquiries you may have – like our bank details. We can be paid to a UK account or a Croatian Euro account.
We ask that you clear your rooms by midday on your last day with us if we have new guests coming but you are welcome to stay for to share our meal that day if that has not already happened. We will provide new bed sheets every 3 days or for an extra charge of £5 when requested.

Our onions grew pretty well the first year!

Reviews;
If you’d like to see what some of our previous guests said about Barabrith please check our Happycow listing here!

Local places of Interest;
We live close to a large area of woodland that accessible to the public on foot or off road bicycles. There are ruins of an old fort hidden in the woods about 2 km away.

Karlovac, the nearest town to us, now has a cinema again after a several decade break of being silver screen free, check out recently refurbished Kino Edison.  Also in Karlovac  is  the Nikola Tesla Experience Centre which does a fine job of telling the story of his life.

The area we live in is dotted with monuments commemorating the Partizan struggle against the German and Croatian fascists of world war 2. There is also and old Partizan hospital and print works not far away also hidden and rotting away in a forest. Approximately 25km away is the famous Petrova Gora monument. Only 5km away is the river Korana with a “public beach” and bar. The Korana is a cool clean river good for swimming in. We will be happy to direct you to these places and hope to have a map (or an app!) of where they are available soon. There are also a few caves in the area that are unsupervised. We have an extensive knowledge of Zagreb and the places you can find cruelty free food there. We can also suggest some other places in Croatia that are vegan friendly.

This is not one of our photos but it shows some of the area of the public beach by the river Korana near Barabrith.
As you can see we are almost as big as Zagreb!

Getting to Barabrith.
Type ‘Barabrith Croatia’ in to Google Maps and you’ll find us! If you are coming by road we are approx 17km south of Karlovac on route 1 road signposted for Split and Plitvice. Straight on after you pass between the DP petrol stations,  the signs announce you are in Donji Budački and you cross the small Radonja river you take the first left by the bus stop. Follow the main (!) road up the hill and we are on the right! Karlovac is easily reached by bus or train from Zagreb. The train costs 36kr which is about £4.50. The train times (trains often run late here in Croatia) from Zagreb can be found here. There are buses from Karlovac to the bottom of our road (1km away) but if you don’t speak Croatian you should ask us about which bus to get.
If you are flying into Zagreb or Ljubljana airports you can take the bus from there to the Zagreb bus station which is a 10 minute walk from the train station. There are lots of buses from Zagreb to Karlovac and I found it easier to find them here .
From Ljubljana airport its easiest to take a Go Opti mini van (9e) to the Ljubljana Central station and then a train form there to Zagreb, there is normally no need to book in advance. The train ticket for an adult is about £8 (9e) and takes about 2hours 20mins – the times for trains to Zagreb from Ljubljana are here .

We have plenty of safe parking space for bicycles and cars.

We also offer to pick guests up from Zagreb (station or airport) and bring you back to Barabrith. We would charge £30 for this service. If you want a pick up from Ljubjana airport we would ask £60. (The Slovenian road tax for a week is about £15!)