Lepoglava

Lepoglava's lace is made on a pillow with bobbins, worked in patterns that grew out of the local tradition, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage list in 2009 as one of three Croatian lacemaking traditions alongside Pag and Hvar. The town holds a lace festival in September. Its other history is the Pauline monastery founded in the fourteenth century, which ran one of the earliest grammar schools in Croatia and later a college with the right to award degrees, and which after the order was suppressed became a prison - one of the harshest in the region under successive regimes, still operating. The Gothic church survives with restored frescoes.

What you actually see

• Bobbin lace on the UNESCO list - inscribed in 2009 with Pag and Hvar.
• A September lace festival - the town's main event.
• A fourteenth century Pauline monastery - and the school it ran.
• A prison in the monastery buildings - in use since the order was suppressed.

When to go

May to September, with the lace festival in September. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The prison is active and not visitable, and photography around it is not welcome. Lace workshops and exhibitions keep limited hours outside the festival. The church opening depends on services. The town is small and plain.

Nearby

Trakoscan castle is west; Varazdin is north-east.