Our Short Visit To (The Yugoslavian) Zeljava Air Base In Croatia

CroatiaA few months back, I wrote about our visit to the abandoned Douglas C-47 plane At Zeljava Air Base In Croatia.

We found out about the abandoned C-47 while in Sarajevo from a couple of other travelers we were chatting with. While visiting the Douglas C-47, a couple mentioned they heard we could visit the air base (or whats left of it) close by.

Since we were in the area, we had to go look for Zeljava Air Base. (Zeljava was the largest underground airport and military air base in Yugoslavia, and one of the largest in Europe according to Wikipedia.)

From the plane, we drove for a good 10-15 minutes, unsure if we were heading in the right direction.a man jumping in the air in front of a tunnelThen the roads started to look more like runways and we spotted a police car. A look to our right and we saw a few cars parked and a really bizarre looking entrance.

We were warned in advance that a flashlight was pretty much a necessity. I hoped our iPhone lights would help, they didn’t.a boy pointing at a stickerSoon after entering the air base, Lucas spotted a sticker that our travel friends from Sarajevo had placed there!a graffiti on a wallWe walked in a bit further and spotted some graffiti and not much else.

It then got dark enough where we couldn’t really see much at all.
a tunnel with a dark tunnelWe decided to head out to get our car to then drive back inside. (I had seen a car or two drive out of Zeljava during our visit.)

The car headlights helped a lot but there still wasn’t much to see. From what I recall, we did pass one destroyed army vehicle of some sort.

There were also different tunnels we could’ve chose to drive through. I figured we had seen enough and I didn’t want to risk damaging the rental car. I hope that we didn’t miss anything too exciting but I do believe this was the right call!

Regardless, I’m glad that we found this interesting site in Croatia. After reading about the base, I could now better understand how the planes fit inside this underground airport!

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