Virje is a village formerly known as the largest in Croatia. Today it is better known as the sweetest village of Croatia. Why is that so? All because of an event, called Virovska Prkačijada, which began four years ago – The International Festival Of Small Traditional Cakes. The idea was to keep alive the tradition of making cakes, to protect the heritage and to enjoy traditional cakes from all over the world!
The annual festival includes a Kindergarden Prkačijada held in the Kindergarden Zrno, which is the sweetest not just because of the sugar, but because of the sweet children wearing traditional costumes. Another programme is Little Prkačijada held in the Primary School of the professor Franjo Viktor Å ignjar and the main event is based on the women’s society competitions, lots of workshops from the best cooking masters from different countries, cooking shows and folk dances.
The festival has hosted guests from all over the globe, including from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, India, Israel, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, Panama, Russia, Slovenia, the UK, the USA, as well as – of course – Croatia. We want to make their stay special, so in collaboration with the local library of Virje, the City Museum of Koprivnica and the Central Podravina Tourist Board, we created the Virje Sweet Walks. I was one of the authors of the sweet walks, along with Ivanka Martinčić Ferenčić, head of the local library.
The one-hour walk starts from the school garden and heads to the church of St Martin and church archaeological site, then to the local museum and the public library. The idea was to present the local history just through the little traditional cookie called zvezdica (a star!). All sweet walks end in the local park where the whole community has built a giant statue of little cookie stars.
All of you with a sweet tooth, save the dates 8 and 9 May 2020 and head to Virje, the sweetest village in Croatia, to see some fascinating local culinary heritage for yourselves!
Elizabeta Milanović Glavica is Managing Director of the Central Podravina Tourist Board in Virje, Croatia. (www.tzp-sredisnja-podravina.hr). You can get in touch with her at: info@tzp-sredisnja-podravina.hr or elizabeta.milanovic@gmail.com.
To cite this article:
Milanović Glavica, Elizabeta (2019) ‘Sweet walks of Virje’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 2-2019, 22.
Available online: www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2019-2_summer.pdf
