Everyone heads for the Dalmatian coast. Twenty minutes west of Zagreb, though, there's a Croatia that runs on custard slices, sparkling wine and forest waterfalls — and it's far cheaper than anywhere near the Adriatic.

The town of Samobor is the gateway to these hills, and its calling card is the kremšnita, a thick custard slice under a lid of puff pastry and icing sugar. Locals will tell you Samobor's version beats Zagreb's, and the place to judge for yourself is the Kavana Livadić cafe on King Tomislav Square, where pastel baroque houses shade umbrella-decked terraces. The Gradna stream ripples through town under flower-decked wooden bridges — one leads to the onion-domed church of Saint Anastasia, another to a park with free red deckchairs stamped "Volim Samobor".

Zagreb locals treat the area as their weekend playground. Žumberak nature park, about 26km west, crisscrosses hornbeam, oak and beech woods with cascading waterfalls; even without a full hike you can reach Potočna dolina Slapnica near the Vranjak falls and scramble beside the cascades. Closer in, the hilltop ruins of Okić castle, one of Croatia's best-preserved Romanesque fortifications at nearly 500m, resisted both Mongols and Ottomans — though the author's steep root-covered trail beat them, so look for the newer, gentler path.

The real draw is food and wine. The Plešivica wine road strings together more than three dozen wineries on a heart-shaped route between Plešivica village and Jastrebarsko, through vineyards on steep slopes the source piece reckons could out-Tuscany Tuscany. At the Griffin Winery — named for a crest granted by Empress Maria Theresa in 1759 — tastings cover a light sparkling rosé from portugieser grapes, chardonnay, and copanjek, a thin savoury pie of cheese and greens.

Even more distinctive is rudarska greblica, a filled pastry of cheese with walnuts, carrots or greens, once baked by the wives of Rude's miners and now EU-protected. Pekarnica Nikl in Rude holds the only authorised bakery licence, and the village throws it a festival every July.

For a splurge, the Michelin-starred Korak winery restaurant in Plešivica is anything but stuffy: chef Bernard Korak, who has worked with Massimo Bottura and Ana Roš, serves a five-course tasting menu for €118, sourced almost entirely from the family's own land and neighbours — truffle tagliatelle in June, and come autumn, the region's truffles and mushrooms. Time it to the Wine Days festival in Jastrebarsko, 25-27 September.

For travellers who love slow food, gentle hiking and wine routes without the crowds — and prices well below the coast — Zagreb County is an easy add-on to any Croatian trip. Fly to Zagreb, rent a car, and you're in the hills before your coffee's gone cold.