Central Croatia has a new reason to pull off the highway. Wellovar, a geothermal sports and recreation park in Bjelovar, threw open its doors to the public at 8am on Thursday 15 October and was instantly swamped: 511 tickets sold within the first 90 minutes, with the local mayor expecting more than 1,000 by day's end.
The complex is genuinely big. There are ten pools in total — five indoors, five outdoors — including a covered Olympic-sized pool certified for international competition. A restaurant and gym round out the facilities, with saunas still to come. Operators Terme Bjelovar have staffed the place with 47 employees and three lifeguards, and the site is designed to hold up to 1,500 people at once without feeling crowded; daily visitor numbers could top 3,000.
Pricing is refreshingly reasonable by European water park standards. Adults pay €16 for a full weekday day-pass and €21 at weekends or on public holidays. Kids under six go free, and there's an €11 weekday concession rate for pensioners, students, people with disabilities and war veterans.
The hook here is the energy story. Wellovar's heating is meant to run entirely on renewables — geothermal water drawn from its own well plus rooftop solar panels. There's a caveat for early visitors: the geothermal well is still being tested, so pools are currently fed by a mix that includes public water supply. Two pools ran slightly cooler than planned on opening day after a routine health check flagged elevated chlorine in one, which was drained and refilled as a precaution. Officials said the water should warm by about a degree a day, with normal temperatures expected by the Saturday. If anything, that's a decent sign — the operator seems willing to shut things down and do it properly.
Why should a traveller care? Bjelovar sits between Zagreb and the Slavonian interior, a part of Croatia most visitors skip entirely in favour of the coast. A year-round, weather-proof pool complex gives mainland Croatia's inland towns something genuinely new for off-season trips — handy for families based in Zagreb wanting a day out, or travellers doing a continental Croatia itinerary in winter when the Adriatic quiets down. At €16 midweek it undercuts most thermal spa resorts in the region, and the Olympic pool makes it a serious training option too, not just a splash park.
Go now and you're getting a brand-new facility with a few teething quirks; wait a few months and the geothermal system should be fully calibrated, with saunas added to the mix. Either way, inland Croatia just got a little more interesting.
