Bjelovar has a new reason to put itself on Croatia's inland map. On 30 September 2026, the city celebrated the opening of Wellovar, a geothermal sports and wellness complex in the suburb of Veliko Korenovo, unveiled during Bjelovar's 270th birthday celebrations and billed as the biggest project in the city's history. Around 600 guests turned up, among them Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković and Tourism Minister Tonči Glavina — a clear sign of how much weight the region is putting on this one.
The opening skipped the ribbon in favour of a splash: 18 local residents, from a kindergarten-age girl to pensioners and well-known Bjelovar athletes, jumped straight into the Olympic pool. The 'Generational Jump' was a nod to the decades locals waited for an indoor Olympic-size pool — and to the idea that the complex is built for the generations ahead.
So what do you actually get? Ten pools in total, split evenly between indoor and outdoor, plus four saunas, a gym, sports and recreation facilities and a restaurant. The outdoor half doesn't open to the public until next spring, so winter visitors get the indoor five and the sauna circuit to themselves. Construction took 23 intensive months after years of planning, and operator Terme Bjelovar currently employs 47 staff, with hiring ongoing.
The bigger story for travellers is positioning. Bjelovar, in the Bjelovar-Bilogora County of continental Croatia, wants to brand itself as a destination for geothermal, sports and health tourism — a counterweight to the Adriatic crowds. That matters if you like the idea of Croatian thermal water without the coastal prices or summer logjams. The city sits about an hour's drive northeast of Zagreb, which makes Wellovar an easy add-on to a Zagreb-based trip or a stop on a slow-travel route through the Pannonian interior, a part of Croatia most foreign visitors never see.
Come spring, when the outdoor pools open, the full complex should make a genuinely competitive day-trip or weekend option. Whether it grows into a proper wellness hub will depend on hotels and ancillary offerings that don't exist yet, but as a first move, Wellovar gives Bjelovar something concrete to build on — and swimmers something they've waited a very long time for.
