Catacombs

The catacombs are the most intriguing and mysterious place in Jajce – an underground church carved into living rock in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, commissioned by Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and intended as the tomb of the ducal family. It never served that purpose, but the centuries that followed brought the town endless stories about it.

Inside the church, built in Romanesque style and vaulted with a Gothic ceiling, visitors are greeted by unfinished male and female figures carved into the rock, a double cross, symbols of the sun and crescent moon, burial niches in the floor, and a crypt with an altar. An inscription above the entrance testifies that Marshal Tito also stayed and worked in the catacombs temporarily in the autumn of 1943. The temperature inside remains around ten degrees throughout the year. They were declared a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2003, and between 13,000 and 16,000 tourists visit them annually.