Description of the attraction
Ludbreg is a small Croatian town located in the north of the country, in Varazdin County. The total number of inhabitants at the beginning of the XXI century was almost 3.5 thousand people in the city and almost 9 thousand, if we count the community with the center in Ludbreg. Ludbreg occupies the northern slopes of the Kalnik hills, near the Bednya River, very close to the place where it flows into the Drava. Varaždin is located to the west of Ludbreg, and Koprivnica to the south-east.
The first mention of the city appeared in 1320, when it still bore a different name - Castrum Ludbreg. In the 16th century, the fortress was repeatedly attacked by Turkish armies, but in spite of everything, it withstood.
It is worth mentioning one more fact from the history of this Croatian town, namely: at the beginning of the 15th century, the legend of the "Ludbreg miracle" appeared. Thanks to him, we can safely say that the history of the city and its main attraction are inextricably linked. According to legend, during the church service, the parish priest doubted the reality of transubstantiation and immediately after that the wine with which the liturgical cup was filled turned into true blood. After that, the frightened priest asked to close up an unusual bowl directly into the wall of the temple, but word of this spread throughout the neighborhood - pilgrims began to regularly visit Ludbreg. The relic was transported to Rome, but there it was kept for only a short period, because after the recognition of the miracle by Pope Leo XII in 1513, the cup was transported back to Ludbreg. From that moment on, the relic was kept in the parish church of the Holy Trinity (erected in 1410), but in 1721 von Riessenfels of Augsburg, a goldsmith, placed the bowl in a luxuriously decorated reliquary.
By a decree of the Croatian parliament in 1739, a new church was ordered to be built in honor of the miracle. All works were fully completed only several centuries later, in 1993 residents and guests of Ludbregh were able to contemplate the chapel of the Holy Blood of Christ.
In addition, in Ludbreg there is an excellently preserved Battyany Palace, which once belonged to a magnate family from Hungary. Today, a restoration workshop is located in the building of the palace.
As for interesting events, every year in the first autumn month, pilgrims from all over the world come to the city to attend the "Holy Week" dedicated to the Eucharistic miracle.
