Travel Nav  Less than 20 years ago, the fledgling nation of
Croatia was in the throes of the bitter Croatian War of
Independence as it declared sovereignty from Yugoslavia. Front
lines were drawn, road and railway connections were cut by the
fighting, and tourism was dead.  In the years since the war
ended in the late 1990s, Croatia’s coastline and its 1,244
largely unspoilt islands have emerged as one of Europe’s top
tourist hotspots. The likes of Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and
Rovinj have added a new range of hotels and restaurants to their
already attractive Venetian- and Roman-era architecture, and the
Adriatic waters are now alive with yachts.  But Croatia’s
interior, where the war began and hit hardest, has been largely
left behind, and swathes of the Lika and Karlovac regions --
 which lie between the capital of Zagreb and the coast -- remain
devoid of visitors. In the city of Karlovac, the capital of the
Karlovac region and the former front line of the war, many of
the buildings remain pockmarked by bull