
Right on the border between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, beneath Plješevica hill, lies Željava Airbase, one of the most fascinating military installations from the era of former Yugoslavia. This underground military base, also known by the code name Object 505, was one of the largest and most expensive military projects in Europe, and today attracts adventurers, historians, and military enthusiasts from around the world.
Built between 1957 and 1965, Željava Airbase was a strategic air base of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). The project cost over $6 billion (in today’s value) and contained five underground tunnels nearly 3.5 kilometers long, designed to withstand a nuclear attack.
The base could accommodate up to 60 MiG-21 fighter aircraft, and the ventilation system, electrical network, and underground facilities were so advanced that they enabled independent operation for months without coming to the surface.
Although the base was disabled and partially destroyed by explosions during the Homeland War, today you can explore its impressive runways and entrances to the underground tunnels. The most famous is main entrance 1, which once concealed combat aircraft ready for takeoff.
At the site, there is also an abandoned Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft, a popular photo subject for visitors. In the surrounding area, you can see remnants of auxiliary buildings, the control tower, and kilometer-long runways now used by photography enthusiasts, filmmakers, and explorers.
⚠ Note: Entering the tunnels is neither safe nor officially permitted due to possible landmines, unstable structures, and lack of lighting.
Željava Airbase is located about 30 minutes’ drive from Guest House Rustico in Rudanovac. The route leads through picturesque landscape at the foot of Plješevica mountain.
If you’re planning to visit Željava Airbase, Guest House Rustico is the perfect base for exploring this part of Lika and the border area with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Set in peaceful surroundings, it offers comfortable accommodation with traditional details and a warm welcome from the hosts.
After a full day of exploring, you can relax in the spacious yard or enjoy dinner at the nearby Bistro Vila Velebita, known for Lika specialties such as lamb under the bell, cheese strudel, and homemade brandies.
Staying at Guest House Rustico opens up opportunities for diverse activities:
Željava Airbase is a fascinating destination for anyone wanting to experience a blend of military history, mystery, and impressive engineering architecture. Located in a unique position between two countries, it offers an unforgettable experience for all visitors.
By staying at Guest House Rustico and enjoying the local specialties of Bistro Vila Velebita, you ensure the perfect combination of adventure, history, and gastronomic pleasure.
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House Rustico Accessibility Statement
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email info@plitviceaccommodation.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to info@plitviceaccommodation.com