Domžale, the town that made straw hats for half of Europe

A town made of factories

The municipality of Domžale covers 72.3 km² next to Ljubljana and, with 38,326 inhabitants, is one of the most populous in the country; the town itself has 13,326. There are two theories about the name, according to the tourist office. One says it comes from Old Slavic and means cemetery; the other, that it refers to a riverbank. The name appears at the time of the Turkish raids.

What made Domžale grow was straw hats. The Slovenian Tourist Board recalls that the town and its surroundings were famous for making them, and the local tourist office tells the story factory by factory. Today’s town hall occupies the first Tyrolean factory, J. Mellitzer, Kleinlercher & Co., built in 1874 in the middle of a field; the town centre grew up around it later. In 1882 the Oberwalder brothers, also from Tyrol, opened another, which after the war was called Univerzale and made 300,377 hats in 1964, before the machines went silent in 2003. The largest of all, Ladstätter’s, styled itself a supplier to the imperial court, with its head office in Vienna and branches across Europe; all that remains of it now is a chimney in a car park.

What to see: the Straw Hat Museum and the walk

Since 2012 the Straw Hat Museum has been housed in the Godbeni dom, the brass band hall. The band was founded in 1884 by the schoolteacher Franc Pfeifer, and its hall, opened on 4 August 1929, was the first of its kind in what was then Yugoslavia.

The tourist office suggests a walk linking the museum with the Menačenk house, a tailors’ house of 1898 turned ethnological museum, with the Ahčin family’s furniture, tools and clothes and, in the attic, works by the sculptor France Ahčin. It continues up Goričica hill, where the Church of the Assumption, of 1892, stands on the site of a 16th-century fortified church, and past the Kulturni dom Franca Bernika, an Art Nouveau building of 1910 by the architect Franc Ravnikar, with a theatre and cinema. At the entrance to Češmin Park, the largest in town, stands the Zajec wayside shrine, a work by Plečnik from 1935 and 1936, and the walk ends at the market. More of the architect’s work is in Plečnik’s Ljubljana.

Castles, theatre and festivals

Outside town, Krumperk Castle is a Renaissance building of around 1580, with corner towers, built by the Ravbar knights. The mother of the historian Valvasor was born here, and Adam Ravbar lived here, hero of the battle of Sisak against the Turks on 22 June 1593. It is privately owned and not open inside, but there is a riding centre beside it and, nearby, the Železna jama cave.

The Studenec summer theatre, near Krtina, is according to the tourist office the third-largest covered open-air theatre in Slovenia, under a green canvas roof between the woods and the fields. The local company has been staging plays since 1949 and its summer festival runs from May to June. On top of that come a festival of comedy actors in Dob and EtnoRock, on the last Friday of August.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Domžale for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

Getting there and what to combine

Domžale is very well connected. Ljubljana bus station listed 110 departures on Monday 19 October 2026, from 4:30am to 11:30pm, taking 28 to 50 minutes, and 33 on the Saturday. By car, leave the A1 motorway at Domžale. The Ljubljana to Kamnik railway, which passes through, has been running since 1891.

It combines easily with its neighbours. The Volčji Potok arboretum is close by on the way to Kamnik, and Kamnik and Velika Planina lie a little further north. It is all in the guide to central Slovenia.

My take on Domžale

I would not come to Domžale for its own sake. But if you are heading for Kamnik or the arboretum, it makes a short stop with a story you do not expect, that of a town that sold straw hats across half of Europe, and the Studenec theatre in summer is worth the detour. Close by, Mengeš has the church of St Michael, reworked by Plečnik in the 1950s, and Jablje Castle.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Domžale for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.