The Adventures of Lory and Z's Travels: Zagreb

First impressions of the city is that it’s a very clean city and a relatively walkable city. Perhaps the later part is because our hotel was well located to the areas that we ended up spending all our time in. Even if that wasn’t the case, the city has a tram system, plenty of taxis and even Uber. We discovered very quickly that Croats enjoy smoking. No matter where we were, we could not escape the stench. We came up with a code word “smokevich” which we used often to alert each other that we might want to consider moving from an area.

Our first night in Zagreb had us stopping at the Laundry Room so that Z could get his clothes washed because his suitcase was still MIA. He found a place that had a drop off service so while we waited we ended up at a park which was set up for a summer festival which had either music or dancing performances every night. We find ourselves some dinner and while we were sitting there eating our traditional Croatian stew, a TV reporter approached us and did a short little interview of us. We later learned, from our Croatians neighbours from back home that our interview actually made it on TV.

To get our bearings we decided to take a free walking tour by Free Spirit Walking Tours. Our guide Luca was a very good story teller and very informative about the history of Zagreb and how the city came to be. The city is the merger of two medieval settlements, Kaptol and Gradec, that occurred in 1850. Both settlements were situated a top a hill that faced each other with a valley and river between them. Often tension arose between these two and battles ensued on what was known as the “Bloody Bridge”. Today this bridge is a cobblestone street and the river has been diverted and no longer runs through the valley. The valley is now home to shops, bars, and houses. We briefly learned about the war of 1991-1995 and Croatia’s independence. We heard about how the President at the time narrowly escaped an assignation attempt when the centre courtyard of the parliament building where he was having lunch was bombed only a few minutes after he and other high ranking government officials moved. While up on the Gradec hill of the city, we stopped by a large tower and waited until noon, which is when someone fires a canon every day signifying that it is mid day. This is followed by all the churches in the city ringing their bells. It’s very loud when you stand right underneath it, but it’s a great way to synchronize your watch! Story goes this canon was fired at 9pm as a signal for the workers in the fields to return to the city because the gate was being locked for the night. If you didn’t make it in on time, you were left stranded on the outside of the city for the night and that wasn’t a good thing because wild animals or thieves could attack you. Another interesting attraction in this area is the Museum of Broken Relationships. We didn’t go on, but were told that in here you can find artifacts from people whose relationship has ended. The museum still gets new items donated today and if they like the story behind the broken relationship, will put the item on display along with the story. Gotta say that’s definitely a new concept for a museum, but it’s apparently very popular. After the tour ended, we had some lunch at a restaurant called Kitchen & Grill just down the steps from the city’s daily farmer’s market, Dolac. We dined on some very tasty, flavourful minced meat dishes, called čevapčić, before heading out to explore more of the city ourselves.

The city has a lot of green spaces and plenty of pedestrian friendly streets lined with cafes and restaurants. The Croats are very social people and one of their favourite pass times is people watching while sipping on their coffee or beer at a street side cafe. We enjoyed our people watching experience at Cotigo Coffee Shop which had amazing coffee, so much so

that we ended up buying some of their coffee beans. Ice cream (gelato) is very popular here and is probably some of the best tasting gelato outside of Italy. Croatia is also becoming known for their wine and we decided to sample several different wines. I took a liking to their Chardonnays. Seems as though baked goods are also very popular in Croatia given the number of bakeries we’ve seen. One of the traditional pastry dishes is called štrukli which is a filo pastry filled with cream cheese. We tried this twice, once cold and once warm. Both are very tasty, but the warm version has the slight edge.

We spent some time wandering through the botanical garden. There is a wide variety of native plant species in the garden as well some some foreign species brought in from South American (water lilies) and Australia (Wollemi pine). The city has quite a few squares as well, but the

main one is Ban Jelačić Square. This square is part of a large pedestrian zone and the common meeting place for people. When the Croatian football team returned from their second place finish in the World Cup, 550,000 people had gathered in this square to welcome them back. That would have been a sight to see and an incredible experience to feel the pride of a nation come together to celebrate their accomplishment. There are shops all around and the prices are quite reasonable.

We’ve had no shortage of great tasting food so far. Most restaurants serve dishes with in season ingredients. Z has set his goal of having fish every day and will have no problems with that. Fish dishes are in abundance here. The great thing about being here during the summer is the weather is hot and restaurants here all have outdoor seating which is a huge treat for us.

This was a great first couple days of our trip that got us climatized and have us a good sense of what to expect in Croatia. And finally after many frustrating phone calls with no answers to where Z’s luggage was, we got news that it was en route to Croatia by its lonely self. What an annoying three days that added unnecessary stress. Z’s luggage arrived the morning we were going to depart Zagreb for our next stop. Thankfully everything was accounted for, and the luggage arrived in good shape. We could now fully enjoy the rest of our vacation.