Lovely Zagreb (Croatia)!

About a dozen years ago, we traveled (mostly by bicycle) along the Dalmation coast of Croatia.  But we never made it to Zagreb, so here we are.

Getting here from Corsica was an adventure! The best (!?) connection was offered by Air France through Paris. If you look at a map, this makes NO sense, but the worst of it was that we flew into Orly and out of Charles de Gaulle with 3 hours to get from one side of Paris to the other in rush hour on Le Bus Direct…and we didn’t make it. Air France rebooked us for the next day at no charge, but couldn’t spring for a hotel room because our first flight was on time. The agent did help us to identify a reasonably priced room for the night, however.  Ahhh… the adventures of air travel…

Once we arrived in Zagreb, we knew we’d come to a civilized place.  We got an Uber from the airport to our beautiful apartment

in an old building with high ceilings, right in the middle of the city.

Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia, is a vibrant city.  We arrived on a weekend when it seemed that everyone was out in the cafes.

The architecture of the city is a mix of lovely Austro-Hungarian blocks

and blocky, ugly Soviet buildings (not worth a photo…).

On our first full day, we took a ‘free’ walking tour (tip what you like at the end…) to get acquainted with the history and major sights.  St Mark’s Church adjacent to the Croatian Parliament displays symbols of this history on its remarkable tiled roof.

And our guide pointed out these rooftop devices that were installed to skewer witches flying by in the dark…in the days of REAL “witch hunts.”

Another day we enjoyed the outdoor cafe at the beautiful National Theater

before walking through the Botanic Gardens and many of the parks that dot the city.

To learn about Croatian wines, we found two recommended wine bars and tasted through flights with explanation of the four wine-producing regions and the many unfamiliar grapes that are used.

Our best experience was at Vinoteka Bornstein, a picturesque cellar run by a transplanted Aussie.

We tried 1 sparking, 2 whites and 3 reds accompanied by Croatian cheese and olive oil.  We came away with three bottles (2 reds and the sparkling) to have with dinner over the next couple of nights. And we are impressed! Our favorite white is Grašvina, and red is Plavic Mali ( a distant relative of Zinfandel).

While in Zagreb, we rode a funicular that is the shortest passenger cable railway in the world (66 meters in 55 seconds),

checked out the Museum of Broken Relationships (sad but with some lessons…),

tried Štrukli, a traditional Croatian dish of pasta and cheese (that we honestly found fairly bland),

and walked through a series of tunnels used as shelters during the Croatian war for independence in the 1990s.

I enjoyed shopping daily at the enormous Dolac Market, where I could buy every food we needed – meat (once I figured out the words for veal, beef and pork), veggies, fruit and flowers.

Sadly, we never ventured out to the national parks that are a few hours outside of Zagreb.  Most of the organized day trips don’t begin until May.