Zagreb

Now that I no longer have to spend all my time and money going to Scotland every few weeks, I've been diverting it back to seeing more new places.* My original idea was to spend around 10 days going all across a few countries in Eastern Europe, most of which were once part of Yugoslavia. When I do these kinds of trips, I usually like to fly into one major city and out of a different one, while taking trains around to points in between. Once I started looking into logistics, though, I found that my usual methods will not apply here. Flights are limited and connect somewhere out of the way, and trains are either extremely long or don't go at all, due to terrain or lack of demand.

So I settled on two major cities, with a train of just a couple hours running between them. First stop: Zagreb, Croatia.

When most people think of Croatia these days, they think of everyone's pretty pictures of the coastline and Dubrovnik, or the countryside. I'm definitely more of a city girl, and have seen stories that poor Dubrovnik's getting way overrun with more tourists than they can handle... plus, it's really hard to find flights there. So Zagreb, here we go!

As per my routine, I spent 2 nights here, giving myself one full day to see the city. My hotel is right on the main square, which makes it perfectly situated for me to just head out and see what I found. Just about everything listed in my guide book was within walking distance, so I headed out yesterday morning, figuring I'd pick my attractions by what I came across in my ramblings. I first wandered through about 3 blocks of parks (Park Zrinjevac and Park Josipa Jurja Strossmayera, per the map), which were busy getting set up for an 'open air festival' apparently coming soon.

At the end of the 3rd green space was the central train station, where I stopped to sort my ticket to Ljubljana for today. I'd tried to buy it online a couple of times, but the website told me I couldn't purchase it there. I had multiple online sources assuring me that the train does run, and tickets can only be bought in person, but I'm not the type who's okay with just rocking up on the day and assuming everything will be fine. Lucky that, since I discovered at the station that there are no longer any trains between the two cities. Oh boy, an adventure!

On the walk back toward my hotel, I popped into the National Modern Gallery, which features roughly 200 years of Croatian artists. It was great, definitely worth the price of admission... which isn't much anyway. I love seeing art in my travels, especially places like this where they focus on locals -- it's something I couldn't find anywhere else.

After a brief stop back in the hotel to handle my transportation concerns, I walked out to spend a good chunk of time at the Zagreb Cathedral (love me a fancy house of worship) and Tržnica Dolac (the farmers' market), then did some shopping around the main square. 

In general, Zagreb is familiar. As the capital of a country that found its way out of a communist past, it shares traits with similar cities I've visited. But flying over from the UK I was surprised to only have to change the time by an hour, and realised Zagreb is further west than Vienna and Stockholm. Geographically, it's pretty central, so I found it odd that it would be considered Eastern.... until I arrived and took a stroll through town. Now that I've been here, I get it; it's very much Eastern Europe in spirit.

I've eaten well here, but the interwebs couldn't agree on whether the water here was okay to drink or not. I've been pretty cavalier downing tap water in most of my travels, but still always do a quick search on arrival so as not to be totally stupid. In the end, I drank bottled sparkling water during the day (my preference anyway) and used the taps for my coffee and oatmeal in the morning. While I've had no issues from consuming it, my travel electric kettle did end up with thick sludge inside from a white powdery sediment in the water. I know the water is very hard here, so it's most likely just a mineral that's harmless... but fair warning, it's pretty unappetizing to see that crud floating around. Zagreb's tap water is not for the faint of heart.

In a couple of hours I will check out of my hotel and get on a bus (a BUS!) to Slovenia. When I found no trains available, my options were to fly (expensive at the last minute, nothing direct), rent a car and drive (more money and hassle than I'd like for one trip of less than 100 miles), or a cheap direct bus. Fine. Sold. It's only 2.5 hours, so I can suck it up... this once.


*To an extent. I am bookending this trip with Edinburgh and London, but that's a different subject for another day.