The Balkans: Day 14 – Zagreb, Croatia.

We hit the turps last night with some of our fellow travellers, so this post is a day late.

This magnificent hall was built in Budapest in 1896, then a few years later it was pulled apart and transported here. This was the starting point of our walking tour of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, on the last day of our tour.

Nearby is this grand hotel, which was built in 1925 to house the passengers on the Orient Express.

In the late19th century, 7 parks were created in a U shape… “ The Green Horseshoe” around the old city.

Even given the green belt, I didn’t really warm to Zagreb as I have to most of the other cities on this tour. We did the walking tour in the Old Cities, but Zagreb is ringed by lots of Brutalist architecture that is never attractive.

Well, apart from in Pyongyang in North Korea, where they had the sense to paint the concrete with pretty colours.

See? The city of Pyongyang, North Korea. This is all Brutalist architecture from Russia, yet the city looks so lovely. I took this in 2018, from the top of Juche Tower.

oops. Back to Zagreb!

This cathedral is The Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary, Saint Stephen and Saint Ladislav. This area has had bad luck with churches.

Everything in the area here was destroyed by the mongol army in 1242, including the Catholic cathedral that was built here. Genghis Khan’s grandson was the leader of the Mongol army.

Can you imagine? Croatia is a LONG way from Mongolia.

Zagreb was hit by a big earthquake during the Covid lockdowns, and the cathedral was one of many buildings that were destroyed or severely damaged. Our local guide said that the quake happened on a Sunday morning, when the streets would normally have been busy. Due to everyone being inside when the quake struck, there was only one casualty.

Walls 16th century against the Ottomans. Completely encircling the cathedral, so it wouldn’t be destroyed like with the Mongols.

It’s amazing. People who actually learn from history. It worked, by the way.

This is the Bloody Bridge street. Old Zagreb was formed by two villages on either side of a river. There was no love lost between them, and it reached fever pitch one day in the 1500s, when a fight broke out between them that was so fierce that the bridge was covered in blood and even the river below ran red.

This is the only gate remaining of the original wall that encircled one of the villages. There man who devised the wall, after the Mongols had paid a visit, allowed all settlers to be exempt from taxes. All they had to do in return was to help build the wall.

A couple of hundred years ago there was a terrible fire here and most of the buildings were destroyed. One thing survived… a painting of the Virgin Mary and her baby. Clearly this was a miracle.

Since then, the painting has been on display at the gate and has reportedly been quite effective in answering prayers. A little church, with pews and lit candles is here, tucked away within the doorway of the old wall.

See that spiky thing on the roof? That’s to ward off witches.
I’ll bet it still works.

We rounded the corner to see this church. The amazing roof tiles were put on in the late 1800s, and the city keeps them sparkling clean. The left coat of arms is Croatia and the right is Zagreb, the city on a hill.

After this, we had free time for around 3 hours, which frankly, was a lot of time for a city like this. There were a couple of things we wanted to do.

One was to ride the world’s smallest funicular. It runs for a whopping 52 metres and takes 63 seconds. It costs 63 cents.

It took us back up to this tower, where at 12 midday every day, a cannon is fired to mark the time.

I had to use Lyndall’s video here, as I started filming a second too late.

Then, it was a short walk to get to this museum. Jake had mentioned this place a couple of days ago, and it sounded interesting.

Basically, a long-term artistic couple broke up and decided to put some of their belongings on exhibit, with printed explanations of their significance. Soon, other people started bringing in their own stuff, and the museum was born.

There are a few other spin offs around the world, but this is the original one.

Thankfully, each exhibit has an English explanation.

The exhibits are changed fairly regularly.

Some are funny, some are sad and some are just plain weird. There’s something for everyone.

This is Slovenia/the Balkans breaking up with Melania Trump.

Afterwards, Blogless Sandy and I took our bread roll lunches from the breakfast bar along to a bench under some trees. We passed by these workmen restoring this beautiful building. There was lots of restoration work going on in the city.

Some of you may remember when Megan and I were travelling in Canada, and we had a disagreement about whether this was called a pavilion or a rotunda. It turns out that in Canada, it’s called a gazebo.
I took this photo and sent it to her, saying, “ I’m going to go sit in this pavilion. Sandy’s carrying on walking because she’s looking for a rotunda.”

The next morning, Megan comes back with, “Did you look for a bandstand or a gazebo?”

Nice. I replied, “Unfortunately, we didn’t have a thesaurus within easy reach.”

😂😂

We have over 30 hours of travel time looming ahead of us. By Saturday, we should be back home.

Dad joke of the day: