Zagreb

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Hey all.
Yesterday I was up very early to catch a train to Zagreb. The train was an older train with these crappy seats that mustve been designed for midgets because the bits of the cushion that is supposed to support your head while resting was doing a great job of supporting my shoulder blades (so so so uncomfortable), that was until about 3 hours into the train ride when I figured out that they can slide up to accomodate all sizes of ppl, HAHA. I am such an idiot, however I was not the only one who didnt figure it out straight away, some didnt figure it out at all. Finally being comfortable I had a chance to sleep the remaining 3 hours of the journey but that didnt happen due to the border crossing into Croatia, where I was approached 4 separate times by armed police and had to show my passport 5 separate times to the authorities. That process took around 40 minutes. Arriving into Zagreb at around midday I high-tailed it around town searching for a place to stay because I heard accomodation can be hard to come by. Luckily enough the first place I approached had a room. Fulir Hostel. This place was really nice and clean. It has a great atmosphere with a great common room with couches and also the roof for communal smoking. After checking in a checked out the city, however, besides a few statues and a cathedral or two there really isnt much in Zagreb for tourists. The only exception to this is the museums. Zagreb supposedly has the greatest number of museums per unit area of any city in the world or europe, i cant remember which. But, anyways the city is pretty but not really set up for tourists. The atmosphere at the hostel was very accomodating for the social drinker, and as I am one of those I enjoyed last night's action. A group of us went out onto the town (several poms, canadians and yanks) but unfortunately the only people partying were us, and we found out the hard way. After heading to a local pub where the bar staff were trying to usher us out the door for loud reasons as soon as we entered the place, we caught a couple of taxis to head to this clubbing district on one of their lakes. 210 kune later (and we are sure they went the long way) we realised that the entire district was closed for the night. The taxi drivers eventually admitted that they sorta new that they were closed for the night. So we basically went for a 30 min joy ride, but with the shenanigans going on in the car it was totally worth it! So in the end out night was cut short by a good 5 hours. After a pleasant sleep in it was time to see the few sights of zagreb i hadnt already seen. Covering these quickly, and having been intrigued by some mountains on the way into zagreb I took a bus to the top of a mountain towering over zagreb. This mountain was part of a national park and was used during winter as a very small ski resort. However, being summer, it was the perfect opportunity for a hike. Having heard of issues of ticks during the summer months and the related health issues I decided to stick to the major tracks and not be too adventurous (got some nice photos and ill post them asap). Back at the hostel for the evening, a group of us chatted whist watching a documentary channel in the common room, which was a real nice change to the usual habit of heading out on the town. Tomorrow the plan is to catch the early train again on my way down to the COAST!!!!al town of Split.

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Photos

Mountain Road
Near Sljeme