Zagreb - My new Favorite City!

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What an awesome City!!!!!! Check for extra photos at the end.



Sunday 10 May:



Despite the late night Zachary was still awake at 6am! The hostel has no breakfast or kitchen facilities so we had to potter around until 7:30 when we headed off to the nearby main square, in the hope of finding a café that served breakfast open. No such luck but McD’s opened at 8 so we went for that. Their breakfast menu is a bit different from NZ’s but we all managed to find something we want and it was cheapish.



Then we headed back to the hostel to pick up the laundry and we got day passes for the trams (30 kunas or about $6 for adults) and I established which tram to get and where to get off. The laundromat was a bit busy and the signs were a bit confusing at first but we established you had to buy tokens. Each token was 5 kunas ($1) and it was 5 tokens for a wash including soap, plus 1 token 10 minutes of drying. Zachary and I left Heather to it while we headed for Maksimir Park. Heather later reported this was an excellent laundrette and she was chatting to a man who was there with a daughter of about Zachary’s age. She apparently found it fascinating that Heather spoke another language! As well as being an excellent laundrette it had free wi-fi so Heather was able to get some stuff done online.



Meanwhile. We had arrived at Maksimir Park which was starting to get busy. An orchestra with an opera singer was on stage and food and drink stalls were being set up. We headed over to check out the zoo, which is in the park. We may go there on Tuesday morning (we leave at 3pm) but I will check online as to how good or otherwise it is. Bad zoos are very depressing.



We then headed over to the playground which Zachary had a great time at. After that we had our croissants (Zachary has now decided he likes croissants) and walked across a field to a lake where lots of people were throwing sticks into the water for their dogs to retrieve. Zachary found this quite fascinating. I absolutely loved this park. There were lots of paths to take through the forest areas as well as the playground and fields. It had warmed up considerably and it was lovely in the shaded areas. I have been to many city parks in my time, but I am struggling to think of one better than this. Really, really beautiful.



We met Heather back at the hostel before we all headed for the park again. Zachary had spotted pony / horse rides and said he would like to do one. So we got back and he chose to go on the small white one. For a very reasonable 25 kunas ($5) he got led around the path through the park for about 10 minutes. He thought this was just fantastic! He really likes animals and seems to like horses in particular. Then back to the playground where we had an issue with a boy, I think about 6, who was in the wooden train “driving” and refused to let Zachary have a turn. He was extremely rude and obnoxious. His father came over and did nothing to alleviate the situation. So we explained to Zachary that not all boys have good manners and know how to share, and we went to get ice cream instead. There was a promotion going on at the park where they were giving away bottles of “Cockta Easy” which seems to be a Slovenian version of Diet Coke. We tried it, and they can keep it!



Back to the main square of Zagreb, Ban Jelicic Square. There is an impressive statue of Josip Jelacic, who, in 1848 defeated the Hungarians in an uprising. The statue was removed in 1947 after Yugoslavia was re-formed. But as it broke up again in 1990 the statue came back, but now faces away from Hungary. The square with its adjacent Cathedral and the main commercial street of Ilica is very nice. We walked over to take the vernuncular (Heather’s word) up the hill from the Lower to Upper town, but unfortunately it is out of service until 17 May. But we did go on the “tourist train” ride which does a loop of the city so you see some of the best buildings. This was advertised online as costing 10 kunas for adults and 5 for children which seemed cheap. Even better when we found out it was free! Zachary lasted half the ride before falling fast asleep.



We found a place that did huge slices of pizza for 10 kunas ($2) and Zachary got chicken nuggets and Belgian fries. Dinner for 3 for $9 and we could have managed without the side of large fries we got which was $2.50. I thought Italy was cheap to eat, but Zagreb is something else. Even our ice-creams were cheap – we got local versions of Magnums for 10 kunas. Strawberries are 26 kunas ($5) a kilo.



Got Zachary asleep at 6:45 after a bit of fussing then I headed downstairs to publish the previous blog and do stuff online. Local beer in the vending machine here is 8 kunas ($1.50) for a can and it is quite drinkable!



Zagreb really is a very nice city from what we have seen so far. If a city can be “pretty” then I guess Zagreb is, but the one thing that spoils it a bit is the abundance of tagging. It is everywhere – even worse than Rome. I don’t know if there has ever been an effort to clear it up, but it really does detract from what is a very attractive city. I love the long roads, the open spaces and the architecture.



Monday 11 May:



Zachary awake just after 5! Managed to get him to play fairly quietly on his tablet for a bit and then we started to get ourselves ready. Heather had a Guiding Skype call at 7 while Zachary and I went to the supermarket. Came back with what we needed, including a bar of laundry soap – something we had been unable to find on our journey thus far. We then had a Skype call with Mama at 8am after which we headed to Ban Jelacic Square to find breakfast and start exploring. We bought 2 warm potato and bacon savoury pastries, 3 large blueberry and custard danishes, plus a chocolate topped and filled croissant for the princely sum of just under $6 and then thought we would go to the “Zagreb Eye” – a viewing area on the old city’s “skyscraper” which is 16 storeys. However it wasn’t open until 10 so we decided to go back to Maksimir Park and visit the zoo. We did this with some level of trepidation. Reviews on TripAdvisor were mixed and it could go either way. However on the whole we were impressed. It is an “old style” zoo in some respects but you can see that they have made a lot of effort to improve it. Most of the enclosures were adequate, and a couple we thought were world class. The main issue was with many of the bird enclosures. But overall we would have to give them a pass mark and it would be interesting to go back in five years. They have acquired some business sponsorship to upgrade many of the enclosures and renovations and upgrades are in full swing. Entry is cheap (30 kunas or $6, but 20 kunas on Mondays) and by the time we left it was quite busy.



We ended up staying there for a good 2 ½ hours and then went back to Ban Jelacic Square, stopping to pick up a 500g punnet of strawberries for 13 kunas ($2.50) on the way. We ate them in the Square and then headed up to the Zagreb Eye. Good views of the city were to be had and the staff were very helpful. They had some games table inside as well as a bar / café so we had a drink and Zachary beat me fair and square at ludo. Then we hopped on another tram and went across the Sava river to Bundek Lake.



We found another good playground at a park just by the tram stop and Zachary played very nicely with a 19 month old boy there. We then walked to the lake. It is a man-made lake with stony surrounds. A few people were sunbathing and there were a lot of swans on the water. We had ice-blocks and enjoyed the scenery. The good weather has continued to follow us. Temperatures here at this time of year are typically in the 16-20 degree range. However we had another day in the mid 20s and the sky was clear.



On the way back we briefly stopped at the bus station from where we leave tomorrow to suss it out. We will decide in the morning whether to store our luggage at the hostel or the bus station as we depart a 3pm.



We had spotted a Chinese restaurant just round the corner from the hostel so we checked the menu and it looked good. We went and got changed and headed back. We got three mains to share plus 2 desserts, a wine, beer, and soft drink and we were stuffed full by the end! Again, prices continue to impress me – the entire bill was 269 kunas, or about $53.



Zachary was excellent today. We had a few talks with him about how he needed to not be silly, listen, and behave, and that would mean we all had a fun day. He certainly took this on board today and we had a great day. For all of us I think it was certainly the best day of our holiday so far. He was even very sensible and grown-up at the restaurant. Zagreb is awesome and we have a fair chunk of tomorrow to enjoy it a bit more. We’ll go to the Botanic Gardens and see what else we fancy. Then it will be time to do some grocery shopping (might as well do it here where it is so cheap!) before two buses will take us to Lake Bled, Slovenia via Ljubljana.



Bed on time but Rabbit is missing!!!!!!!

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