Croatia: Zagreb And Down The Dalmatian Coast

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Croatia (November 9 - 16)

Zagreb (Thursday November 9 - Saturday November 11)

We liked Zagreb a lot more than we would have expected based on what we read. Most of what we read on travel sites said to either skip it or come for a few hours and then move on. We thought a quick departure might be a possibility so we stored our bags at the train station before taking a walk around town. Croatia has a population of about 4.5 million people, almost 800,000 of whom live in Zagreb. The city grew out of a pair of walled cities that were founded more than 1,000 years ago, the name Zagreb being mentioned for the first time in a 1094 charter issued by King Ladislas I. Zagreb has been the capital city of Croatia since it declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and there are virtually no visible signs of the war.

After a visit to the tourism office, the jumping city center, and a cevapi (minced meat) and sausage lunch we decided we would need to spend a night or two in town. The street from the train station to the city center consists of a series of long parks lined with old buildings. The parks are very lively and at all hours full of people relaxing or strolling among the gardens and statuary. The city center itself spirals outwards from the bustling Jelacic Square and features an amazing combination of old style markets, trendy cafes, and colorful walking streets offering all manner of junk food and shopping.

We ended up walking over to Hotel Ilica (www.hotel-ilica.hr) and found a cheap enough room. Not cheap by any definition of the room but a fairly good value for Zagreb where rooms are very expensive for some reason. We liked our hotel and we even periodically received a free wireless signal. The people at the hotel were nice, particularly Goran, an older gentleman who worked at night. Having secured our accommodation we caught the tram back to the train station and we almost made it before realizing our claim ticket was in our passport that the hotel was holding (the gruff, unshaven night man at the twenty-four hour baggage window in the Zagreb train station did not look like a man who would bend easily for tales of forgotten claim tickets - and he wasn’t). By the end of the first day we had mastered the train station to Hotel Ilica route on the city tram.

We found Zagreb to be friendly and thought it was a really nice place to walk around. It is an attractive city, particularly decked out for the holidays, and appears to be experiencing something of a commercial and entertainment boom. Once we left Slovenia the food improved immensely in price, variety and taste (particularly on the budget end). We stumbled upon a little hut where they sold a variety of hot dogs (brats, etc.) where we had dinner the first night and lunch the second day. There was always a line and the hot dogs were the best of the trip (the fact that each was boiled, grilled upon order, and slid into a hot roll, accentuated the taste). We enjoyed the less snooty Zagreb café culture and patronized several of the street cafes and stopped for some decadent desserts when we were tired from walking. Our most memorable non-hot dog dinner was at Stari Fijaker, near to and recommended by our hotel. We placed our order only to find that they didn’t have what we wanted but the waiter promised to bring us some specialties that we would enjoy. We are not certain what it was that we ate that night - something along the lines of veal stuffed with ham and cucumber with a red sauce and fried potatoes - but it was very good.

We spent almost a full day walking a combination of the two city walking tours recommended by the Zagreb tourist information office in Jelacic Square. The first part of our walk centered on Upper Town, the twin hills that housed the original settlements that went on to become Zagreb, Kaptol and Gradec. Kaptol is home to the city’s soaring neo-gothic Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary and St. Stephen, a cool statue of famous Croatian writer and poet August Senoa, and the city’s main market, Dolac. From Kaptol we descended to Ivan Tlakcic Street, an area previously called Potok (The Brook) known for craftsmen and tradesmen, and ascended into Gradec. Gradec features a variety of prominent sights, including Stone Gate, the only remaining gate of the four original gates of the walled city, the 13th century St. Mark’s Church complete with its colorfully tiled roof, and the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia. At the edge of the hill at Lotrscak Tower we took in the beautiful view of modern Zagreb before heading into the lower part of the city. A good portion of the walking route overlapped with a school field trip that consisted of the most bored looking Croatians we would see.

Our walk around the much less congested lower part of Zagreb led us in a large loop that took us past the Croatian National Theatre at Marshal Tito Square, the Mimara Art Museum, and The Botanical Gardens (which were closed but looked lovely). Our tour concluded at the train station and the underground shopping area near the station. The arcade was very busy with shoppers, commuters, diners and kids hanging around.

Having concluded our two day exploration of Zagreb we left charmed and eager to see more of Croatia.

Split (Saturday November 11 - Monday November 13)

We planned on taking the train from Zagreb to the old coastal city of Split on the Dalmatian Coast, but when we tried to purchase the tickets the vendor told us there was only bus service to Split. Sure enough when we re-consulted the departures sign in the terminal there was an indication that the “train” was a bus service. We’re not sure if we got charged the train price but it was the nicest bus we’ve been on thus far and there were only a couple other people on the bus.

After a long drive that featured vast and scraggly desert, segments of which looked so lunar that the occasional flocks of sheep or goats seemed positively out of place, we arrived at the well-worn looking town of Split.

Our bus arrived to a crowd of locals looking to catch tourists and offer accommodation in their homes. We were approached by a big Croatian guy, who seemed to un-delicately advance through the crowd of otherwise older women, asking us if we needed a room. As if to establish his credibility he told us it was just he and his “mama” offering the room at which point a smiling woman appeared behind Amy, pointing a finger at herself and saying "mama." The man had been a sergeant in the Croatian army for 15 years and his brothers, a pair of twins, are professional body builders in Long Beach, California. We hear it is near LA.

The man suggested that Amy would be safe with Mama while Roger went with him to look at the room. It sounds like a bad idea for one of us to wander off with a large Croatian soldier while leaving the other and the backpacks in the care of the lady at the bus station, but that’s what we did. It is so common for people to rent out rooms here that the practice is actually listed in the guidebooks (it's a good way to save money, too, if you can overcome your American need for privacy and distrust of situations that lead you into the homes of strangers).

After walking across the railroad tracks, across a couple of streets, and through one building to an ally and our destination, the room was found to be perfectly satisfactory, a tidy bedroom in an otherwise private and quaint apartment. Our hosts were all very kind if uninterested in us. We shared a bathroom with Mama and the rest of the family (Mama’s husband, her son and, we think, a friend’s son). None of them spoke English too well and it was a little awkward, but nice. When we got in from dinner Mama was on the couch watching soccer. Just like at home. We would come and go as we pleased for two nights, family members rarely stirring from watching their flat panel television, but it provided good, cheap accommodation and an interesting window into the affairs of one local family, the Ivanovic family (we like to think of it as Mama's House).

We went out to dinner at Sperun, a place recommended in the section of the guidebook that the nice Canadian couple we’d met in Bled passed along to us. Roger had scampi risotto and Amy had a fish stew that was all very good. There was a couple sitting next to us and when they ordered American coffee Roger asked where they usually order their coffee. We ended up talking to them for a couple of hours and going to dinner with them the next night (trying Sperun again only to find it closed and settling for inferior food down the road). They were from Portland but had spent the last 10 years teaching in international schools around the world and were currently taking a 1 year break to travel before they start teaching again.

Split is Croatia’s second largest city (around 175,000 people). Smack dab in the middle of things just off of the scenic harbor and the (under construction) esplanade is an ancient walled palace, built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian as a retirement home. Built around the 4th century AD the palace fell into disrepair after Diocletian’s reign and eventually became home to those fleeing Slavic invaders. What was essentially shelter during medieval times is today a surprisingly accessible and complete Roman ruin. Among the few tourists we saw (slow season + rain = a nice quiet palace) there were plenty of examples of locals going on about their business among their homes in the ancient walled palace.

Split is probably better for a couple of hours look rather than a couple of days. Immediately after arriving we thought we need to stay a 2nd night but on our second day after looking around for a little while we were bored. It worked out well because we got to hang out with the Portland couple and we didn’t really have anywhere else to go so we stayed. We just wandered around the town but most of the stuff was closed by the time we arrived on Sat. and was still closed on Sunday. So we looked at the ruins, which weren’t too impressive, and strolled some of the stone streets and alley ways of the old city.

Dubrovnik (Monday November 13 - 16)

The bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik was a lot longer than the distance would seem to necessitate, mostly due to the nature of the road. Hugging the coastline the road rarely leaves view of the sparkling sea. When it does veer inland the slowing twists and turns of the coast are replaced by significant hills and mountains and a short stop at the Bosnian border where you cut across a sliver of Bosnia before re-entering the southern coast of Croatia. All along the drive the scenery was very nice and we spent a lot of the journey talking rugby with a young couple from New Zealand currently on holiday from their jobs in Ireland. Note: before traveling you should brush up on cricket and rugby, two topics almost guaranteed to set off a conversation with a Kiwi, most Aussies, and many English folks.

The Dubrovnik bus station is well outside of the city and we had to jam ourselves, and our sizable backpacks, onto a local bus in an effort to reach the old walled city center where we hoped to find accommodation. Following the recommendation of the Portland couple, who were basically doing the reverse of our route, we sought out a particular bed and breakfast despite the fact that they had not returned our email inquiries. When there was no answer at their door we tried to find a phone and call only to be informed they were full and that rather than engage in pleasantries that they would prefer to hang up on us. This may not sound like a traumatic experience until you consider the fact that much of Dubrovnik is situated along very narrow, very steep walkways that can turn trudging up stairs with backpacks into a form of relationship therapy.

Our sliver of guidebook provided a good option that worked out very well and we secured a room with a shared bathroom (though we never had to share as the other room remained empty during our stay). The home itself was situated right along the wall of the city overlooking the harbor and we had a splendid view. Despite the remote location we also picked up a free wi-fi connection for a few hours each night (had we discovered this unlikely signal we may have saved the almost $40 we spent in an internet café trying to plan out the next couple of months of our trip on the first night). The woman we stayed with was nice but had her own part of the house so we didn’t see her much.

Dubrovnik is a gem of a town and has long been a prime destination for tourists (the city was a major naval power 500 years ago). The blue waters, perfect sunsets, and antique ambience within the massive stone walls of the old city combine to make it a terrific place to relax and explore. As Yugoslavia fell the symbolic value of the city, as well as the cash flow the tourism industry could command here, made it a giant bulls-eye. Following the Croatian declaration of independence from Yugoslavia battleships pulled into the waters off the shore and snipers and artillery lined the rim of the mountain above the city. For 8 months in 1991 and 1992 the city was isolated and bombarded, shells and gunfire raining down on it constantly. Today there’s little that indicates the terror except for the new roof tiles visible from the city walls.

The highlight of our visit was our walk around the city walls and the accompanying views into the city and out to the water. The city walls are occasionally breached by a modern café patio, a not-so-modern café among the rocks, and ropes of laundry strung from windows. There’s a perfect little place that is cut into the rocks where they serve drinks though we skipped it because they close around 4pm, a crying shame as the rocky spot would be perfect for watching the sunset over the water (supposedly this is where Bill Gates drinks when he is in town - we did not see him). Lots of shops and restaurants were closed or operating on shorter hours while we were there and 2 of the 3 recommended restaurants in our guidebook were simply closed for a week or two.

It was pretty quiet while we were there although we can imagine how crazy it gets with tourists during the summer (certainly the types of shops and the prices reflect a steady flow of vacationing shoppers who love gelato). The first day we were there were a few tour groups, probably from cruises that stop there, but at night the city took on a quiet, surreal atmosphere. The whole time we were there were kids from semester at sea, and boy can those kids shop. It’s a small resort town with touristy prices but that didn’t stop these kids from shopping at Benneton and Esprit like they’d never seen those shops before.

The winter sun and the streets combined to make the city pretty chilly most of the day. Unless you were standing in direct sunlight, very little of which reached whole lanes in the town, it was cool to chilling in the shade as the stone streets and buildings acted like giant ice cubes. The weather was awfully nice, though, and as we poked around we saw a few people swimming along the rocky shore, which was really tempting. The water along the edge of the city is very deep and clear and beckons even to those of us generally disinterested in swimming. One evening we got some snacks and beer and went to watch the sunset from some concrete platforms that appear to serve as a small public beach under one of the city walls, a very pleasant treat and one we would recommend to anyone passing this way. We spent a lot of time just wandering around the town admiring the city itself and browsing the tourist shops.

We found a nice café on the old city’s main road (most of the “roads” in the old city are walking streets) where we could sit outside, sip coffee, enjoy free wifi, and watch the tourists spend and swell. We also found a great cheap sandwich shop where we ate lunch most days for grilled panini with salami and cheese and a terrific breakfast bar that served the most heavenly muesli-yogurt-fruit bowl. The first two nights we ate at the water front restaurant Lokanda Peskaria, splitting seafood risotto and mussels and a marinated anchovies starter one night and seafood risotto and whole grilled squid the second. The reasonably priced food was outstanding and the seafood remarkably fresh, so much so that even having eaten there twice we left regretting that we did not go back a third night when we instead opted for Restaurant Dundo Matofe. At Dundo Matofe we had grilled sardines to start, white risotto with scampi for Roger and black risotto with cuttlefish for Amy. A good but rich meal that came with a cover charge (the first time we were charged a sitting fee since we left Italy, listed as an item on the menu so we didn’t know until we got the bill). We didn’t feel so good afterwards either but probably because it was so rich.

Our only errand in Dubrovnik was the long and difficult process of getting laundry done. Much like in Slovenia this service was virtually nowhere to be found. In order to do laundry we had to walk about 20 minutes from where we were staying (30 if you get hopelessly lost, we hear) and drop it off and pay 12 Euros for them to wash and dry 1 load. But boy did it smell good.

There are not many cities as attractive as Dubrovnik and we had a very nice time there. The drawback, naturally, is that the city is so appealing that it draws large numbers of package tourists and businesses that tourists like (pizza, anyone?). We are not sure that Bill Gates visits as they say he does, but if we win Powerball it is one place you may want to look for us.

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Photos

Dubrovnik
Laundry by colors.

Split
The normally scenic esplanade under construction.

Comments

[Franco]

Great photos and in-depth accounts of the country.

[tammy]

really nice recap
Your recap is now bookmarked in my Europe section. I'm thinking of retracing your footsteps for my own adventure. Thanks!