Zagreb Blog

I've just arrived back at the hostel after a 7 hour walking day and my feet are killing me! Definitely time for a sit-down so thought I'd write about Zagreb. I actually had no intentions of coming to this city but, as I mentioned in my last blog, it was the easiest way of getting to Slovenia. For some reason I had this preconceived notion that the city would be grey and horrible, perhaps because most of Croatia is on the coastline whereas Zagreb is well inland. How wrong I was and how pleased I am that I came! I arrived here at lunchtime yesterday and, as soon as I'd dumped my stuff at the hostel, I set out walking as it was a beautiful spring day, at last! I called into the information centre and was given a wonderful booklet that enabled you to do a self-guided tour. The city is divided into the Upper Town and the Lower Town so I started with the Upper. You wound your way through lovely streets, gradually climbing to where the cathedral is. I'm at the stage now where I just take a quick glimpse inside, they're all starting to look pretty similar. Most of the churches seem to be in the Upper Town, along with all of the official government buildings. I walked around the Lower Town today and this was mostly about the lovely garden squares and the museums. Back in the 19th century, a municipal engineer by the name of Lenuci designed a horseshoe of garden squares, eight of them in all. They were all beautiful and so well maintained. I am really loving all of the flowers, particularly the tulips. The Botanical Gardens form the base of the horseshoe and they're free to enter. There are some strict rules governing behaviour though. The one that amused me was 'no shouting'. There was quite a large group of school kids there and they obviously hadn't read this rule! They had worksheets with them but most of them were either talking on their mobiles, playing games on their mobiles, listening to music on their mobiles or trying to push each other into the ponds (hence the screaming!) They weren't the least bit interested in looking at a bunch of plants and I don't know that I would have been at their age either. There is a definite cafe culture here, the streets are lined with extremely comfortable chairs and couches and they're occupied all day long. If you have a business meeting, it's done over a coffee, very civilized! It's important to try and fit in like the locals so, amongst my walking, I did find time to sit down twice and linger over a very good cappuccino. I leave tomorrow so it's been quite a rushed visit, but really worthwhile. I would recommend putting this place on your list, for anyone that's intending on coming over this way, but 3 days would be better.