Her View 

Croatia - Caywood's perspective

 

We planned a very quick 24 hours in Zagreb to be able to see some of Croatia. We arrived around 9 in the morning and started walking around the city. To be honest, there isn’t that much to see in Zagreb. The overall architecture reminded me somewhat of Paris, which I liked. We strolled through the Zrinjevac public park and to the National Theater of Zagreb. Apparently Zagreb is home to the world’s shortest funicular, so we rode that up a whopping 66 meters. At the top of the funicular is Lotrscak Tower, which presents you with a good view of the entire city. The tower was 20 kuna each, which is just over $3. Since the morning was pretty foggy, we decided that the view from the top of the funicular was good enough for us. 

 

The one paid attraction we did in Zagreb was the Museum of Broken Relationships. Yes, this is a weird concept for a museum. But someone pointed it out this way and I completely agree: a museum is supposed to evoke emotion. This museum definitely did that. Walking around the rooms, various items were displayed with love stories that turned sour. Some were sentimental, some were heart-wrenching, and some even made us laugh. The museum was sad in a lot of ways, but I thought it was done very well and it is something no other museum in the world can offer. We enjoyed almost an hour here for less than $3 per person.

 

After the museum we walked around some more of the city. We walked to the Stone Gate church, Jelacic Square (their main square), and the street Tkalciceva which had cafe after cafe with warm outdoor seating. One thing we planned to do but ended up not going to was the Mirogoj Cemetery. Oddly enough, this cemetery was #1 on a lot of the things to do list for Zagreb. Not only was the cemetery a pretty good distance outside of the city and on its own, but it had rained for the past 19 days straight in Zagreb so we were told it would be very muddy and not too pleasant.

 

Our hostel in Zagreb was definitely the highlight. We didn’t realize, but the hostel we booked was actually the smallest one in Zagreb. It used to be a dentist’s office actually. We arrived at the hostel to learn that we were the only two staying in the hostel! So we basically had an entire apartment to ourselves: bedroom, living room, warn shower, and full kitchen. We picked up a pizza and some champagne from the store and had a relaxing evening in playing rummy. Feliks even taught me how to play poker! (Naturally, I kicked his butt!)

 

Overall, there wasn’t much to Zagreb. The mere four hours we walked around was plenty. My favorite part of the city was definitely the various Christmas markets we came across. We had some great local food, got a Christmas gift for family, and enjoyed looking and the homemade pottery and jewelry.