It is the beginning of our second week in Zagreb and, in spite of the heat, we are loving it so far. As previously mentioned, we haven’t stopped sweating since we arrived in Athens on June 2nd. I keep telling myself that when it gets down into the 80s next week in Prague, I’ll be so acclimated to the heat, I may have to wear a sweater! 😂
Since you last heard from me, we finished off our wonderful week in Split with a fun date night. We found the Markus Winery tasting room, which had only opened a month prior to us being there, near the steps to Marjan Hill, and basically had the place to ourselves. After that we went to dinner at Bokamorra, which was recommended by Google, Youtube and Rick Steves for being the best pizza in Split, and it was tasty. After dinner we walked up Marjan Hill together. It was fun going back and to be able to see the gorgeous view in a different light. We finished the night in Old Town and enjoyed blue hour. Which, for those of you who aren’t married to a photography buff, is “the period of twilight when the Sun is at a significant depth below the horizon. During this time, the remaining sunlight takes on a mostly blue shade.”
On July 5th we rented a car and made our way to Plitvice (pronounced PLEET-veet-seh) Lakes National Park. After the shower situation in Albania and Split we welcomed the seemingly gigantic shower of our lovely B&B called Imperial House. We had a big comfortable bed, a delicious breakfast each morning and it didn’t smell. We highly recommend it and would definitely stay there again.
It was about a 2 ½ hour drive from Split to our B&B. It was beautiful through the mountains and fun to see another area of Croatia. After the 14,000 miles we drove during our time in the US and Canada I didn’t think I’d ever say “I can’t wait to get in the car again” and it felt good to not have to rely on anyone else’s schedule to get to where we were going. We stopped at a beach bar on the way for lunch and by the time we arrived at the Imperial house it was almost time for dinner. The first night we decided to take a walk after being in the car and walked the 35 mins to entrance number two. It was too late to go in so we walked back through the village and found a place for dinner.
When visiting Plitvice we heard that you should get up early to beat the tour buses so that is what we did the next day. We ate breakfast around 7am and then got to the park around 8am. It wasn’t too crowded yet which was nice. We started at entrance number one where the path begins with a spectacular view of The Veliki Slap (Great Waterfall) which is the highest waterfall in Croatia at 87 meters (285.4 feet) . I took 125 photos at this amazing park so there is no way that I could share them all here. I chose to share the view of Veliki Slap in the morning and afternoon to show you a comparison of how different it looks depending on what time of day you go. If you haven’t already noticed, and you would like to see more pictures from this incredible park, on the homepage of my blog website there is an Instagram tab at the top. If you click on it and scroll a little you can see the reel that I created from our day at the park. I am thankful to Dave for doing research on this place and the fact that we made an effort to go on our way to Zagreb. It was truly spectacular and I highly recommend it!
We picked Zagreb for our next destination because it is a metropolitan city that is also digital nomad friendly. One thing we found interesting before we arrived was that everytime we mentioned to someone in Split that we were coming to Zagreb for two weeks, they responded with a resounding, why? It concerned us a little bit, but then when we realized that there is a football rivalry between Split and Zagreb that dates back to 1950, we understood the sentiment better. You can see the year spray painted all over Split and on the road all the way to Zagreb. Needless to say, in spite of the people’s reactions, we have absolutely love it here. Our apartment is very nice, it has a separate work area for Dave, it is in a great location in Lowertown that makes it easy to walk everywhere, and it doesn’t smell. 😉The only downfall is that there isn’t A/C so sleeping has been a little difficult, especially on nights when it is still 90 degrees at 11pm, and thank goodness we have a couple fans that make a huge difference!
One day last week I paid 15 Euros to use a pool at a hostel. It was one of the two outdoor pools I could find in the city and, even though it was only four feet by 12 feet, it offered some relief. Another day I went to the manmade Lake Jarun which is a beautiful park that had shade. The lake was very warm though and I found the rinse off showers more refreshing. 🤣. There is a public pool here but it was closed last week for a water polo tournament. I may give it a try this week and it doesn’t have very good reviews so we’ll see.
Zagreb is another city that has a good mixture of old and modern. It has several squares. Jelačić which is probably the biggest one where they had a big screen setup for watching the Euro Cup like most of the other cities we’ve visited. Saint Mark’s which has the church with the most amazing roof, in my opinion. Lots of pedestrian streets with tons of bars, restaurants and shops. Ulica Ivana Tkalčića is probably the most popular and the one that we have frequented several times. There are also several parks like Trg Kralja Tomislava. Rick Steves called this area the “green horseshoe” which has several museums around it. There are quite a few amazing museums in Zagreb. We visited the Zagreb City Museum (together), the Archaeological Museum (me), the Museum of Broken Relationships (me), the Nikola Tesla Museum (Dave), and the Museum of Hangovers (together), which we were not hungover for or from by the way.
This list doesn’t even touch what Zagreb has to offer. The only unfortunate thing is that a lot of the churches, museums and galleries are closed because they are under construction. We haven’t been able to go inside of the Zagreb Cathedral, Saint Mark’s, the Church of St. Catherine, or many of the art galleries around town. You can see from several of my pictures that there is scaffolding all over the city. We learned that this is because, four years ago an earthquake happened, which according to Wikipedia “had a magnitude of 5.3 and a seven kilometer (4.3 mi) epicenter north of the city center.” With it taking place during the pandemic and having construction on ancient buildings take a long time everywhere in the world, they still haven’t re-opened.
We have still had a good time exploring the town by foot and learning about the historical differences of the two main areas, Gradec and Kaptol. We learned that, as relayed from Google, “Zagreb’s old town consists of two medieval settlements on the hill: Grič, the civil settlement, which was renamed Gradec (“Fortress”) when it was encircled by walls that were built to defend against the Mongols in the 13th century; and Kaptol, the ecclesiastical settlement, which was fortified in the 16th century.” There is also a ton of awesome street art to be seen. We have noticed that graffiti is not as frowned upon in Croatia and is actually celebrated.
Last weekend we did some more exploring around Zagreb on Saturday and then on Sunday, since it felt like 102 degrees in Zagreb, we decided to go up Mount Sljeme to try to get a little respite from the heat. It was a nice experience with some cooler weather and the views were spectacular!
Yesterday I took the train to Ljubljana for the day. I had never been to Slovenia and it didn’t disappoint. I haven’t ridden the train since I lived in France and it was just like riding a bike. I did some research beforehand about train times and where to buy my tickets and that all went pretty smoothly. One thing I noticed is that the time schedule, at least the arrival time, is only a suggestion. It might have been because we were crossing a border, as we stopped before it for at least a half hour both ways. I also thought it was interesting that when we were on our way back to Zagreb that the train actually waited a half hour for passengers arriving from Ljubljana to join us. In my recollection, if you missed the train, it sucked to be you, and Croatia is its own country. 🙂
I’m glad I took advantage of the proximity and went to Ljubljana. It is a small and beautiful European city with the Ljubljanica river running through it. There are several bridges that traverse the river the most noteworthy are the Dragon Bridge and the Tromostovje (triple Bridge). I went to the Metelkova area and saw some crazy cool street art. I saw the Franciscan Church (pink church) and the Preseren Square in front of it. I strolled the main pedestrian street, Slovenska Cesta, and window shopped. I had lunch at the Central Market. Then I climbed the hill to the Ljubljana Castle and took in the beautiful view. It was a lovely and full day.
I feel like I have mentioned Rick Steves a lot in this post. He is on my mind because it would’ve been incredible to visit Lake Bled and the Vintgar Gorge while I was in Slovenia. There is so much more that I want to see and do. And, I learned at a very young age, from watching Europe Through the Back Door with my dad, that you should always save something for next time. I know we’ll be back.
With only four days left in Zagreb and the forecast remaining in the 90s I think I’m going to take it easy. I want to visit the The Naive Museum which has naive art, which I learned means art made by “peasants” (if that term is even PC anymore), mainly from Croatia. I have thought about maybe taking a bus to Rijeka, a beautiful coastal town in Croatia, and we’ll see. It is nice to have slow easy days as well. I have bought a couple books by Croatian authors so maybe I’ll try and find an air conditioned space to finish reading them. Not constantly going is one of the luxuries of my role on this adventure and I definitely do not take it for granted. I am thankful for everyday and I’m thankful to you for being on this journey with me. I hope that you all are well and are staying cool wherever you are!
With love, Alison
