Zagreb

Leaving Stobrec we decided that Ubers were costing us too much, we had plenty of time before our bus left for Zagreb so we would catch the bus from the village stop.  We worked out the night before the best bus to catch that would allow us plenty of time to check out, get some bakery food for the trip and not be too early to the flix stop.

One thing about the Promet (Split transportation) is they have a bus driver shortage and as it turns out, just because there was a bus scheduled the day before to go at a certain time, doesn’t mean the following day the schedule won't disappear - which is what happened to us.  Now racing around to do our final checks and get out the door, we are all stressing out and yelling at each other as we have to do a walk/run down to the village to catch an earlier bus as later buses won’t get us to Split on time. Getting around the final corner we see the bus already at the stop.  Somehow we managed to get to the stop 10 mins before departure.  Rather than risk missing the bus we jump on, and order our tickets through the app.  As we start to do this - the bus pulls away…… 10 mins early?! Trying to hold our luggage together, buying tickets via the app and then trying to validate in the bus is a nightmare (you don’t buy tickets from the bus driver - they hate it).  In the end we didn’t get all our tickets validated and just risked getting a fine as the bus was now packed with no room for movement.

Barb and Bob had left on an earlier flix bus and it was packed, however ours is almost empty.  And thankfully we had the back seat, as I managed to get some sort of stomach virus so the bus ride was a blur for me sleeping most of the 4 hours.

Rolling into Zagreb had a serene feeling.  After 2 ½ months away and in countries with very little green space, Zagreb is a breath of fresh (and clean) air.  And as we found out from our walking tour the next day, it's very quiet in the summer months as everyone leaves for the coast to spend their holidays.  

In terms of major sightseeing things to do in Zagreb, there aren’t a lot.  We covered most of the important statues, churches, WW2 areas in one 2.5 hour walking tour.  There is so much restoration going on, after the world plunged into Covid in early 2020 Zagreb had a series of earthquakes that year that have done major damage to its buildings, most of the museums, and churches are closed.  Four years later and they are still rebuilding.  There are however about 40 of these bronze statues of important "influencers" of Zagreb placed around the city where you can QR code the history, its a very cool concept. We also did one of the shortest funiculars in Europe, all of about 60 seconds top to bottom.

The highlight for me was the WW2 tunnels built by the Nazis.  Most have been abandoned and are falling down, however there are still some passages you can go through, and to walk through them is to understand how big they actually are and what was transported through them.  In the 90’s as the war between slavic countries was going on, the youth used them for raves, and as our tour guide was there for it, he said, you had no idea what tomorrow would bring so you lived every day like your last.

Zagreb has so many squares where people congregate.  The one closest to us has an important fountain for Zagreb, and a contraption for telling the time, and understanding the weather, except - it's not very reliable but has been there so long, someone comes along once a week and replaces the paper that this contraption records. 

The square also had a rotunda in the middle and had laid out a bunch of dancing steps (foxtrot, rumba, tango etc) for people to learn.  With not many people around we took our time and tried out all the dance steps. Fast forward 4 hours later as we came back, and the center had come alive with a band and people dancing and drinking in the square.  Even Kaia and I had a boogie together.

The food here seems to be influenced by both German and Turkish cuisine,  and we have dinner out in the main street which is a Croatian / German fusion.  Barb and I have made sure to sample all the white house wines at every restaurant and so far we haven’t gone wrong.  The kids iced tea has branched out into trying every new flavour they come across and Gareth and Bob make sure to try local lagers.  They really do love their meat, our first night in Zagreb, I honestly thought there must be more to the dish than Turkish type bread and sausage - but nope that's all you get.  I guess I should have known from our experience in Stobrec when Bob and Barb first arrived and we went to a fancier restaurant for dinner.  I wanted the chicken, but couldn’t figure out what it came with so I had to ask.  The response was - nothing, that's what the side dish menu is for.

I think we all genuinely love Zagreb as it’s much more like home, but I'm also glad we aren’t staying here for the full 4 days as we would get bored (even though we are watching the Croatian coverage of the Olympics). We are doing a quick trip mid Zagreb stop to Ljubljana in Slovenia and Barb and Bob are coming too! 

On our last day in Zagreb we found a super trendy cafe down the road that had awesome wait staff and really good quality food.  Having eaten out every day for at least 1 or 2 meals, since leaving NZ, our expectations of service and food quality have changed.  It's not until we get to this cafe that I realise how much we have accepted this lower level of quality for twice the cost.

We have said goodbye to the Grandparents who have now left for Tokyo, and with two emotional kids, I've basically avoided the trauma of them leaving by giving the kids devices for much needed downtime, Gareth is off for one of his walks and I'm starting the never ending chore of packing.