Zagreb

The weather was bad and it was forecast to remain so. My plan was to have ridden and camped as I toured the country but it was just too cold. This was a big problem and I didn’t know what to do. I thought about heading south and so took the train to Zagreb as a step in that direction.

The train took a little over two hours and was a treat. It mostly followed a river through a tight valley, it was very pretty and looked like it had high exploration potential.

I ended up spending five nights in Zagreb. I needed some time to figure out whatever I needed to figure out. I didn’t know where to go because the weather looked terrible pretty much everywhere. I considered going island hopping in Croatia, hopping a ferry to Italy, other places in Europe, but no dice - the weather everywhere was just no good. I thought I might be able to go to Greece where the weather looked a bit better but getting there would involve a long ferry to Italy and then a long ferry to Greece so not really practical in the time I had.

The weather looked like it would be okay in Slovenia by the weekend so I decided to stay put in Zagreb and then head back to Ljubljana.

It was windy and cold in Zagreb and sometimes, lashing rain. So I went all citified.

Not wanting to miss a chance to see high level football, I went to watch the top of the table clash between local rivals Dinimo Zagreb against Locomotiva Zagreb. The Croatian league is not absolutely top tier but it’s not too far off. There were players on the pitch who played for the national team (Croatia reached the semi final of the last World Cup but most of their players play in Europe’s elite leagues).

I got to the ground an hour before kick off for anthropological reasons. I wasn’t disappointed - riot police were getting suited up with armour and riot shields and the like. Very exciting!

As it turned out it the fans were rowdy and very loud but there was no trouble whatsoever.

The game was great. I really enjoyed it despite being frozen almost to death. My legs took a while to work properly when I stood up after the match.

Another Zagreb highlight was a visit to the Museum of Broken Relationships. These are not necessarily romantic relationships. Some are achingly sad and some are achingly funny. All are thought provoking. Maybe the best museum I’ve been to*.

*I’m not one to frequent museums so this doesn’t mean much

Next was the Tesla Technical Museum. Absolutely the nerdiest place I have ever been and oh so cool. There were in depth displays about every technical subject you could think of - fire fighting, flight, mining, nuclear energy, transport, off shore oil and on and on. I loved it all but I especially loved the exhibit on energy generation from water. There was a picture of the biggest water wheel in the world - Laxey Wheel on the Isle of Man. Full marks for that but then a point must be deducted because it says IOM is in the UK - sorry Mr Tesla but that ain’t right. I wasn’t sure whether to trust the other stuff after that.

I also visited Zagreb City Museum because I hoped to learn more about what Zagreb was like during its communism years. Unfortunately there was very little about that period in history. There were a lot of advertising posters from earlier times and I enjoyed those.

According to google translate this poster says “The heat flowing through your veins Triglav Great drink for the winter Every drop is a pleasure”

I think this fella overdid it on the Triglav!

I enjoyed Zagreb. Bigger and grittier than Ljubljana but manageable and safe feeling. It maybe felt a little more Eastern European too.

Gric Tunnel :1150 feet long. Built during WW2 as a bomb shelter and a way to move across the city. Used again in the 1990’s during the Croatian War of Independence

I’m not 100% sure of my Croatian but I think this says “Cross the tracks at your leisure, our train drivers are very careful”.

Leaving Zagreb, looking out the train window into the miserable weather day, I saw that someone had a nice warm fire burning. Then when I was closer I saw that it was made of plastic fencing. Call me fussy but I prefer a wood fire.

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