Split and Zagreb

My second biggest priority in Croatia was seeing their largest national park and that required heading north so I caught another bus to Split up the coast. A CSer had actually invited me to sail around the Croatian Coast for as many days as I wanted of the two weeks he was doing with a sizeable group of CSers actually. I would have loved, loved, loved to go (sailing around on a yacht for even one or two nights would have been a dream and itself the draw for me, even though the big draw for everyone else was visiting all of the party islands, Hvar, included), but I was worried about the timing and my sea legs. So I stayed in contact with Kevin, the CSer, and let myself make a game time decision when I arrived in Split. When my bus arrived at the Split harbour (where there are more than a dozen different ferries to all the isands and way more yachts than you can count) the sky looked just a bit threatening and Kevin actually informed me that they weren't going to be able to stay docked in Hvar that night because of a potential storm. A day trip out there didn't seem quite worth it to me (am I stupid? Maybe blame it on the heavy bags I was lugging around that I just wanted to stow at the port and not carry with me to another island) and so I decided to spend the day in Split checking out Diocletian's Palace, another UNESCO site, located right in the heart of their downtown on the water.


I first wanted to circle the palace to see what else was around before entering it (note: it is more like the ruins of a palace where there are walls surrounding old churches, residences, quarters, etc. but also within the walls today are plenty of shops, museums, and restaurants) because it seemed there were more crowds outside the walls then there were going into it. What I stumbled upon I am still chuckling about. While Split was very touristy with more than its fair share of tourist traps and tacky conversions of authentic ruins into shopping bizarres, the crowd I was slowly making my way through didn't feel so touristy. There was less walking and more standing and as a short person this was troubling because I couldn't really see anything that seemed just worth standing around for. So I was compelled to keep trying to walk through the standing crowd towards the "front" of the Riva, or their beautiful, cafe-filled stretch of waterfront. Well at some point I started noticing police everywhere and some police were even in riot gear. I was racking my brain as to why that might be and all I could come up with perhaps it was for a watch party for the start of the Euro Cup football games. I was proud of myself for thinking fast and coming up with this idea. The crowd certainly didn't feel violent and I didn't see much reason to be concerned with all the guns around once I thought it was for the Euro Cup... I was just amused. But as I walked farther and farther along the Riva I wasn't seeing really any other indications of that... Mainly the Riva was lacking any giant TV screens. Finally I decided to ask someone who also looked like a tourist and one girl informed me that actually the Pride Parade was going on! Then I put two and two together another way and realized it was a Saturday in June and had to smile to myself and laugh. Apparently though, Split, has a history of wild Pride events and after last year's which I guess got very out of hand, security was really amped up this year. I only saw the end of it I realized and very slowly the crowd was starting to disperse, but there were a lot of gawkers it seemed to me waiting to see if anything out of the ordinary was about to go down. I just found a seat at a cafe along the Riva and had a nice iced tea break to watch the crowds and police myself!


















At this point I decided to skip out on spending the night in Split and decided to take my first night train and get to Zagreb a half day earlier. I was worried about "wasting" a Saturday night, but I decided I would more appreciate a full day in Zagreb the next day instead of losing half the day to the train ride. So that left me with only about another three or four hours to check out more of Split. I set to work exploring the palace and nearby beach.














I'm sure this space was built centuries ago just so merchants could sell cheap souvenirs to tourists.


This car made me laugh when I realized the driver was a genius. Why not just drive up on the sidewalk when your car doesn't quite fit in parallel?


The night train to Zagreb was very comfortable actually. It was my very first train ride using my Eurail 3 month pass and I was fairly pleased. Unlike the night trains in western Europe where you must pay a mandatory reservation fee and also a semi-pricey supplement if you want any sort of sleeping quarters, this night train had no extra charges and, well as I have taken no other night trains yet since, I actually suspect it gave me a better night's sleep than I might get on any future night train. The seats pull out farther and I guess as long as you're not 6 foot tall you can lay across three seats like I did just fine!


I slept so soundly that I didn't hear my alarm go off for my 6:30am arrival in Zagreb and was instead awoken by the train's own alarm signaling we were approaching a major stop in only about 5 minutes. There was no time to use the bathroom, brush my teeth, or eat any sort of breakfast as I had intended. Yikes! I quickly repacked my two bags I had raided the night before to get my chargers, snacks, train planning materials, etc and stepped off the train in Zagreb.

I made my way to my host, Marko's, place and gave myself the treat of a very relaxing Sunday morning. Marko lives very close to a wonderful lake that is surrounded by walking and biking paths and locals were making good use of it on a Sunday. I got acquainted to the neighborhood and grocery store (groceries were sooo cheap!) and did some future travel planning of my own as I waited for Marko to return from a brunch with his parents.






Marko had told me as we emailed back and forth before my arrival that he loves two things - art/architecture and football. And he was going to share both with me that day. We started our tour with the Old Town of Zagreb which is actually loosely divided in half due to political and religious reasons. The cathedral sits on one small hill, but interestingly centuries ago it and its religious figures were deemed too watchful and interfering with the political happenings so the Parliament and other government and more secular buildings were built or moved to the other hill for greater separation and freedom.


It was a Sunday again so the town was actually incredibly quiet. We stood in a square where I think will be the only time this summer I will be able to stand outside a famous church and have my picture taken without another soul within a 100m radius! Marko also shared with me an interesting, I mean, grotesque, story where people who were convicted of any crime, be it petty theft even, stood on these engaved stones in the middle of the square and had each of their four limbs tied to a different horse. The horses then took off in four directions and well, you can imagine the bloody death. Funny thing though in my opinion, this happened not only in front of Parliament, but also in front of St Mark's church. That isn't exactly practicing forgiveness.





An empty square all to ourselves!!


The spot where criminals would be literally torn apart :(


This wall was built around the government buildings to keep out the invading Turks.





The giant euro cup watch tent set up...











I had no idea there were so many tourist attractions in Zagreb!!

Later that night we caught up with a bunch of Marko's friends in his old neighborhood to watch the first two games of the Euro Cup - Spain vs. Italy and Ireland vs. Croatia. (Funny how one of those games will actually repeat this very night - July 1 - as I finally type this up!) I'm certainly not the most avid soccer fan, but it is always more interesting to watch in a country or city whose town is playing and then cheer for that team. Croatia won fortunately and honestly the city went wild. Makeshift parade floats appeared within 20 minutes of the end of the game running through the streets with air horns and fire crackers. Mobs of people flocked into the streets and everyone sort of converged on the main square where a public watch party and tent had already been set up. I was tired from a 6:30 am wake up, but it was made clear to me that I wasn't going home early that night and beer after beer was basically thrust into my hand and I thought it too rude not to oblige!





In between the two football games Marko, one of his friends, and I ducked down the road for a more substantial dinner. Giant pizzas for around 31-35 kuna which is only about $5!









I really enjoyed Zagreb, but I realize what a difference it makes with what time of the week you visit a city. Doing cities and countries back to back to back, not every city can be visited on a weekend (though I actually hear that you actually don't want to visit some European cities on a weekend in summer because everyone flees to the coast or to other cities), and even though I read that Zagreb is quite a rowdy city, seeing it on Monday and Tuesday night I would have to form a different opinion. Marko and I did take a long walk together on Tuesday night around sunset (and I accidentally left my camera memory card in my iPad at his place) and he showed me quite a lot of evidence of a nightlife scene with about a couple dozen bars, cafes, clubs off to one portion of the lake near his house. I suspect the Euro Cup games might have had something to do with the quietness because that's what we rushed off to watch too after our walk!


You have to use your imagination, but this little leafy street in the city is a very popular spot that becomes packed so tightly with people you can't move through it on a typical warm summer night.





I took two day trips during the week while staying with Marko (Monday and Tuesday) while he was at work - to Ljubljana, Slovenia and to Plitvička Lakes National Parks - and these will get their own separate posts coming soon!

1. Hrvatska is what Croatia is called in Croatia. Did you know that? I didn't. (like how Rome is Roma and Japan is Nippon and Germany is Deutschland)

2. Everything is closed on Sundays. It's really becoming more annoying than everything. This fact seems to have infiltrated the psyches of all of my hosts because it is constantly on their mind somehow always reminding me on a Saturday (in Vienna, in Berlin, in Cologne, etc) that all shops will be closed the next day. And they know too to buy what they need for food the day before. Gosh, it really makes me miss Wegmans and how my family has he luxury to be able to make 4 trips a day to the grocery :)

3. But somehow the post office was open on Sunday!

4. And in case you were wondering where Croatia fell on the Catholic/Protestant spectrum....they follow the Vatican.

5. The White House in Washington, D.C was apprently built with stone that came from an island called Brač, off of the coast of Split. I can't tell you how many other travelers and Croatians were proud to rattle off this fact. I was the only person it seemed who didn't know this :) So now you know too!

6. In case you were like me as well and didn't know much about Croatia's geography and landscape, Croatia is very mountainous. VERY.


7. Croatia is already flying the EU flag at their Parliament as I guess they have already been approved to join it next year. What I wonder more is if this means they will become a part of the Schengen Territory or ratify that treaty or not. Them not being a part of the EU/Schengen was clutch for me being able to stay 103 days in Europe instead of the maximum 90 without a visa.

8. Recycling was horribly absent in both Serbia and Croatia. It was present, but rare in Istanbul and Greece.

9. I tried Croatian wine (and have actually been trying the wine in every country almost as a larger priority over the local beer) and well it wasn't something I was going to try to export or write home about. I did find it interesting though the very common practice of mixing their white wine with sparkling water in order to be able to drink more throughout the whole night without getting too drunk. When you order a bottle of wine at the table, the waiter automatically asks if you would also like a bottle of water too.

10. Lastly, according to my host, it is very common for people to think they are in Germany when they come to Zagreb because of all of the Squares around the city. (I have now been to Germany myself and I certainly see some similarities, but I also see similarities to Prague and Budapest too!) if anything, I actually felt that Zagreb was very hard to place architecturally. I remember standing on one street corner with Marko and looking at the four buildings on each corner and pointing out that if I came up from below ground on a subway and had no idea what city I was in I still wouldn't be able to tell from the buildings. One building looked very Parisian, one looked like it could be any federal agency building in D.C., one looked like it should be shuttered and could have blended in fine with the buildings I saw in Bosnia, and the fourth was fairly nondescript and could have also plausibly hailed from any country.


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