Population: 767,000-ish
Before we start the journey into the middle of SouthEastern Europe (that is to say OUTSIDE the European Union, who knew right?) let me take a moment to qualify my statements made on behalf of the one and only Ljubljana. Before taking the train to Zagreb I went out and walked the streets and went to the market when it was open and the atmosphere was generally much better and livelier. There was a long hall on the bank of the river with coffeeshops that were open across from the market and in full swing they looked pleasant, I could see how sitting there admiring the view of downtown Ljubljana and the market in the warm hours of a summer morning would be a nice retreat. As for the graffiti (which was literally everywhere), I find it interesting as a marker of the countercurrent of youth trends and movements. Here's more that caught my eye, sadly I couldn't read the Slovenian ones so I cannot include them: From here to fame..Europa Merda...Style Wars II...Best Friends 4 Ever...Love me Tender..Love Capitalism (in the coke symbol writing), a penis in the shape of a guitar, and this one with girlgirl holding hands, girlguy holding hands, and two guys holding hands x-ed out all in a big heart (see photos for last one).
**Before continuing, I know I write too much, but this is primarily b/c this is a journal for me, I'm not writing anything but this, so in twenty years I want to read all of this, sorry if that makes for extremely long entries for the two to three other people that read this.
Train ride to ZagrebL passed towns including: Kresnice, Litija, Zidanimost, Brezice, Dubova. Got two passports stamps upon entering Croatia, not sure why, sat in a cabin with an older guy who was reading something with a heading of Atomica Reaktra (learning to make an atomic bomb?) but we actually communicated a tad in French, randomly. The ride was a good two and half hours, some guy came round with what looked like coffee on a tray in plastic cups, we passed mountains covered with pine trees in full color, reds and oranges, mountains that almost went straight up and we couldn't see anything else for a while. Sometimes we rode next to a big stream/river, it reminded me of New England countryside a little bit. There were some towns that were completely reflected in the river so it looked like there were two of each house which was pretty, we didn't see much infrastructure/roads to destruct the landscape, a couple minivinyards, some threshed farmland. We quickly went from countryside to urban city upon entering Zagreb Kolovni Grad train station, where I hopped off and the train continued to Belgrade.
Zagreb: AMAZING!!!! I totally want to live here/spend more time here one day. It's the perfect size of a city and its transport systems are efficient, the streets are clean, its like 70 degrees Fahrenheit and its almost November, the people are helpful, there's tons of unique little shops and an awesome open air market and pretty views and lots of cultural things to do and greenery and fountains which add a lot of dimension to the urban space, there's a grocery store or bakery on every corner and the food's like what you'd get at home, there's even pizza places, and there's cafes full of people sitting outside people-watching and there's no fee for exchanging money to Kuna and the parks and the leaves are falling so it smells like autumn and there's chestnuts falling everywhere and then there's guys on the street corners with little stands selling popcorn and pumpkin seeds and roasted chestnuts which smell delicious...there's billowing billboards that are like big sheets covering sides of buildings everywhere in the main square, three stories tall, there's a botanical garden in the heart of the city and lots of footpaths leading every which way with little hidden parks to be found and there's always lots of people walking around, apparently the nightclubs are really fancy and hard to get in to, even the info desk at the train station is open until 10 pm and very convenient. (yes, there's MacDo again, and yes, they charge extra for ketchup, and yes, the fries taste pretty much the same as at any MacDo because I tried them). The buildings here are for the most part art nouveau style again (that means faux big bricks made out of plaster in a 3D effect) but they aren't covered in graffiti or rundown as in Ljubljana and there's lots more great palaces...some buildings are rundown or paint has chipped off and you can see through to brick, but they're on the side roads and even then it's not an overwhelming sense of decay by any means, and the buildings by the cathedral have been freshly painted in pinks and yellows and it looks like a fairy tale town. The streets are really wide, theres just a feeling of open space even thoguhwe're in a city and there's not any skyscrapers but half the city is on a hill (it used to be divided into Kaptola nd Gradec lower and upper parts respectively and they'd fight each other until they united into Zagreb in the mid-1800s. So there's hills to walk up and the city sort of arches downwards until you get to the train tracks. The Cathedral looks like a mini-notre dame, it was recently given the two towers and no one knows really what it looked like before but it's pretty, again very high arched ceilings inside and there's a tower with a golden Virgin Mary outside and four golden angets and the gold is really shiny and bright, people light those candles that are in purple or red or blue platsic with silver tops and leave them at her feet, they were selling those candles everywhere. The Cathedral , unlike St Peters in Vienna, didn't have all those statues of cherubs and figuirines all around, it ws barer but the walls were hand painted with designs including a six pointed star and bell tulip shapes and the ceilings were baby blue with golden stars, and on the altar there was an open casket (statue) of Cardinal Stepnac, I guess he was a big deal, he died in 1960, and peopl would light candles on his casket and say a prayer. Also this cathedral had stained glass windows which weren't inLjubjlana or Vienna, really really tall slim ones that rose up for at least thirty feet I'd say. They wre renovating one of the outer towers so the figurines and gargoyles/saint statues that would be up top were sitting enclosed by a fence on the ground, and I also saw this at the other church that's famous here (St Marks) with the statues just off to the side in this little passage and not really protected at all...interesting to think how history is constantly being updated/renovated/its not stagnant.
Zagreb tourism really knows what its doing- I had this guide I pickd up at the hostel desk and it had two 90 min walking tours and abunch of history written up in it, I did them both and learned a lot. One of my favorite parts of the city is Dolac Market, the open air market (theres a part underground too) where each stall has a big red umbrella covering it and they sell fruit and beggies mainly, but there were souvenir stands with soccer stuff and little handpainted tschotckes like hearts that said Zagreb to hang up, lace, wooden toys, then there were guys selling medecine and beeswax and inside there were fish stalls, meat, chocolate, bakeries, sheets of pasta dough, and women who were handmaking cheese as you watched. Inside it smelled very strongly of something that wasn't too pleasing, I think it was sauerkraut. And outside the fruits werne't in crates like at other markets but they wre all piled up and arranged nicely on the tables, I think specifically of the oranges which were in pyramids the length of hte long wooden tables. I bought some grapes for the equivalent of thirty cents, and this amazing jelly candy (Zele) that I'm bringing back to share with my Aix friends, and some chocolate that looked good (it was filled with banana and tutti frutti filling) but its actually not, I thought 50 cent chocolate would be better. The market was sort of up some stairs and at the top there was a statue of a woman with a basket on her head inciting you into the market, at the steps of the stairs the market flowed out and become a flower market (there were several of those arond the city) with flowers of all sorts and in all sorts of decorations, some already trimmed in the shape of a cross, a heart, as the tops of little woven baskets, and if you went up some other stairs the market became cloths and scarves and adorable handmade socks and mittens for little kids.
St. Marks Cathedral is the other famous one here- it has a tiled roof with all these coats of arms and it was a very unique roof, I've never seen anything like it, but unfortunately the whole building itself was shrouded in a white sheet, it's undergoing repairs I guess, and the square was empty. The buildings around the church in the square are part of the Croatian parliament, so there were police on the corners and lots BMWs and Audis parked next to the church. To get there on my walking tour I walked down this street that was literally just outdoor cafes, with people reclining in short chairs with pillows sipping something and looking around, but there were sooo many people it was like every seat was filled, very convivial and lively atmospehre. Then I went to the Croatian History Museum which actually jsut has rotating exhibits and I saw one on the refugee camps at El Shatt, Egypt in the middle of the desert during World War II, comprised of some 27,000 Croatians. I was a little confused at firsta s to why they were even in danger, I'm thinking it's because they were communist. So they moved fromt he Dalmatian islands to the middle of the desrt and set up tents, started bakeries and a theatre troupe and a press and women made toys for the kids and it was very well run overall, we saw pictures and some artifacts and all the signs were translated into good English so I learned something entirely new! One of the room's background music was this song "Hunting the Hun" which was funny, it was in English so I plan to learn it when my internet returns to me (I'm copywriting this from a previous entry when I didn't have internet).
Quick recap of other cool stuff I did in Zagreb: went to a famous bakery Vincek and ate traditional Croat cake, Zagrebecka Kresnita, thin layer of chocolate, lots of whipped cream, lots of eggy cream, then thin layer of flaky pastry dough on bottom-not very sweet, would've preferred tiramisu which they also had or any other cakes, all of which were a dollar fifty. Walked around and saw Mimara Museum, this huge building with lots of mainly Christian artifacts, was going to go today but decided against it, though they did have this cool IPOD expo going on in the m ain lobby, instead went to the Strossmeyer Gallery of Master Painters where, for eighty cents, I saw works of Breugel, Rubens, Delacroix, Nicolas Poussin, Giovannia Battisti, a bunch of works from the 1400s. Any painting with a women included a baby and a breast, most paintings were really dark in the background but I saw some italian works form the 15th century which portrayed Jesus as more of a man than I'd ever seen, granted he had a cross and crown of thorns but the angle was like a regular portrait of a guy, no bared chest of angelic golden halo (I took a very bad picture of it). Sat in this huge park that's along the main boulevard from the train station to the Ban Jelacic Square (he's this guy who fought off the Turks I think) its actually like three parks combined into one, called Zrinjevac, and finished my Agatha Christie book in French (La Fete du Potiron) and watched the big leaves fall around me. Went to the Mirogoj Cemetery, supposedly one of the most beautiful cemeteries in all of Europe and yes I would agree. First off, there's something about cemeteries that I love, and I'm not going into details here, but suffice to say I was happy to be there. Moreover, it was gorgeous. There was this long long building with copper green cupolas on top that from the outside was just a long wall with red ivy but on the inside there were mounted tombstones and the tomb underneathed the tiled floor that was maybe five feet above the soil and you could just walk along it and admire all the different stones. Below there was the actual cemetery that stretched on forever, all with tombs and not just headstones, all above ground big boxes, almost all with colorful flowers on them or those candles. There were stands outside selling flowers and the candles and people just kept coming in with flowers and going up to a grave, the graves are all fairly recent, everything was super well kept up and there were workers driving around in golf carts throwing away rotten flowers and cutting up hedges and it was the most lively cemetery I've seen, but that said it wasn't a hectic feeling of people bustling about, everyone was calm and at peace. But there was so much color and it was really pretty, there were chestnut trees all around and some willows billowing and there were arrangements of chestnuts in the shapes of hearts or crosses on some of the graves, most were Christian but I saw some with Muslim insignia and some Jewish graves. In the back there were a few mini mausoleums, one very well kept up with five stained glass windows all of this angel with a pink background, hands in prayer, wings folded back, looking up. There were even some graves with Cyrillic alphaet, and a whole wall where the birth would have a six pointed star before it and death year would have a cross before it, not sure why. There was a world war I memorial in the back, a small chapel in the front....etc etc. So not only was it beautiful, I gained a whole new level of appreciation and respect for the Croatians for tending so well to their loved ones graves and putting so much care into rememberance, and the use of flowers was spectacular, it just brings you joy when you see a guy or girl carrying a bouquet of flowers no matter where they're going.
Continuing- yesterday I went to the mall, then found this secret pasasgeway of stairs that went up up up and i reached all these sports fieds, a little cafe, a sports complez, and farther some buildings that might have been a school but I'm not sure. I walked all the way down this main street that has some good shops but not that many called Ilica Ulica (Ulica means street) and reached another renowned bakery that actually did not look good at all so I skipped it. Noticed on some streets that there are piles of 'stuff' on the sidewalks, like parts of walls and cabinets, couches, broken computers and mirror and bathroom sinks, parts of the interior wood structures of rooms even, and these little/big piles were actually not all that uncommon and I have no idea what they signify. I assume they come from the apartments above the shops but why??? Strange. On the walking tour, saw the square dedicated to the victims of fascism with this big circular building with pillars in the middle, its some sort of art building, saw some famous statues, the churches, the market, the Well of Life, this statue in front of the national theatre which is this huge golden yellow art nouveau style building in Marhshall Tito Square (which, ironically, is across from the FDR square with the Mimara Museum), saw Lotrscak Tower, where they fire a cannon off everyday at noon, it used to chime a bell every evening before the city gates were closd and its at the top of Gradec, overlooking Kaptol. Went into lots of squares, passed lots of museums that I didn't have much interest in (such as the ethnographic museum). Learned that Zagreb the name was first said in 1045 but it's probably been a town longer, legend says it got its name when a viceroy called out to a girl "Manduso, Zagrabi" who was standing near a well (it means scoop) and the well is now in the center of the main square, but Zagreb really means ditch or trench and the town used to be entrenched, so this might be the real origin. Also learned Croatia was founded by a Slavic tribe (the Croats) in 625 AD, then the Prince converted to Christianity in the 9th cenutry, 10th century repeled Hungarians and became strong, had a deal with Hungary for a while to share kings, crusades in the 13th century led against eh Dalmatian coast, atached by the Pope, the last king of Croatia is killed by the Turks in battle in 156, then Austria gets the land to protect it from the Turks, then Russia, Austria, Hungary, all are fighting for the land for a while after World War I becomes part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, post WWII Tito rules Yugoslavia, gets democracy after a 10 yr struggle from 1980-1990 with Serbia. Speaking of which, I'm off to Belgrade tomorrow morning. But to end this story, Zagreb was the best surprise of the trip so far, and before even leaving I am longing to come back.
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