Crossroads of Adriatic Day 3
Crossroads of Adriatic
May 02, 2007 - Wednesday - Zagreb, Croatia City Tour
Dobro jutro! Good Morning!
We woke up at 7:00 after a great night's sleep, refreshed and ready for another day in Zagreb!
The buffet breakfast at the hotel was fantastic - the best selection of meats, cheeses, yogurts, fresh fruits, and of course sausages, eggs, and breads of all shapes and sizes!
At 8:30 we all met again with Tammy who told us about many details of our trip. Basically it is safe to drink the water from the tap, the city and country are very safe with little crime, we will use Kunas as the currency here in Croatia, but everyone else will take Euros in the 3 other countries. We will be crossing borders eleven times going from one country to the next so we will keep our passports handy.
We left the hotel at 9:30 to discover Zagreb, a city of about 700,000 people that has been Croatia's capital on and off since 1557, we met Yvana our local expert. She guided us on a walking tour of Zagreb's modern Donji Grad, or Lower Town, whose well-designed street grid was laid out in the 19th century. This area is home to many of Zagreb's civic and historic monuments.
Today is a regular working day after a 4 day weekend so the city is busy with shoppers and people going back to work. We even saw several school groups on city field trips.
We walked to the funicular, the shortest in Europe - only 55 seconds, to view the medieval monuments in the city's Gornji Grad, or Upper Town. In this older part of the city, two medieval settlements, Gradec and Kaptol, developed between the 11th and 14th centuries on neighboring hilltops divided by a brook. Fortified by ramparts and moats, the two rival towns fought over the centuries (the nearby street called Krvavi Most, or Bridge of Blood, serves as a reminder).
Today Gradec and Kaptol form two of the districts that make up Zagreb's hilly and picturesque Upper Town. We walked to St. Mark's Square and saw the famous colorfully tiled roof of the church that depicts the Croatian crests and the gas lamps that still have to be lit by hand every evening.
Surrounding St. Mark's Square are the governor's palace and Parliament which were two of the main buildings bombed by the Serbs in the Separation Wars of the 1990s. We walked through different neighborhoods and visited the Dolac Market, a bustling collection of open-air stalls.
Among the highlights of the Upper Town are the tall twin spires of the Cathedral of St. Stephen, an ancient church dedicated to the Assumption and the Virgin Mary. The cathedral's beautiful neo-Gothic façade was added after an earthquake in 1880 destroyed its dome and bell tower.
At 11:35 we said goodbye to Yvana and walked back to the market to take a few more pictures. We always ask permission before photographing people, many in Zagreb do not seem to mind but several have said "Ne".
We stopped for lunch along the main street and sat at a sidewalk table enjoying the nice day and watched people pass by. After lunch we walked back to the Cathedral Square where we caught the #106 city bus that took us to the famous Croatian cemetery Mirogoj.
The busses here in Zagreb are free for those who are 65 and older. We are not there yet so we purchased our tickets at a newspaper stand nearby. Many of the people on the bus were a lot older and few spoke English. The lady Gennie sat with did speak very well and told her "when you don't see anything but wall - get off the bus!"
We wound our way through residential areas and private homes so we got to see much more of the capital than just the downtown city center. We spent about an hour in the Cemetary which is very famous for its inter-faith acceptance as Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all resting peacefully together.
We got back on the bus at 2 PM and returned to the Cathedral stop and then walked back to our hotel - only about six blocks. It is great that our hotel is in the historical center with so many things to do and see. Weather has been great so far - sunny, dry and the temperature on my new Kestrel 3000 shows it to be 68°. We walked a total of 8.6 miles.
Dinner tonight was with the whole group and we went to the Gallo Restaurant four blocks from our hotel. The food was excellent with an appetizer, pasta, salad and then a very delicious and tender cut of veal. For dessert we celebrated Dan's birthday with a fireworks cake.
Hotel Palace - - - Meals: B, D
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Comments
Tour Director Thamila
Funicular to the Upper Town
Roof of St. Mark's Church
Dolac Market
Croatian Cemetery - Mirogoj
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