Zagreb: Why not?

Why Zagreb? Well, at first, I was thinking of hitting as much of Eastern Europe as I possibly could, reasoning that it was unlikely that I would return here for any significant period of time. The more time I spent in Eastern Europe, however, the more I realized that I wanted to go to Spain. This forced me to scratch Ljubljana off the list, though I would still pass through the Slovenian capital. Zagreb remained, however shortened, because the trip from Budapest to Venice was longer than I wanted to travel in a single day, so Zagreb seemed like a good place to break up the trip.

I decided to stay only two days in Zagreb. I wasn’t sure what there was to do in Zagreb, but that had never stopped me before. On the train entering Croatia, my passport was stamped and my bag was checked – a little bit – as I was once again out of the European Union. My train arrived at the station and I had to find my hotel, which I knew was over a mile away from the station. Fortunately, the hotel responded to my email from the day before and told me which tram to take to minimize my walk. All-in-all, getting to the hotel was pretty painless.

As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, I do love me some football stadiums. My hotel was about a block-and-a-half away from NK Zagreb’s stadium. Unfortunately, there were no matches going on during my two-day stay in Zagreb, but it still was sort of cool to be so close to the stadium and to check it out from the outside. It seats only around 8,500 people, so although this is a professional European soccer club, the stadium is smaller than some U.S. high school football stadiums. This gave it sort of a homey feel and I’m sorry I didn’t see a match there, though I did eat there. More on that later . . .

There were numerous official-looking buildings and statues around the train station in Zagreb, so I decided to start my sightseeing there. In addition to the station, there were some museums and churches. There also was an underground shopping mall, which I found very convenient when I was looking for a place to buy some beer and some food. When I exited the station, I noticed a post that had arrows pointing to over a dozen sights and places to visit in Zagreb. I also noticed that all of the arrows were pointing in the same direction. This made my one full day of sightseeing very convenient.

Obviously, I walked in that direction. It took a little over a mile, but eventually, I hit the main square of the city, which contained a pedestrian section that covered probably 30 or 40 city blocks. Within this section were numerous stores selling all kinds of Croatian goods. There also was a large market in which some souvenirs were sold, but mostly it was produce that people were purchasing. It was a beautiful day and I walked around the area for a few hours.

The main landmark in Zagreb, according to the shot glasses that I saw in the souvenir shops around town, was the cathedral near this pedestrian section. I never learned the name of this cathedral because my $2-Zagreb-iPhone-app-guide sucked when it came to identifying any of the spots in town, but shot glasses don’t lie about these things, so it must have been the most important landmark in town. In this area, again, were numerous museums and statues. There also were a lot of cafes and restaurants, which was the first sign to me that my guide’s suggestion that Zagreb has a little bit of an “Italian feel” may have been correct. (Why do all of the cities around Italy claim to be Italianesque? I liked Italy a lot, but it seemed a little overrated to me.)

Food-wise, I really didn’t find much food that was conspicuously Croatian, not that I’m sure I would have realized if I had. Most of the side-of-the-road places sold hamburgers or kebap or other foods that you can get all over Europe or, in fact, all over the world. I did try to go to one place for a little Croatian food experience. The football stadium near my hotel has a restaurant and I figured that if I couldn’t go to a match, I could at least go to dinner. I ordered tomato soup and steak that was stuffed with bacon and cheese (gorgonzola, I believe) and covered in a mushroom sauce. It was very good, but I honestly have no idea if it was Croatian in any sense.

Okay, that’s pretty much it for Zagreb. Since I only spent one full day in the city, it’s only getting one full post on my blog. It was an interesting place for a stopover and another day probably wouldn’t have hurt, but that’s probably as much as I could have taken. From Zagreb, I was off to Venice.