On the way to Zagreb, we stopped off at the little town of Samobar, just after crossing the border into Croatia. The main reason for stopping here, is that the town is famous for its Cream Cake (Samoborska kremšnita).
We timed our time in Zagreb to be mainly over the weekend. The city was a buzz with people, enjoying the Christmas markets and various Christmas activities. We got to enjoy it as well, with some hot gluhwien, little dough balls covered in cinnamon sugar, and ice skating. It was an opportunity to meet up with an old SBM colleague of Mish’s, Zarko, and we spent a lovely afternoon catching up.
One of the big attractions of Zagreb is the Nikola Tesla Museum. Oddly enough it started with a great exhibit of old and modern fire fighting equipment, and then to water and steam powered machinery. Mish was in element explaining how EVERYTHING worked, and the girls lapped it up as he worked hard to make it sound interesting and relevant. The museum also has a model coal mine showing how mines changed over time, and an interesting collection of cars, trains, planes and other historical objects like an old torture… em, I mean dentist chair, old computers and even a WWII Italian submarine. But the highlight of the museum is the Tesla electrical lab. There we got to not only learn about Nikola Tesla but also see some of his inventions in action. It was an amazing experience, made extra special as they asked for volunteers and Mish and the girls got hands on with some of the experiments.
Over a few days we got to explore Zagreb. And some of the things we got to see were:
- The Saint Mark church. A remarkable church from the 13th century famous for its very colourful tiled roof. It has got the Coat of arms of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia , and the City of Zagreb
- The Grič Tunnel: A pedestrian tunnel built during WWII to serve as a bomb shelter and a protected promenade. It has a bit of a chilling affect, but in the middle for Xmas, they put up a “polar dream” exhibit that is truly amazing in its visual affects.
- The Stone Gate, one only city gate left to the old town, build in the 13th Century. Currently it is also a shrine to the Mother of God. It is quite the solem shrine, with people lighting candles and sitting in prayer. Apparently it is one of the most important shrines in Zagreb.
- The Cathedral, which unfortunately is under reconstruction with some very serious working being done to it. The cathedral was damaged in the 2020 earthquake on 22 March, in which the tip of its southern spire broke off and crashed onto the roof of the adjacent Archbishop's Palace. Apparently the repair is planned to take 5 years to complete.
However, we think that the highlight of Zagreb was taking the girls ice skating, on an awesome Ice skating rink by the main train station. It was not your traditional rectangular-ish shaped ring, but a combination of tracks and a massive roundabout in the middle. The girls definitely need to do this more often as it took a while for them to get their ‘ice legs’ so to speak. Harriette was very determined to skate by herself, and it was amazing to see her keep getting up and trying again.
Now it’s time to start heading up north with the first stop being Vienna for its famous Christmas markets.
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