This is Flor coming back after a short ten day break from writing... 'cause, to be honest, all of us need some time to rest our ideas from time to time. So here I am, back to give it my all to my posts.
In the last two weeks, I've been in six different cities. A huge number for such reduced amount of days, right? Well, my body has let me know that for sure! Hahaha.
I'm currently in Zagreb, capital city of Croatia, one of the countries I have been dying to get to know. And, no wonder why, so far it has overachieved my expectations. Let me share with you what I've learnt about this wonderful place so far and some of the nice places I got to visit here.
Zagreb, in comparison with other cities from Eastern Europe, might seem a bit little at first, but it's so rich in its culture and has so much to offer that will leave you gagging from the very first moment you step a foot on it.
This city has almost 1 million inhabitants, which might not seem as a huge amount, but it is when you compare it to the net 4 million inhabitants that Croatia has. And no wonder why, as here you can find all the economic, administrative and burocratic center of the country.
Zagreb is incredibly rich in history, despite the fact that Croatia is a quite "young" country (remember Yugoslavia's splitting up back in 1990?). The city has a beautiful main square in which you can find a lot of different shops, the trams going between the whole square and a huge statue of Josipa Jelačića.
You might be wondering who's Josipa Jelačića and why did he have such stunning monument in the middle of Zagreb's main square, that by the way, has his name too?
Josipa was no more and no less than a noted army general... and the man who was able to defend Croatia in the series of revolutions that took place in 1848 and helped in the abolition of serfdom. The statue had been placed in the center of the square in that same year, but got removed by the communist dictatorship of Yugoslavia in 1891. It came back to its original place in 1990, when Croatia finally became a free and republican country. By now, this remains as one of the most important meeting points of the city.
At the left of the monument, there's a huge market that takes place every single day from 6am till 2pm. Here, locals will offer and sell their fruits, vegetables, flowers, meat and dairy products. And when I say 'every single day', I mean it. There was a huge storm in two of the days that I spent in the city... and yet, they were there, waiting for their customers with a huge smile on their faces. It's really nice to go through the different islands and see what the locals have to offer. In my point of view, one of the best ways to get to know the culture of the country.
I like this special kind of markets to get to know what a place has to offer. Croatia is best known for it's amazing olives, lavender flowers, fruits like strawberrys, cherries and blackberries... and, in so many other countries of Eastern Europe, beer, of course!
As in most modern cities, you can easily tell where the old town and the newest part begins. Well, Zagreb is no exception to that!
The city, back in 1800's, was built over two hills that lead to two very different neightbourns: Gradec hill and Kaptol hill. This was, for me, the most interesting fact about Zagreb: there used to be a very huge rivalry between these two places, up to a point in which they would fight (yes, not argue, fight) over and over again back in the times in which the city wasn't unified.
Kaptol hill used to be no more and no less than a religious place, it's really not that big, but here you will be able to find a lot of different churches, the main Cathedral and, by now, all government buildings. Back in time, this used to be a place for the hierarchy and, of course, the rest of the inhabitants were not welcome to live in there.
Here we can find incredibly beautiful buildings, such as:
This Cathedral is incredibly stunning, there's so much neogothic influence to it. It has been for quite some time the tallest building in Zagreb. You will see that in many of the pictures I'm sharing, all buildings have scaffoldings on it, and that's because the city back in 2020 suffered not only one but two terrible earthquakes that damaged a lot of the most historical buildings.
The newest part of the town remained great after them, but the Old Town suffered a lot and, up to now, there's still a lot of mainteinance being done. Unfortunatelly to say, St Mary's Cathedral was one of the buildings that suffered the most damage.
In the picture you see above, that's one of the two "13m towers" it had on top. After the earthquake, one of them collapsed and fell down. After that, both of them were replaced by iron crosses till they can be rebuilt afterwards.
As well as this, and in so many other buildings from the city, as they're under mainteinance, it's not possible for you to go and see them from the inside. It would have been wonderful to see this roman Cathedral in deep!
If you google 'Zagreb', this is probably the first snip of the city you will get:
This wondergul church dates back to the 13th century and has, from that moment, gone through a lot of changes and all sorts of mainteinance works. At first, after the invasions that Zagreb suffered back in 1800 and, later, due to a huge fire that took place and almost burnt half of the city.
Well, St Mark's church survived all that. A german arquitechture was hired to renew this Church and to make it as beautiful as he could, and truth is that there's so much to say about it.
From the outside, you can see that's a typical roman style with bits of gothic influences, but as well as that, we can see in the roof that there's two different coat of arms being shown. The one on the left, represents all Croatia regions themselves: the checkered path represents Zagreb, the three "lion-like" shapes represent the Dalmatia region (yes.. no one ever though that those three faces could represent a real lion, lol) and the black animal in a red background is for Slavonia region.
PS: Make sure to open in another tab that picture so that you can see the coat of arms in detail.
Ever wondered what the checkered board represents on Croatia's flag? It's based on a legend that when Croatia was a monastry, their king had been captured by the Venetians and, as a challenge to let him go, the king had accepted to play chess with his opponent. He was so good at it that he had bet that if he was able to win three times in a row, they should set him free. Well, as the legend goes, he was able to do it and became free again. After that, the checkerboard has been an important part of Zagreb's coat of arms.
The origin of the lions for Dalmatia is still unknown, but the red background and the black animal on the coat of arms represent the Kuna. Kuna is an animal that used to be hunted and whose fur was incredibly expensive. That used to be a measure of value back when there was no legal coin for Croatia and, up to now, their currency is called Kuna due to this too. Random fact: Croatia will be adopting the Euro currency in 2023, so say goodbye to your Kunas!
Right next to St Mark's church, you will find governmental buildings and the Parliament:
And to sum up this story about Kaptol Hill, this is a view from the upper parts of St Mark's church and St Mary's Cathedral:
Gradec Hill was the place in which the "ordinary" population used to live. There's a huge stone gate in the entrance, in which you will find a very particular chapel.
That stone arch that we get to see has survived the huge fire that almost destroys every single place in Zagreb, back in 1645. Mostly, all city was down in flames... but that stone and a very particular picture.
When they were looking into the ashes and trying to see how badly everything was burnt, they found a picture of Mary holding baby Jesus in a perfect state. This picture was into a wooden framed, which you would think that it would be almost one of the first things to get destroyed... well, no. After finding that, St Mary's become the protective saint of Zagreb (that's why the Cathedral's named after her) and in the same place that they found the picture, a chapel was built.
They still keep the picture in a very well protected way and people can go there and ask Mary for protection, health and overall help. After Mary helping them, people would go back and leave a short message thanking her. I didn't take picture of that, as it was a chapel and people were actually praying when I was there, so I didn't want to be disrespectful towards them.
Right past that, you can find one of the most poular and beautiful streets that Zagreb has to offer: Tkalciceva Street. This has a wonderful mixture of tourists and locals meeting at the same point. It's incredibly colourful and a lot of different shops are awaiting for you.
From souvenir shops, to restaurants and places to have a beer, you can find everything in that street. It's not so crowded, specially considering that it's one of the most important streets in Zagreb, so it's always nice to take a stroll in there and just enjoy the local vibe.
In another street right next to it, you can find the Bloody Bridge Street:
Doesn't seem that bloody and that scary for such strong title, right? Well, as everything in Zagreb, it has a story attached to it.
Remember a couple of paragraphs ago that I said that there was a huge rivarly between Kaptol and Gradec hill? Well, turns out that they were not quiet people and there was always some sort of reason to fight between these two "villages". As a consequence of that, there was a small river that divided both hills and, of course, to get past it, at that time there used to be a bridge to connect both shores.
That was the exact place in which people would gather to fight and "talk their problems". Nowadays, and specially after Zagreb's reunification, those kind of issues don't exist anymore. The river has been redirected not to divide the city into two parts and, of course, the bridge was no longer needed. Still, as a way of memoring those who lost their lives in that place, the street has that particular name: Bloody Bridge, as locals used to refer to that spot. Interesting, right?
Another beautiful thing about Zagreb being built over two hills is that it can give you a lot of nice and beautiful sights of the city:
There are different parks scattered all over the place too:
Another beautiful aspect of this city is how they still embrace their culture and their traditions. Back in the times in which the digital era was far from being implemented, civilians were used to hearing every single day a cannon backfiring at midday. Exactly at midday. What, wait?!
Yes, every day at 12pm, someone was in charge of backfiring a cannon. At the top of the Gradec hill, there's this tower with a cannon on the last floor. Up to now, that tradition has been kept and it has also become a touristic attraction! Hahaha
The sound of the fire is incredibly loud, but it's one of Zagreb's interesting things. You know that every single day, at midday, you will hear it. It has been like that since 1900's and, of course, there's a person that's in charge of it. Only four Croatians have had the honour of firing the cannon in these time and no single day it has been late. Quite a responsability, right?
As I've told you, this is the newest part of the city, which was built after 1990. Here, you can find all sorts of shops and houses, as it's the residential area of Zagreb.
There are a lot of interesting buildings too, such as the Zagreb's national theatre and the Engineering University of Zagreb:
There are a lot of different scupltures scattered all over the city, which make it really interesting, as you're walking in a street and from one moment to another, you find something different that's not on Googlemaps! Lol
I would upload so many other picture of Zagreb, but this post has became incredibly large by now. Hope you enjoyed it and learnt something from it, I really had a great time in this city and it's yet the first snip of Croatian culture I got...
Thank you so much for reading! :)
