Zagreb is nice enough. It was formerly under the rule of the Hapsburg Empire, so it's got the grand style of Austrian architecture you find in Vienna and Budapest, but on a much, much smaller scale. It has a nice old town with a couple of nice medieval streets. It has a nice cathedral. It has a good public transport system. All around, it's a nice city, but there's nothing that makes it really stand out, so if you find yourself in Croatia, it might be worth just taking a quick look around the capital and then spending the majority of your time on the coast and in the national parks.
We spent our morning in Zagreb walking around the upper and lower towns. The upper town is the old, medieval portion of the city center, while the lower town was built by the Hapsburgs in the grand, opulent style of the 19th century. Probably the most interesting part of these two areas is the marketplace in the upper town, which has just about every kind of fruit and vegetable you can imagine, and, in the underground section (yes, there is a massive underground market below the above-ground market), there are vendors selling probably every kind of meat and cheese made in Croatia.
That night, we hung out with a few Americans in our hostel bar and were joined by some Kiwis (people from New Zealand). We all went downtown to a very small club/bar and had a jolly good time.
No running of any kind today, but we walked I-don't-even-know-how-many miles. I had some good places in mind for running in Zagreb, so I guess I'll have to come back some other day - assuming I can still run years from now.
 |
 | |||
| The marketplace |
No comments:
Post a Comment