Zagreb...City of Hearts

the City of Hearts

Today we slept in until 10am...although at 1am I woke thinking it must be time to get up...love jet lag. We made a delicious brunch from food we bought at the supermarket and headed off by noon...in the rain. Glad Dora had complimentary umbrellas for us to use at the apartment.

Breakfast of Champions

We started out on our way to the Upper Town. The first thing we noticed was that everyone here uses an umbrella...no coastal winds like home...and the city is very clean and not overly congested. There are tons of shops and boutiques...great for any shopper out there...and they have an excellent streetcar system. 

We finally found our way to the Dolac Market...this is where locals buy everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, to fish, meat and even some preserves. It was raining a fair bit, so we decided to head inside. On our way to the museum we came across the most unique little souvenir shop...the Take Me Home: Croatian Design Shop.  LOVED everything in this store...and the woman who helped us was so lovely...made it that much better.  Everything was made my artisans from around Croatia, all items were small enough to take home while traveling and the designs were all unique...and yes I did get a couple things to take home with me. 

www.takemehome.hr

From here we climbed up a large set of stairs to the Museum of Broken Relationships. This is one of Croatia's "quirkiest" museums, that grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins.

welcome

the concept

We spent about 1.5 hours reading the stories from around the world of people's relationships and some of the ways they came to their demise. We even found out they are having their first Canadian exhibition in Whitehourse this year to coincide with the ice "breaking up"...how funny is that!

the exhibits

After we had a good dose of relationship stories, we decided to grab something to drink at the museum cafe. Here we finally realized that "kava" meant coffee...duhhh...and Lisa and I tried a latte macchiato and a kava sa slagom (coffee with cream).

I think we are hooked…yummy!!!

From here we headed to Lotrsak Tower...Croatia's only preserved medieval tower from the 13th century. From the lookout post we had some incredible views of downtown...especially since the rain stopped and the sun was trying to peak out. 

views of the city and Cathederal

another arial view

from inside out

And we couldn't resist our daily selfie...check out the cover over the scaffolding on the tower...pretty ingenious if you ask me. 

creative disguise

Since we could see the cathedral from the tower we decided try and find it.  Along the way we came across the Stone Gate. This is one of four gates where you can enter into the Upper Town and the only one still intact. Inside is a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary where people can stop to pray. 

prayer time

We finally arrived at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary...one of Zagreb's defining symbols. What a beautiful piece of architecture inside and out...even while being renovated. 

the entrance

intricate artistry

from the inside

a lost language

At this point we were getting very hungry so we started to head back towards the market area. Along the way we ended up on Tkalciceva...one of downtown's most colourful streets. It was filled with lots of shops, restaurants and of course pubs...I must say people here really like their wine, beer and cigarettes.

finding our way to Tkalciceva

Tkalciceva

One of our favourite shops along this street was the Cookie Factory Cafe....couldn't resist. Yummy!!

Cookies!!!!

We finally found a restaurant closer to home...but not before asking a waiter where we could actually order more than just alcohol...I tell you it's hard to find!!!  For dinner we enjoyed lots of delicious pizza.  I think the waiter thought we were crazy when we ordered two pizzas...and of course a local beer. Great end to our first full day in Croatia.   Cheers!!!

our first local beer…nice!

On our way home we walked through the many flower carts selling a huge variety of flowers…Croatian's like their fresh flowers.

Flower Market by night

fresh flowers

Tomorrow we are heading south to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Plitvice National Park for a few days. We are renting a car, so I'm sure the adventure will continue on. 

Until tomorrow...

L & L