Volim Te, Zagreb – Reflections on an East European getaway

While I do enjoy writing these blogs, despite the fact that I only have one subscriber (who happens to be one of my oldest friends that I’ve known since high school), I thought maybe I should expand my subject matter and write about other interesting stuff. That was the intention of this blog. As the subheading suggests; Garden Design, Landscape of the Mind . . . and Music in Between. Besides, I have written around fourteen entries already about garden design and horticulture. And while that is all good sometimes it does feel like I’m singing from a ‘set-list’ as it were that is becoming too familiar to me. That is not to say SoundPlace&Time will no longer be about British gardening culture, of course it will be. I just thought it would also be cool to write about other interesting stuff, like some of the places I have been fortunate enough to visit this year. One of which was Croatia’s capital city; Zagreb.

                                               

It would be fair to say that most people who enjoy gardening and all things horticultural probably also enjoy traveling too. And not just overseas stuff either. I know someone who takes great pleasure in visiting Shropshire of all places and makes it look like an Albion wonderland. Perhaps it is. I’m yet to visit out that way. So many places, so little time. Anyway, this post isn’t about me writing about the virtues of regular travel or how the riddle of life can sometimes be solved in the simple act of planting a shrub (you knew that already, right?). I just felt like revisiting, through writing this blog, about a place I visited earlier this year. I posted these photos earlier this year on a couple of social media outlets, so maybe it is high time I revisited them again . . . in case you missed them the first time around.

What inspired my visit to Zagreb? I really don’t know other than it is Eastern Europe whose history and culture I find very fascinating, and it is out of the ordinary i.e. it’s not Greece or Spain. While I didn't want to use this blog as a platform to discuss Croatian history there were many anecdotes of history that I learnt along that way. For instance, there is a whole generation of Croatians who can speak fluent German because there was a time when the former Yugoslavia was under German jurisdiction. To many Europeans reading this you’re probably shrugging your shoulders. But to an ex-patriot Australian who currently resides in Britain (that person being me) I found these little historical facts quite fascinating.

Make no mistake, Zagreb looks and feels very bohemian and they play by their own rules. Within a half an hour of arriving I was admiring this city immensely. You can smoke tobacco in cafes while enjoying a coffee without any sense of shame or feeling self-conscious. I don’t even smoke tobacco, but I thought this was kind of cool and subversive. 

The buildings are old, the paint is peeling, and the tram cars are a strange blue colour that look like they were made in the 1970s. They just keep going and going and going. Upon reflection, I really regret not hopping on one of them and allowing it to take me to wherever it was going to. I was afraid of purchasing the wrong ticket and feeling awkward about it all. But it’s only now that I’ve been told that not many local Zagrebians actually purchase tickets to ride a Tram car. Well, not that often anyway (Best I keep that secret to myself!).

Zagreb may not have the iconic landmarks of, say, Paris or Rome but there was still plenty to see and do. There was one place in particular that I found incredibly fascinating, amazing, and quite moving. The Museum of Broken Relationships. This is one of Zagreb’s most popular museums and certainly the most eccentric and captivating too. It is a museum dedicated to commiserating and celebrating failed relationships whose intimate memorabilia has been donated by people from all over the world. I discovered later that the museum’s founders are Zagreb artists who were once a couple themselves and their subsequent break up inspired the concept behind this unique and oftentimes emotional museum. It is almost impossible not to feel moved in some way by the artifacts and the stories behind them.

After I finished wandering this museum of melancholia and drinking the first of many cups of coffee, as Zagrebians do, I walked up toward St. Mark’s Square which is home to Croatian Parliament, Government, and Constitutional Court where I was able to admire one of the city's most iconic landmarks; St Mark’s Church. Parts of which date back to the 13th century. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go inside to admire the Church’s interior, but one can certainly admire this small church with its characteristic roof. I was so curious to know how beautiful St Mark’s may look on the inside. But it wasn’t to be . . .

Given that Zagreb isn’t exactly a large European city and can mostly be enjoyed without the use of their public transport system (although I wish I had ridden the Tram at least once), this allows for easy discovery and sight-seeing on foot. Just simply strolling around and looking up and around was such a pleasurable experience. When the hotel manager picked me up from the airport and was driving me to my hotel, I mentioned to him how cool and decadent the old apartment blocks looked in the town centre with its grimy façade and chunks of surface plaster that have fallen away over the course of time. I think he thought I was being a bit sarcastic, but I assured him that wasn’t the case. It is their drab greyness and old age that makes them so appealing . . . to me anyway. For a moment I felt like I was back in the former Yugoslavia during the early 1960s. The old city buildings and architecture still convey an urban bohemianism that is uniquely Croatian and very Eastern European, not to mention their stoicism.

In the town centre located in Zagreb’s Gornji Grad (or 'Old Town') I found Zagreb’s oldest Farmer’s Market; the Dolac. In many ways the markets serves as the social glue for many Zagrebians and has been in operation pretty much every day since 1930. What is characteristic about Dolac are the red parasols featuring a striped motif that is typical of the Zagreb region. Despite the weather been wet and cold (there was slush on the ground from an earlier snowfall), it was still business as usual, and their business was carried out with a sense of stoicism, community good will, and warmth.

One of the most interesting curios that I discovered by accident was the Gric Tunnel. You can discover this for yourself if take the Funicular up to the St Mark’s Square and stroll along the Strossmayer Promenade to the end where you will discover a very large wooden door. Walk through the door and suddenly a long network of tunnels opens before you. I was blown away, but the Gric Tunnel’s story is tinged with a little sadness. They were originally built in 1943 as a Second World War air-raid shelter. Fifty years later they would serve their primary purpose again as a shelter during the Homeland War of 1991-1995.

That reminds me; while walking around and taking in everything I spotted this beautiful old pub called the Old Pharmacy. I'm not sure how old the pub actually is; I didn't ask. But again it was one of those buildings whose facade is stressed, flaking, and absolutely beautiful . . . and so were the interiors.

I always feel very nostalgic and pensive when I look at these photos. It's been barely ten months. There is a real poignancy looking at these images again. It’s funny how certain places do strike a deep chord within you that somehow only makes sense to yourself. Maybe it is because the places you decide to visit reflect how you’re feeling about your life and the people who were a part of it at that particular time, and perhaps not so much now. If someone else were to visit the same place I experienced their reaction may be along the lines of, “Yeah, it was alright.” I would go back again in a heartbeat. Volim Te, Zagreb!