August 8-10 is when these events occurred
Zagreb was a fun and interesting place to visit. It probably would have been better if we had come on a non weekend, non late summer day.
Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, but seems very different from the rest of the country that we have visited. Unlike the land of time-passed interior villages that we passed through or the ancient and touristy coastal towns and villages, Zagreb was a welcome jolt of big city activity and sophistication. Unfortunately, we arrived at a time -- weekend -- when much of the cultural infrastructure shuts down. It was explained to me that Sunday afternoons and Mondays, and all of early August, is when all of Croatia goes to the coast (as I saw from the opposing traffic on our drive in on the toll roads). So it was pretty quiet and largely devoid of tourists.
Zagreb used to be two walled medieval cities, Gradec and Kaptol, separated by a river. The river has long since been paved over and is now Tkaleiceva Ulica ("ulica" means street), a pedestrian only, eateries lined, people watching mecca. Today one sixth of all Croatians live in Zagreb.
Kaptol became the Bishop's seat in the 11th century and by the 16th century Gradec became the administrative center under the Austrian empire for the Croatian region. This area never fell under Ottoman rule. In 1848 the Hungarians revolted against the Austrians. During this period the Hungarians were exerting increasing control over the Croats, even attempting to make Hungarian the official language. (Throughout the trip we repeatedly learned of efforts throughout history, and continuing today [see Kurds in Turkey], by one group to stamp out the cultural identity, including language, of another group.) Josip Jelacic, a nationalist Croatian leader sided with the Austrians in the belief that they would win and that the Croatians would get a better shot of preserving their identity under the Austrians rather than the Hungarians. When the Austrians won, the Croatians indeed got more autonomy, the two towns merged to become Zagreb and Jelacic got the main square in Zagreb named after him and his statue in the center of the square. His statue originally faced north to stare down the Hungarians. During the communist era, Jelacic was considered a dangerous nationalist so his statue was removed (but curiously not destroyed.) When Croatia became independent his statue was returned to the square, but this time facing south to stare down the Serbs. When the Austrians built a railroad from Budapest to the Adriatic port of Rijeka through Zagreb in the late 19th century, the city took off. Now it is one of Europe"s smallest capitols.
We left our guesthouse near Plitvice after making our own breakfast, a novel activity on this trip. Cereal, fruit and ice cream. Drove about an hour on the old Zagreb/Split highway, a two-lane road until we rejoined the toll road. It was pretty busy going north, but going south to the coast it was crawling. The drivers got to go slow and paid dearly for the privilege. We were moving at a good pace until we got within 12km of the toll booth. Then traffic came to a crawl and it took almost an hour to get through that bottleneck.
That made us late for our meeting with the guy who was going to let us into the apartment that I rented in Zagreb from InZagreb. So we ate lunch around the corner and waited until the representative returned. It was a spectacular apartment. It is on the 4th floor of a late 19th century building that had one of those gated elevators that you see in old European movies. It was over 1000 sq ft with a living room, a separate bedroom and a full kitchen (including laundry) and a dining area. Also bicycles came with the apartment. I could live there. In contrast, the average Zagrebian lives in a 250 sq. ft. apartment.
After settling in the apartment and starting what turned out to be several loads of laundry, we walked out to Jelacic Square and up to the Gradec upper town area. We walked on Ilica Street and through the Octagon shopping gallery that a century ago was the ultimate in iron and glass shopping elegance and still features Croata, a tie shop. The Croatians claim that they invented the neck tie when they fought with the French during the Thirty Years War and tied their scarves in a distinctive knot. We then passed through Stone Gate, Gradec's only surviving town gate. Inside the gate is a small chapel whose focal point is a painting of Mary that survived the fire that burned down the original gate in the 18th century. As a result of that they created the chapel when they rebuilt the gate. There are lots of plaques in the chapel from people whose prayers have been answered. Mary is also the patron saint of Zagreb. We also passed Zagreb's oldest pharmacy, dating to 1355. We then entered St. Mark's Square named after the Church in the center. The church's roof is composed of very colorful tiles with two coats of arms, on the left for Croatia and on the right for Zagreb. Zagreb is apparently trying to encourage tourism. One thing it is doing is having actors walk around St. Mark's Square in period costume from various centuries on Saturday night. So we saw soldiers, police, society couples, country maidens etc. walking around and giving little history lessons. The final group of three 19th century soldiers spoke with us after their end-of-shift time of 8:00, but then begged out citing their need for water.
Zagreb was the home of Nikola Tesla (yes, the car is named after him) who was born in Croatia, but was an ethnic Serb. He championed alternating current (AC) rather than direct current (DC) championed by Edison. So while Edison won the publicity war, Tesla's AC system prevailed. And while Zagreb was the first city in the world at Tesla's urgings to build an AC power plant (Buffalo was the first in the US), this section of town continues to be lit by gas lamps. We saw them being lit by a lamplighter.
The square is now pedestrian only. On one side of the square is the Sabor, Croatia's Parliament. On the other side is Ban's Palace, which now houses the offices of the Prime Minister. We were told that this was one of the few buildings in Zagreb that was bombed by the Yugoslav Air Force during the 1991 war. You can see the different color tiles on the roof that were used to repair it after the bombing.
We then exited the square and walked down a street that had old time, tiny street signs in both Croatian and German. I climbed the Burglars' Tower that is the last remnant of walls built in the 13th century to keep out the Tartars who were busily ransacking central Europe at the time. On the Tower's top floor there is a small cannon It is fired every day at noon to help Zagrebians set their watches. We strolled the Strossmayer Promenade where they were showing outdoor movies and which is the upper terminus of the funicular. Lots of cafes and artists displaying their wares here.
We were unsuccessful in getting into the restaurant of our choice (made a reservation for the next night) and so we ate dinner at Bistro Agava, off the main square watching lots of people pass by. Paid a premium for location. The food was just OK.
The next morning we ate breakfast in our apartment. A mixture of fruit the hosts had provided for us and items we had brought from our prior guest house outside of Plitvice. Our first stop was the Croatian Museum of Naive Art. As I learned, in the late 19th century the art world began to broaden its definition of art and looked for works from individuals untrained in the art academies or salons. The work is not by amateur or folk artists, but by "great" artists who were not formally trained.
In Croatia in the 1930s this took the form of art by untrained peasants. At that time, 85% of Croatians lived in rural areas and were illiterate and uneducated, and lived without electricity or other modern conveniences. This movement captured that humble life in expressionist paintings. Many of the paintings are on glass rather than the more expensive and less available canvas. The star of the movement is Ivan Generalic who was discovered in Paris in the 1930s, sold several of his paintings and returned to Croatia both rich and a star. The museum featured his work and the work of his successors. The work was so interesting, we later bought three small paintings from a current artist of this school.
We then went to the Croatian history museum (not to be confused with the Croatian National History Museum to which we were wrongly directed). It is housed in a former mansion and had interesting exhibits, especially photographs, about the 1991-95 Wars for Independence. Of course it was told from the Croatian viewpoint, so there was no mention of the Croatians massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII or that the the Croatians schemed with the Serbs during those wars to carve up Bosnia between them, or that while the Croats decry the siege of Dubrovnik as depraved, they do not mention their siege of Mostar. Isn't nationalism great!
By then it was 2:00 and almost all the museums were closed, so we retraced our steps and walked down to Tkalciceva Street to get some lunch. But first we passed a row of old time houses that in the past was Zagreb's red light district. Prostitution used to be legal in Zagreb and the balconies of these houses faced the spire of the main cathedral in town. This street is lined with restaurants and people seemingly just passing the time watching others pass by. We ate lunch at Restaurant Agava. It has terraces climbing up the hill and an interior that looked like a 19th century home. The food was pretty good and the prices reasonable, but the respite form the sun was great.
After lunch we walked uphill on the other side to the Kaptol area, Zagreb's other medieval city. This side of the city houses the daily morning market , that we missed, and Zagreb's main Cathedral. This is the most important church in a very Catholic country. It is almost constantly being renovated with new stone because, while it is fine to use limestone to build on the coast that does not have freezing weather, that does not work as well in the interior where there are cold freezing winters. It was burned by the Tartars in the 13th century and when rebuilt, it was surrounded by a wall, most of which still exists. The church is very big and ornate with monuments and burial sites of many prominent Croatians; but recently as money dried up, the chandeliers were supposedly imported from Las Vegas.
Three sites in the church caught my eye. First there was the monument to Josip Jelacic, the Croatian nationalist discussed above who fought the Hungarians and gained greater independence for the Croats; but right next to that is a display of three sainted Hungarian kings who (when Croatia was part of Hungary) founded and built the church. Imagine that you are a Croatian first grader who is brought to the church on a field trip. He must be thinking, Praise those wonderful Hungarians who built the church and thank god we defeated them in battle. The second monument that caught my eye was a sculpture of Alojzije Stepinac by the sculptor Ivan Mestrovie (we did not get to his museum) who fled communist Yugoslavia to live in Detroit. Alojzije Stepinac was the archbishop of Zagreb during WWII, who supported the Ustasc, the Nazi puppet government in Croatia that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, along with Jews, gypsies and communists. I assume that he did that because he thought that was the best way for Croatians to gain independence from the Serbs. After the war Tito's government convicted him and sentenced him to jail and then house arrest for the remainder of his life. However, in an independent Croatia Stepinac is considered a martyr and an inspirational figure of faith. I imagine that the Serbs have a different view of him. On the bottom of the monument is carved, "Made in Detroit". Finally within the church is a glass case that contains a sculpture of Stepinac's eerily lifelike waxy body. It looked gruesome. His actual remains are below.
We then went back to the apartment. I got a bicycle out of the basement and took a ride through the Green Horseshoe park and then further south. I got lost coming back, but then pointed the bike to the cathedral spires to get back to the apartment.
Before dinner we picked up our three pictures and I went to the Museum of Broken Relationships. Opened in 2010 by a couple who had recently broken up, it contains stories and mementos from ordinary couples who had broken up, sometimes after a short period and sometimes after many years of marriage. Lots of stories, many poignant, but my favorite was the account of a 15-year-old Bosniak boy who met a young Croatian girl while their convoy out of Sarajevo during the siege was stranded for 4 days. When the girl's part of the convoy abruptly left they did not have a chance to say good-bye. He wrote her a letter, but all he received back was a letter from her older sister. It was in Bosnian, so I could not read it. I assume the girl was killed.
We had dinner outdoors at Konaba Didov San. Traditional hinterland Croatian food. Very nice dinner and just a few kuna more than the prior night's dinner.
The next day, Monday, we tried to leave early, primarily because virtually none of the museums were open and free street parking ended. Karen went in to a local hair dresser at 7:40am (and she wasn't their first customer). After another self-prepared breakfast, we were on the road by 10:30.
Zagreb was a fun and interesting place to visit. It probably would have been better if we had come on a non weekend, non late summer day.
Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, but seems very different from the rest of the country that we have visited. Unlike the land of time-passed interior villages that we passed through or the ancient and touristy coastal towns and villages, Zagreb was a welcome jolt of big city activity and sophistication. Unfortunately, we arrived at a time -- weekend -- when much of the cultural infrastructure shuts down. It was explained to me that Sunday afternoons and Mondays, and all of early August, is when all of Croatia goes to the coast (as I saw from the opposing traffic on our drive in on the toll roads). So it was pretty quiet and largely devoid of tourists.
Zagreb used to be two walled medieval cities, Gradec and Kaptol, separated by a river. The river has long since been paved over and is now Tkaleiceva Ulica ("ulica" means street), a pedestrian only, eateries lined, people watching mecca. Today one sixth of all Croatians live in Zagreb.
Kaptol became the Bishop's seat in the 11th century and by the 16th century Gradec became the administrative center under the Austrian empire for the Croatian region. This area never fell under Ottoman rule. In 1848 the Hungarians revolted against the Austrians. During this period the Hungarians were exerting increasing control over the Croats, even attempting to make Hungarian the official language. (Throughout the trip we repeatedly learned of efforts throughout history, and continuing today [see Kurds in Turkey], by one group to stamp out the cultural identity, including language, of another group.) Josip Jelacic, a nationalist Croatian leader sided with the Austrians in the belief that they would win and that the Croatians would get a better shot of preserving their identity under the Austrians rather than the Hungarians. When the Austrians won, the Croatians indeed got more autonomy, the two towns merged to become Zagreb and Jelacic got the main square in Zagreb named after him and his statue in the center of the square. His statue originally faced north to stare down the Hungarians. During the communist era, Jelacic was considered a dangerous nationalist so his statue was removed (but curiously not destroyed.) When Croatia became independent his statue was returned to the square, but this time facing south to stare down the Serbs. When the Austrians built a railroad from Budapest to the Adriatic port of Rijeka through Zagreb in the late 19th century, the city took off. Now it is one of Europe"s smallest capitols.
We left our guesthouse near Plitvice after making our own breakfast, a novel activity on this trip. Cereal, fruit and ice cream. Drove about an hour on the old Zagreb/Split highway, a two-lane road until we rejoined the toll road. It was pretty busy going north, but going south to the coast it was crawling. The drivers got to go slow and paid dearly for the privilege. We were moving at a good pace until we got within 12km of the toll booth. Then traffic came to a crawl and it took almost an hour to get through that bottleneck.
That made us late for our meeting with the guy who was going to let us into the apartment that I rented in Zagreb from InZagreb. So we ate lunch around the corner and waited until the representative returned. It was a spectacular apartment. It is on the 4th floor of a late 19th century building that had one of those gated elevators that you see in old European movies. It was over 1000 sq ft with a living room, a separate bedroom and a full kitchen (including laundry) and a dining area. Also bicycles came with the apartment. I could live there. In contrast, the average Zagrebian lives in a 250 sq. ft. apartment.
After settling in the apartment and starting what turned out to be several loads of laundry, we walked out to Jelacic Square and up to the Gradec upper town area. We walked on Ilica Street and through the Octagon shopping gallery that a century ago was the ultimate in iron and glass shopping elegance and still features Croata, a tie shop. The Croatians claim that they invented the neck tie when they fought with the French during the Thirty Years War and tied their scarves in a distinctive knot. We then passed through Stone Gate, Gradec's only surviving town gate. Inside the gate is a small chapel whose focal point is a painting of Mary that survived the fire that burned down the original gate in the 18th century. As a result of that they created the chapel when they rebuilt the gate. There are lots of plaques in the chapel from people whose prayers have been answered. Mary is also the patron saint of Zagreb. We also passed Zagreb's oldest pharmacy, dating to 1355. We then entered St. Mark's Square named after the Church in the center. The church's roof is composed of very colorful tiles with two coats of arms, on the left for Croatia and on the right for Zagreb. Zagreb is apparently trying to encourage tourism. One thing it is doing is having actors walk around St. Mark's Square in period costume from various centuries on Saturday night. So we saw soldiers, police, society couples, country maidens etc. walking around and giving little history lessons. The final group of three 19th century soldiers spoke with us after their end-of-shift time of 8:00, but then begged out citing their need for water.
Zagreb was the home of Nikola Tesla (yes, the car is named after him) who was born in Croatia, but was an ethnic Serb. He championed alternating current (AC) rather than direct current (DC) championed by Edison. So while Edison won the publicity war, Tesla's AC system prevailed. And while Zagreb was the first city in the world at Tesla's urgings to build an AC power plant (Buffalo was the first in the US), this section of town continues to be lit by gas lamps. We saw them being lit by a lamplighter.
The square is now pedestrian only. On one side of the square is the Sabor, Croatia's Parliament. On the other side is Ban's Palace, which now houses the offices of the Prime Minister. We were told that this was one of the few buildings in Zagreb that was bombed by the Yugoslav Air Force during the 1991 war. You can see the different color tiles on the roof that were used to repair it after the bombing.
We then exited the square and walked down a street that had old time, tiny street signs in both Croatian and German. I climbed the Burglars' Tower that is the last remnant of walls built in the 13th century to keep out the Tartars who were busily ransacking central Europe at the time. On the Tower's top floor there is a small cannon It is fired every day at noon to help Zagrebians set their watches. We strolled the Strossmayer Promenade where they were showing outdoor movies and which is the upper terminus of the funicular. Lots of cafes and artists displaying their wares here.
We were unsuccessful in getting into the restaurant of our choice (made a reservation for the next night) and so we ate dinner at Bistro Agava, off the main square watching lots of people pass by. Paid a premium for location. The food was just OK.
The next morning we ate breakfast in our apartment. A mixture of fruit the hosts had provided for us and items we had brought from our prior guest house outside of Plitvice. Our first stop was the Croatian Museum of Naive Art. As I learned, in the late 19th century the art world began to broaden its definition of art and looked for works from individuals untrained in the art academies or salons. The work is not by amateur or folk artists, but by "great" artists who were not formally trained.
In Croatia in the 1930s this took the form of art by untrained peasants. At that time, 85% of Croatians lived in rural areas and were illiterate and uneducated, and lived without electricity or other modern conveniences. This movement captured that humble life in expressionist paintings. Many of the paintings are on glass rather than the more expensive and less available canvas. The star of the movement is Ivan Generalic who was discovered in Paris in the 1930s, sold several of his paintings and returned to Croatia both rich and a star. The museum featured his work and the work of his successors. The work was so interesting, we later bought three small paintings from a current artist of this school.
We then went to the Croatian history museum (not to be confused with the Croatian National History Museum to which we were wrongly directed). It is housed in a former mansion and had interesting exhibits, especially photographs, about the 1991-95 Wars for Independence. Of course it was told from the Croatian viewpoint, so there was no mention of the Croatians massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII or that the the Croatians schemed with the Serbs during those wars to carve up Bosnia between them, or that while the Croats decry the siege of Dubrovnik as depraved, they do not mention their siege of Mostar. Isn't nationalism great!
By then it was 2:00 and almost all the museums were closed, so we retraced our steps and walked down to Tkalciceva Street to get some lunch. But first we passed a row of old time houses that in the past was Zagreb's red light district. Prostitution used to be legal in Zagreb and the balconies of these houses faced the spire of the main cathedral in town. This street is lined with restaurants and people seemingly just passing the time watching others pass by. We ate lunch at Restaurant Agava. It has terraces climbing up the hill and an interior that looked like a 19th century home. The food was pretty good and the prices reasonable, but the respite form the sun was great.
After lunch we walked uphill on the other side to the Kaptol area, Zagreb's other medieval city. This side of the city houses the daily morning market , that we missed, and Zagreb's main Cathedral. This is the most important church in a very Catholic country. It is almost constantly being renovated with new stone because, while it is fine to use limestone to build on the coast that does not have freezing weather, that does not work as well in the interior where there are cold freezing winters. It was burned by the Tartars in the 13th century and when rebuilt, it was surrounded by a wall, most of which still exists. The church is very big and ornate with monuments and burial sites of many prominent Croatians; but recently as money dried up, the chandeliers were supposedly imported from Las Vegas.
Three sites in the church caught my eye. First there was the monument to Josip Jelacic, the Croatian nationalist discussed above who fought the Hungarians and gained greater independence for the Croats; but right next to that is a display of three sainted Hungarian kings who (when Croatia was part of Hungary) founded and built the church. Imagine that you are a Croatian first grader who is brought to the church on a field trip. He must be thinking, Praise those wonderful Hungarians who built the church and thank god we defeated them in battle. The second monument that caught my eye was a sculpture of Alojzije Stepinac by the sculptor Ivan Mestrovie (we did not get to his museum) who fled communist Yugoslavia to live in Detroit. Alojzije Stepinac was the archbishop of Zagreb during WWII, who supported the Ustasc, the Nazi puppet government in Croatia that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, along with Jews, gypsies and communists. I assume that he did that because he thought that was the best way for Croatians to gain independence from the Serbs. After the war Tito's government convicted him and sentenced him to jail and then house arrest for the remainder of his life. However, in an independent Croatia Stepinac is considered a martyr and an inspirational figure of faith. I imagine that the Serbs have a different view of him. On the bottom of the monument is carved, "Made in Detroit". Finally within the church is a glass case that contains a sculpture of Stepinac's eerily lifelike waxy body. It looked gruesome. His actual remains are below.
We then went back to the apartment. I got a bicycle out of the basement and took a ride through the Green Horseshoe park and then further south. I got lost coming back, but then pointed the bike to the cathedral spires to get back to the apartment.
Before dinner we picked up our three pictures and I went to the Museum of Broken Relationships. Opened in 2010 by a couple who had recently broken up, it contains stories and mementos from ordinary couples who had broken up, sometimes after a short period and sometimes after many years of marriage. Lots of stories, many poignant, but my favorite was the account of a 15-year-old Bosniak boy who met a young Croatian girl while their convoy out of Sarajevo during the siege was stranded for 4 days. When the girl's part of the convoy abruptly left they did not have a chance to say good-bye. He wrote her a letter, but all he received back was a letter from her older sister. It was in Bosnian, so I could not read it. I assume the girl was killed.
We had dinner outdoors at Konaba Didov San. Traditional hinterland Croatian food. Very nice dinner and just a few kuna more than the prior night's dinner.
The next day, Monday, we tried to leave early, primarily because virtually none of the museums were open and free street parking ended. Karen went in to a local hair dresser at 7:40am (and she wasn't their first customer). After another self-prepared breakfast, we were on the road by 10:30.
No comments:
Post a Comment