In Zagreb, David Whitley discovers that Croatia’s often-ignored capital can offer just as much as the Adriatic coast.
Jarun Lake
The superhuman cyborg-girl whizzes past again. Sporting a gargantuan build, not an ounce of fat and buns of steel, she has spent the last hour or so roller-skating round the lake. Somehow she flies past every ten minutes or so, despite the fact that skirting the perimeter representing a rather long lap.
It’s all very easy – and pleasant – to gawp in amazement from the safety of the terrace bar on the banks of Jarun Lake. But there’s a lot of activity going on out there – ruddy-cheeked joggers panting and wheezing, rowers lugging their oars through the tranquil waters and slightly less athletic rollergirls pootling along in the sunshine.
All in all, it’s a lovely spot in which to have a beer, but it strikes very much as a local’s playground; the sort of place that somehow doesn’t cross the tourist radar. But then, given that it’s in Zagreb, that’s hardly surprising.
The other Croatia
When people talk of going on holiday to Croatia, the capital is hardly the place that springs immediately to mind. It’s all about the Adriatic coast, the old town of Dubrovnik, lounging on the beaches of Istria and Dalmatia and sailing around the islands. It’d be a very open-minded sort that would put Zagreb amongst the great world capitals. In fact, if done entirely alphabetically, it comes flat last.
Jarun isn’t even a focal point in the city. It’s hidden away amongst the sprawl, and getting there requires one of those wonderfully nervous tram rides. Anyone who has done a smidgen of urban exploration knows the type – the tourist information leaflet gives a rough idea and a selection of two or three trams that you can get on, but no real idea of how long you need to stay on the tram or how to identify the correct stop.
Cue a lot of meerkatting through the windows for signposts every time it pulls up, and that tingling dread about the possibility of having got on the right tram, but going in the wrong direction.
But, like much of the rest of Zagreb, it comes as a marvellously endearing surprise. Jarun represents the city’s wholesome, toothy white grin side, but it has many other faces – many of them within spitting distance of each other.
Exploring from Zagreb’s train station
Getting out of the train station, the first side of the city on view is decidedly grandiose. New arrivals walk out into a crisply-paved sun trap, flanked by imposing, important-looking buildings and the odd statue of old timers who emerged with honour and gravitas from the battlefield. It all seems very Viennese, which is hardly a great shock – Zagreb was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This immediately leads on to a series of parks, all of which are clearly attended in meticulous detail by an army of gardeners, making sure that the grass is just the right shade of luscious green. A pavilion (it’s far too grand to be a simple bandstand) is the hub of numerous pathways, and seems to be the permanent home of rather amateurish brass bands honking and parping away. Perhaps it’s a practice space for various ensembles, and they rent it by the hour.
Trg Josip Jelačića
The trail of pompous parks eventually leads to the city’s heart, Trg Josip Jelačića, which is dominated by a truly enormous equestrian statue, and circled by a blustering mix of shops, cafés and trams.
It’s either side of this central procession path that things start to get interesting though. To the west is the bling, a fierce commercial district given over to Mammon, and to the east is the grit. For some reason, half of Eastern Europe’s stock of police cars seem to use the area as a giant car park, and the streets and walls have a thin layer of dirt to give them that sheen of authenticity. It’s is where all the fun stuff is, though – the no-nonsense local bars, disguised underground restaurants and bizarre, dusty-looking hat shops.
While this is all very entertaining, it is the medieval upper town that really provokes some severe head scratching. It is as lovely as any in Europe – that it is so far off the general tourist map really makes no sense. The area, full of the sort of streets clearly designed to destroy car suspensions, is a little warren of jauntily-painted houses, churches and museums. The latter cover just about everything – every form of art imaginable, national history and, if the big aquatic signpost is anything to go by, really big sharks. However, they all shut down at about 2pm on a Saturday afternoon, after which is perversely the best time to visit.
The Upper Town
With all the major attractions closed, a wonderful slovenly calm descends on Zagreb’s Upper Town. From the top of the Lotrščak Tower, there’s a wonderful view of the action (or lack of it). The colourful, and almost child-like, tiled roof of St Mark’s church simply dazzles as a couple of slouching types amble across the square it dominates.
A few degrees to the west, and a wedding party is emerging from another church, somehow without the raucous joy you’d associate with the moment – more a dignified spill of sleepy contentment.
Elsewhere a couple of souls that have stepped away from the Adriatic trail arch their neck upwards, half to the skies and half to the little architectural curves at the tops of the buildings. One raises a lazy arm to point something out, but both are clearly happy to meander and take things in slowly.
In terms of that attitude, it’s not all that different from those boats slip-slopping round the islands to the south, or the near-comatose sun-lovers dozing on their towels along the Adriatic coast. It’s just that there’s the chance to shop-until-you-drop or skate like a female version of the Terminator later on…
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