Time to hit one of the main goal countries on our very loose Euro trip plan! Time to leave the Shengen travel zone and fill Sam’s passport with stamps! First stop – Zagreb.
Maybe a bit close to our last city wander, but hey-ho, we were expecing some slighlty
different local food and sights to explore.
Zagreb is on a much larger scale to Ljublijana, so we parked up out of town and caught the tram to the central square.
We wandered the Dolac market getting our head around the value of a Croatian Kuna (bye bye Euro!) before spotting a shade giving local eatery. Borek is the cover all word in Croatian for Pastry filled with cheese and other tastyness. Nom nom.
Another funicular railway! Granted, as it is a short run, and they waited until the exact
second of the schedule to run, it would have been significanlty faster to walk up the hill.
Where is the fun in that though eh? I was tempted to race it. It would have been an easy win, but with the 30 something heat, anyone who had to sit within a 2m radius of me for the rest of the afternoon was glad I took the less sweaty option….
Top of the hill featured the Cannon tower – still fired daily to mark midday and keep all those pesky bell ringers around the city in check and on time. It gave us a good climb and the best view over Zagreb. We wandered the streets of the old town heading for the interesting stuff we saw from the tower, starting with St. Catherine’s square for obvious reasons (all Catherines being great).
We then found our way to St. Mark’s Church, which really went for it on the patterned roof tiles, top marks there. This is the centre of Croatian politics, so was actully blocked off and full of chilled but armed policemen, so the view was a distant one.
Back in the lower town (still no racing, somehow it was feeling even hotter than before?!?) We found 2 great respites to the heat: Gric Tunnel and a lovely beer & icecream Cafe. The tunnel is a fantastic respite from the heat. Immediately giving Eddie the ability to run wild! (Took him 3 goes to achieve “I bet you can’t touch the door” at the far end of the tunnel. Parenting win. Picking a random exit from the tunnel system gave us the starting point for the icecream hunt.
To finish the hot day, we headed to Bundek park for a dip in the lake! Whilst the lake did cool us down, the cool showers, funky mini kids festival & Playground with 7 slides on it made it a great place to hang out for the evening. FYI Baby shark is sung in Croatia, no translation needed!
Parenting Responsibly 