We’re an hour ahead here so we got up at 8.30 which still felt early after yesterday’s 5.15am alarm!
The apartment has passed my one night test - bed comfortable, good shower and good Wi-fi! It always takes a while to get everything ready on the first morning but we finally set off for our short tram ride into the centre of Zagreb. Cost of living is definitely cheaper here and two returns cost just £1.90.
I am really impressed with the city that I think a lot of people don’t see when they come for beach and coastal holidays in Croatia. The centre had old and interesting architecture and a lot of good cafes! It would have been rude not to have started with an ice cream and expresso. We visited the old fruit market and also found an indoor fish market. Colin bought a hat which looks smarter than his floppy one for only £6. After a brief rain storm - hot the entire time, Colin headed to the museum of torture and I gave it a miss and pottered around the side streets taking photographs.
Later we met up again and walked up the attractive Tkalciceva street with low colourful buildings and red tiled steep roofs. We found a nice Greek cafe for lunch but my perfect Greek for thank you was lost on the waiter who was Croatian!
One of a number of activities to do that I had noticed in the city was to take a ride to the upper city in the worlds shortest funicular. It really was a short distance of less than 70 meters and then we disembarked without paying as there was nobody to buy a ticket from. Needless to say, as soon as we’d reached the old town the rain started pouring heavily so as there were limited places to shelter we simply took the funicular back down the hill again!! Our next port of call was the WW2 Gric tunnels as they were undercover and quite dry. Still with the original signage from the 1940s they were fascinating and stretched for much further than I had expected.
We were flagging now and decided to head back but first had to stop close to where we had started our day but this time finishing up with a self designed pancake (note for diary - mine was a thin crepe style base with white vanilla sauce, fresh banana, chopped hazelnuts and finished off with caramel sauce!).
We were lucky to have just made it back to the apartment just as a massive thunderstorm struck. The views from the 10th floor were amazing and despite seeing some lovely sights in the city of Zagreb, I really like this view from our bedroom window of the industrial views just as a train pulls into the station. The storm and sunlight made for an almost sepia tone effect. We ate in on that evening as we were still fairly full from our lunch - I cooked fresh pasta along with a salad and bread and cheese. We had a long talk about the car which we are both rather concerned about as it is not what we ordered and we are worried about the gearbox. We had ordered a VW golf or similar but actually got a seven seater Peugeot 5008!! We will be returning to the airport first thing tomorrow!
