I'm sure that it's better in the summer

I got into Zagreb in the late evening and headed into town on the airport bus. Luckily it was easy to find as I was tired and really just wanted to go to bed. The bus stops at the main bus station in town and thankfully the hostel had good instructions on its website as to how to get there from the station.

I didn't do anything but go to bed on Sunday night as it had been a long day and a late night the night before. The next morning, I got up and headed to the nearby Kaufland to get some food before heading into town. As it was a Monday most of the museums were closed so I decided to do the walking tours of the upper and lower towns that are on the maps of Zagreb. I caught the train into the main square which links the two sections of town. It has a large and impressive statue of a man on a horse and the square is named after him. He is some form of national hero in Croatia.

I headed up the hill from the square and walked into the upper town. It's not huge and nowhere near as big as it looks on the map. I nearly overshot the end of it as I didn't think that I had walked far enough. There is quite a collection of nice old buildings when you get into the area properly and there are several museums up here as well. I tried to go to the one museum which was meant to be open on Mondays but after walking around the building several times had still be unable to find an entrance and gave up.

St Mark's Church is on the very top of the hill and it is currently being renovated. I couldn't go in and see the inside or see most of the outside because of the scaffolding unfortunately. You can still see the famous tiled roof with the crest of the city of Zagreb on it. It is in a pretty square with mostly government buildings in it. They have all been renovated and it looks pretty good.

I headed off the hill through the Stone Gate which is now a shrine. There were lots of people in there praying to the statue of the Virgin Mary in their lunchtime.  This leads you down the hill again and with a few turns to the market at Dolac. It was packed with people selling flowers which must mostly be hothouse at this time of the year. It also had stalls selling fruit and vegetables, stinky cheese and clothing. I looped around the block to look at the baroque church up the street which was unfortunately locked so I couldn't see inside. I ended up at the largest church in Zagreb, the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (formerly St Stephen's). They must have been taking lessons from the Russians on long church names. I wonder what poor old St Stephen did to have the church taken away.

It was originally gothic but has been redone several times since then and the interior is now neo-gothic with the odd baroque bit thrown in for good measure. It used to be the Easternmost Christian church in Europe so at one point had a full fortification wall around it to try and stop the Turks. There is still a small section of the wall next to the church.

It's a nice church on the inside and has it's own wax bishop buried on the altar. There are several old altars in the side altars and then some tacky looking marble things.

From the church, I headed back into the main square (following the useless signs on the side of the road) and started the walking tour of the lower town. There is a great statue just off the main square of a very fat and cheerful man. He must be some sort of national hero because he gets flowers and candles at his feet. I walked down the street behind him and reached the horseshoe of parks that are in the lower town. They are really lovely and break up the mass of buildings. They have lots of statues and some fountains and lots of grass (which I assume that you aren't allowed to walk on). Most of the buildings in this section were built in the 19th century  and they are fairly impressive. Some are still in need of renovation but they are slowly getting there.

One of the most impressive buildings in this section of town is the State Archives which was presumably something else when it was built as it is pretty flash. There are some creepy looking owls on the roof and then some inexplicable naked carvings on the tops of the pillars. They seem to be big on the weird naked statues in Zagreb as there is another very strange sculpture outside the National Theatre.

After probably about an hour of walking, I made it back to the main square again and jumped on a tram back to the hostel. I had a fantastic dinner of baked vegies (the hostel has an oven that actually works!).

The next morning, I spent a couple of hours on the internet working on the rest of the Croatian itinerary before heading back into the centre of town to go to the Mimara museum. Mr Mimara was a Croat who spent most of his life outside of the country but when he got old donated his entire art collection to the city of Zagreb. They built a museum to house it all but unfortunately he died before it was opened. It's an unusual collection because it was all collected by the one man and just matches his taste rather than things that are particularly historically significant like normal galleries. Much of the collection is religious in nature and he has a lot of Southern European icons that are quite lovely. He must have particularly liked the icons of the breast feeding Madonna as he had quite a few and they aren't very common. I spent about 1.5 hours walking around the collection which includes Egyptian statues, 19th century paintings, Roman artifacts, Chinese ceramics amongst other things.

When I came out of the museum, it had started to rain and was freezing cold (or at least colder than the 9 degrees when I had gone in), so I decided to go to the pictures instead of wandering around anymore. I went to the tourist info to find out where the cinema was and then tramped all the way back across town to get there. I'd not even heard of most of the movies that were on as I've been a bit out of the loop for the last 8 months so I just chose one that had a time that suited me and went to it. It was nice to just do something normal for the afternoon and it was only $5 to go which is a lot cheaper than at home.

When I got out it was dark and still raining so I headed back to the hostel. I thought that I would be smart and get off at the next tram stop as it was closer to the Kaufland for me to get some stuff for dinner. Unfortunately in the dark and the rain I couldn't see the Kaufland and didn't want to just go walking around aimlessly in the dark, so I ended up having to walk all the way back to the hostel to orientate myself and then walk back to the supermarket.

The weather was slightly better the next morning but it was still cold and grey. I think that the weather was part of the reason that Zagreb didn't really grab me. I think that it would be nicer when you could sit in the parks in the sun and watch the world go by. I headed into town to go to the post office and send some more stuff home. I had a little trouble finding the spot where you could send overseas parcels as there don't seem to be many signs on the outside of the building directing you where to go. I started at one counter which only sent parcels that could fit in envelopes (that is oversized letters), they directed me to the next section which it turns out only does parcels that are going to Croatia, so they sent me onto the international parcel section which is right at the end of the building. There they were very helpful and packed and organised everything. It wasn't too expensive given that I had to send it airmail to get it there before Christmas.

After relieving myself of 1.5 kg, I headed back into the centre of town to the cathedral to get some lunch and find the buses out to Mirogoj which is the largest cemetery in Zagreb. I didn't remember that Thursday was All Saints Day so half the population of Zagreb was heading out to the graves to lay flowers and light candles on Wednesday. This did make it easy to find a bus as there was a constant stream leaving from the cathedral.

When I got there, there were hundreds of stalls out the front selling flowers and candles for those that had forgotten to bring them with them (or felt that they didn't have quite enough). I bought some flowers off a little old lady who was selling them out of her garden, figuring that I would put them on an unloved grave for my grandmother. Finding an unloved grave proved difficult though.

The cemetery is impressive. The main entrance has a huge wall with multiple cupolas on it that shelter some of the more important graves. This is the place in Croatia to be buried and pride of place goes to the first President of the Republic of Croatia. He has a huge marble slab which was covered in flowers and candles. There are lots of impressive graves from over the years and they are still being used as more family members die. The new section of the cemetery is less flash as they have less room but they are still well looked after. The place was full of mostly little old ladies washing the marble and laying new flowers and candles. It was quite a sight. I couldn't find a single unloved looking grave, I assume that there is some group that looks after the ones that no longer have families to do it for them. So in the end, I put Nan's flowers on the memorial of the first world war as it was lacking in flowers and had a really nice statue on it.

I actually saw a whole lot of the cemeteries and war memorials on the TV on the Thursday night. They were crossing live to places around Croatia and looking at all the candles flickering. I had no idea that All Saints Day was so big here.

I decided to walk back to the hostel from the cemetery because it was faster than going back into town and then out to the hostel from there. I didn't have a very good map (it had some squiggles and no street names) but I figured that I could find the big park near the hostel and then go from there. I did manage it in the end and it was quite a nice walk except for the sections that had no footpath or had cars parked on the footpath (if it was for parking cars it would be called a carpark!). The Croatians tend to drive quite quickly and don't seem to change their driving style if the road is narrow or windy.

I entered the Maksimir Park from the city edge and wandered around for a little while. It's a nice park that was one of the first public parks in Europe. There are some buildings in the middle and some artificial lakes with ducks and swans. The city Zoo is housed on one side of the park as well. It's quite peaceful inside and on a nicer day I would have stayed a bit longer but it was starting to get colder and dark, so I walked on through and back to the hostel.

The next day had glorious weather but I spent it packing and getting out to the airport to fly to Dubrovnik. It would have been a perfect day to walk around the old town but oh well, that's the way life is.