Plitvice → Tesla → Zagreb

The title of this entry might have confused you. You might have thought, “Wait. Didn’t Joel say the other day that the car rental company gave him a Renault Captur. Did he exchange that for a Tesla? Why would he bother doing that for just a part of his short rental, particularly when charging options are uncertain, at best? Is he a complete fool?”

No, dear reader. The title does not refer to the car named Tesla. It refers to Nikola Tesla, a pioneer in the fields of radio and alternating current. As to whether I’m a complete fool, well, the jury is still out on that. But my case is not looking good.

After I checked out of the inn I stayed at near Plitvice, I took a detour before turning in the rental car in Zagreb, Croatia. That intentional detour took me to the Nikola Tesla Memorial …

Well, I’ll get into the memorial below.

The Drive

When I left the inn near Plitvice, I drove through fog.

Fortunately, it was not thick enough to be internationally certified as a pea-souper. I’d say a beef broth, at worst.

And as I got closer to my detour destination, it lightened to a chicken consomé. Although, it could have benefited from a dash of pepper. But skip the matzoh ball. No one wants to drive through that.

The drive to the detour attraction was along twisty mountain roads. This had the advantage of lessening the grade of the roads to something quite gentle as they snaked up and down hills. It had the disadvantage of turning my knuckles white at some points.

But I made it safely after a little more than an hour’s drive to …

Nikola Tesla Memorial Centre

In truth, the facility didn’t spell it “Nikola Tesla Memorial Centre.” They spelled it “Nikola Tesla Memorial Center.” But I’m Canadian, not American. I spell it properly. I can’t bring myself to spell it incorrectly now that I’m retired and no longer writing for American clients, no matter how the Center Centre spells it.

Harrumph.

Nikola Tesla was born on either July 9th or 10th, 1856. It’s not that the records of his birth are lost and no one knows the date. According to the information at the centre, he was born precisely at midnight between those two days. So it could have been either date.

The information provided at the centre also claims that lightning bolted down from the sky while he was being born. I don’t know. It’s possible. But, considering Tesla’s life in developing electricity generators and such, it sounds like too good a story to be true.

Nikola Tesla’s birthplace was in Smijan, Croatia. (I don’t know how to pronounce Smijan. But, it looked like a smidgen of a town. And Wikipedia, for what it’s worth, says Smijan’s population is just 392. There are condo buildings in Toronto that have a population well above that in just one building. So, in my head, I’m going to continue to pronounce Smijan, smidgen even if someone tells me it’s properly pronounced some other way.

The Nikola Tesla Memorial Center Centre includes a recreation of his birth home in its original spot. A statue of Nikola Tesla stands in front of the home.

Nikola Tesla’s Birth Home

On the ground floor of the home, mounted on the walls, there’s a timeline of Nikola’s life. In addition to stating what he did and what happened in his life in each of the listed years, the timeline also lists some major world events that occurred in the same year.

In the middle of one of the couple of rooms sits a big cube. On each side, there is a column of drawers. Pulling out each drawer reveals brief text in Croatian and English in white letters on clear glass. Most of it came from Tesla’s autobiography. Some of the text was attributed to other people, but I don’t know if it was independently sourced, or if they were quotes that Tesla included in his autobiography.

Subjects include famous people, like Anton Dvorak and Samuel Clements, who he got to know, his obsessions, his thoughts on peace, his socialization, and a great many other topics I forget.

The attic of the home holds working recreations of some of Tesla’s inventions. Push a button and stuff happens. Coils make harsh electrical noises. Sparks fly. Things spin.

One was intriguing for me. It is a wide, low, concave bowl. A row of copper coils wraps around the base of the bowl. A metal thingy shaped pretty much exactly like a chicken egg, but maybe twice the size, sat a the bottom of the bowl.

When I pushed the button, a current went through the coils and the metal egg started to spin with increasing speed. After a bit, the spinning raised the egg upright so it spun on the flatter of the two ends of the egg until the machine turned off.

This mesmerized me. Then again, shiny objects mesmerize me too. So that might not be the highest standard.

His Father’s Church

Nikola’s father became a member of the clergy. Beside the recreation of Nikola’s birth home stands the church where his father preached and ministered to his flock. I don’t know if the church is a recreation or the original, or if it is even in its original location. The door to the church was closed and locked when I went. So I don’t know what it looks like inside.

Other Buildings

Two other publicly accessible buildings sit on the site, neither of them very large.

The larger of the two contains washrooms and a small theatre. The theatre plays a 20-minute documentary on Tesla’s life. He was a brilliant, troubled person who went from nothing to great success, and finally to poverty over the course of his life.

The second, smaller building is a less-than-life-size recreation of Tesla’s lab in Colorado Springs. (He moved to the United States when his inventions were turned down locally.)

Inside the building, in a corner, stands a Tesla coil, about the equivalent of human height, but I forget how tall a human. A railing prevents anyone from getting closer than, I’m guessing, a metre from the coil.

The person giving the presentation held three, plain, white neon tubes. She asked who in the audience wanted to hold one. There were only four of us there, all adults, so I didn’t have to fight too hard to get one.

The presenter then told us to hold up the neon tubes, but don’t point them too close to the coil. She then dimmed the lights and fired up the coil.

The neon tubes lit up in our hands, without any wired connection. This lasted for about 30 seconds until the coil powered down. The presenter explained that the electricity transmitted wirelessly and powered the neon tube through our skin. Mesmerized. Again.

At the entrance to both that building and the attic of the home, prominent signs were affixed to the wall in Croatian and English. The English read:

WARNING

ALL EXHIBITS, WHEN IN OPERATION, MAY BE DANGEROUS FOR PEOPLE WITH MEDICAL DEVICES (PACEMAKERS, ETC.)

I think the subtext to the message was, if you have a pacemaker you are free to enter, but you should ensure your affairs are in order first.

After leaving the coil demonstration, one member of the audience (one of the other neon tube holders) checked his phone to make sure it still worked. I did the same. Our phones still worked.

Signs in both the attic and this building forbade photography. So this is an image-light post.

Grounds

The grounds of the Centre are pastorally beautiful. The light fog enhanced, rather than detracted from the beauty. The green-covered mountain behind the home and church helped too.

The Drive, Part 2

Most of the drive from the Tesla Memory Centre/re to Zagreb was on a smooth, fast toll road and included a bunch of tunnels to avoid steep inclines and declines. The journey was uneventful.

Zagreb

Um. Oh, oh. I hope I didn’t make a mistake in booking four nights, i.e. three full days, in Zagreb. It’s still early, so I reserve judgement, but from what I’ve seen so far, that might be a bit too long here. We’ll see. But it didn’t start well.

The location where I dropped off the rental car looked quite scuzzy. I wouldn’t want to spend any time there at all.

I took an Uber to my hotel. The neighbourhoods improved on the way, but still not to something at all inspiring.

My hotel is across from the train station. Or, rather probably the tracks. But it’s not across from the station entrance. I don’t know where that is. I’m not leaving by train, so I didn’t investigate.

Train stations can be interesting, even beautiful structures. But I don’t know what Zagreb’s station looks like. On the other side of the street from my hotel is a mostly corrugated metal wall, with advertising plastered along much of it. I guess the station and its entrance are on the other side of the tracks.

I didn’t head out from the hotel to explore until about 3:30 in the afternoon. With what time I had, I decided to walk to something my research led me to believe is beautiful, but might or might not be open, Zagreb’s cathedral.

Whether it was open wasn’t a question of opening hours and days. An earthquake damaged the cathedral in 2020. My tour book said it would be closed until at least 2023 for restoration and stabilization.

I searched online, but couldn’t find anything that told me if it’s open now. I did find a couple of sites that said the powers that be hoped to have the cathedral open again by the summer of 2023. It’s now the fall of 2023.

The cathedral is about a 20-minute walk from my hotel. I figured that even if it’s closed, the walk would allow me to explore Zagreb a bit.

The cathedral was not open. Scaffolding and construction shrouding hid the back of it and all of its two towers. However, most of the front facade is exposed and the front door was open for construction workers. So I got to see that from a distance. But a wire fence surrounded the cathedral, so it definitely wasn’t open to the general public.

After walking by the cathedral, I found a very nice section of Zagreb. Tkalčićeva Street is a lovely little pedestrian-only retail street with quaint, low-rise buildings. Plenty of people were out walking or enjoying food and/or drinks at the many bars and restaurants along it.

As I walked along Zagreb streets, here and there I came across statues. None of them were spectacular. They were just pleasant to come across, such as the one pictured somewhere on this page. According to Google Maps, she’s Marija Jurić Zagorka, a Croatian Novelist. Her statue is beside Tkalčićeva Street.

Marija’s foot is well-rubbed I guess it’s another of those rub-a-particular-statue-part-for-good-luck things.

On the walk back to my hotel I unexpectedly walked through Zagreb’s main square. It’s big and bold. I might have more to say about it another day.

Filling My Days

When I began to think that I booked too many days here I pulled out my trusty tour booking app and looked for day tours out of Zagreb. All of them were either too-expensive private tours or day trips to somewhat distant places I’ve already been to, like Split or Plitvica National Park, or places I will be going to after Zagreb, like Ljubljana and Lake Bled. (I haven’t booked it yet, but I’m planning to go to Lake Bled on a day trip from Ljubljana. Lake Bled is on the other side of Ljubljana from Zagreb.)

So, no day trips from Zagreb. But I did find a two- or three-hour Zagreb walking tour that I booked for tomorrow. Hopefully, that will give me a good overview start to this city.