Zagreb Walking Tour, Plus

After yesterday’s less-than-stellar introduction to Zagreb, I feel much better about the city now. As I mentioned then, I booked a walking tour of Zagreb for this morning. I’m glad I did. I saw some interesting, attractive streets and buildings that I might have missed if I just visited the sights listed in a tour book.

Today is only my first full day here, but I like it now.

Walking Tour

The tour met at one end of a pleasant, peaceful park. According to the tour guide, Marko, it’s part of a string of parks and squares that form a U shape and is called The Green Horseshoe. The original plan called for an unbroken string of parks. The idea was that people would be able to walk through a continuous treed area. But that plan ended with the development of the city. Now they are seven independent parks.

The tour next stopped at a fair-sized parking lot. There, Marko described in fine detail the history and nature of the asphalt, the frequency and quality of its line painting, the social status of the people who park there, and the history of the lot in general.

No, he didn’t. I mostly lied about that. The one part I didn’t lie about was him telling the history of the lot. Or, rather, one period of the lot’s history.

At one time, Croatia’s largest synagogue stood there. Then the Nazis invaded and took over Croatia. They destroyed the synagogue.

The city or Jewish community within it, I’m not sure which, considered rebuilding the synagogue after the war. But Croatia was then part of communist Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavian communists weren’t actively opposed to religion. But they weren’t supportive either. The synagogue was never rebuilt.

Ban Jelačić Square

Yesterday, I told you that I walked through Zagreb’s main square. Today I learned that it has a name, Ban Jelačić Square. “Ban” is Croatian for “governor.” Josip Jelačić was a governor who became a national hero when he fought against the Hungarians during the Hapsburg era.

Can you make out the statue of him in the square? He’s riding a horse. That statue was made shortly after Jelačić’s death. But the horse lived for another ten years, so the horse got to see his statue.

Zagreb Cathedral

I might be getting the tour stops out of order, particularly the ones after this, and I undoubtedly forgot a lot of them. But I think we next stopped in front of the Zagreb Cathedral which I mentioned yesterday as being closed. I can confirm it’s still closed today. I didn’t take a picture because I took and posted it yesterday. The cathedral hasn’t changed much in the past 20 hours.

Along the route, Marko told me and the three other people on the tour (they were from Washington State and together), many stories about the history of the buildings and streets on the route. Due to my deficient memory, I remember only 12.32 percent, +/- 1.45 percent, of what he said.

But I do remember a few things he said about the cathedral. There’s been a church there since the eleventh century, but churches have been destroyed and built anew on the site several times since then.

The facade of the current cathedral dates from sometime after 1880, when an earthquake damaged it. That redesign was done by a very busy Austria-born architect who lived in Croatia for most of his career, Hermann Bollé.

I say Bollé was very busy because Marko already mentioned him as the architect who designed a couple of structures we’d seen, and Marco mentioned him again several times as the architect who designed several structures we saw on the rest of the tour. Marko joked that if anyone asks you who was the architect for a building notable enough that someone would ask, answer “Hermann Bollé” and you’ll almost always be right.

Something else I remember about the cathedral is that Marko said there are crystal chandeliers inside. They aren’t old. If memory serves, they date from 2000. The chandeliers originated in the historical crystal capital of the world, Las Vegas.

The story goes that the cathedral’s priest was in Vegas for an unspecified reason. The hotel he stayed in was due to be demolished and they were going to throw out their chandeliers. The priest convinced them to donate them to the cathedral rather than trash them.

The 2020 earthquake damaged the chandeliers. Marko joked that he didn’t know if they were repairing the chandeliers or if the priest would go back to Vegas to get new ones, but Marko thought the latter.

After this point, my memory of the sights and Marko’s commentary becomes even more spotty. Two reasons explain that. For one, I typed all of the above on my phone during lunch. Therefore, I typed it in closer temporal proximity to seeing the sights and hearing the commentary. For another, as the morning wore on my information overload increased.

Two Medieval Cities

The part of the tour described above took place in the lower old town of Zagreb. The upper even older town used to comprise two separate, independently governed medieval towns, Gradec and Kaptol.

Few of the original medieval buildings exist today without substantial renovation. However, the city requires that no changes be made to the upper town that would significantly alter its retained layout or character.

A creek used to divide Gradec and Kaptol, but, according to Marko it became horribly polluted thanks to a soap factory. Rather than getting the factory to clean up its act, they covered over the stream and turned it into a street.

Bloody Bridge

Back when the creek existed, a bridge crossed it. Today the bridge, too, is just a street. But when it existed, it became known as “Bloody Bridge.” The story Marko told is that Gradec and Kaptol used to constantly fight each other. One side crossed the bridge to attack and loot the other side. Then they retreated and, to prevent a retaliatory attack, they destroyed the bridge.

The other side then rebuilt the bridge, crossed it, attacked and looted the first side, and again destroyed the bridge. The two sides repeated this pattern for centuries. Then in, I think it was the eighteenth century, both sides rebuilt the bridge together, each from its side of the creek. The attacks stopped and it became a friendship bridge, but retained its “Bloody Bridge” name.

St. Mark’s Square

Zagreb has a St. Mark’s Square and a St. Mark’s Church in its upper old town. (I forget if it’s on the Gradec or Kaptol side.) I guess it did so well in Venice that they opened a branch in Zagreb.

Zagreb’s St. Mark’s Square and Church look nothing like St. Mark’s Square and Basilica in Venice. The Zagreb one is much newer and more brightly coloured, and nowhere near as grand and dramatic as Venice.

Zagreb’s church has a colourful tile roof emblazoned with two crests. The cobblestone square is much smaller than Venice’s. Gee. I’m sorry I brought up the Venice one. I don’t think it’s at all related other than sharing a religion, and they aren’t at all similar.

Croatian government buildings sit across the street from three sides of the square. Government officials use the fenced-off St. Mark’s Square as their parking lot.

Remember I said above that the city forbids alterations to the sections of Zagreb that were part of the medieval towns? That includes not allowing buildings to add air conditioning units. The one exception is the government buildings. They got air conditioning, but they hid it in the backs of the buildings.

Oh, and Marko said that the mayor of Zagreb wants to ban all cars in the medieval part of Zagreb. Marko thinks that won’t happen because of those government buildings. He doesn’t think Croatian government officials would be willing to walk more than five minutes.

Noon Gun

Throughout most of the walk, Marko kept checking the time on his phone. He did that because he wanted to be sure to get to one of the stops, an old guard tower, before noon. Every single day, someone manually fires a cannon out of an open window near the top of that tower precisely at noon.

According to Marko, they haven’t missed a single day since, I think it was, 1926. That must put a lot of pressure on the person responsible for firing it.

Standing at the base of the tower, the cannon is loud. Very, very loud. Thunderingly loud. After it fired, I briefly had a second tinnitus overlaid on my omnipresent tinnitus.

After he fired the gun, the man who fired it, opened a window beside the cannon window and bowed and waved to the crowd gathered below. The crowd applauded and shouted to thank him for shattering their eardrums.

Zagreb Funicular

After the cannon show, we rode down what Marko said is the world’s shortest funicular. The journey takes just over a minute, but the last 30 seconds or so is merely the funicular stopping. It slows down very gradually until it comes to a complete stop.

The funicular forms part of the city’s transit system. According to Marko, a lot of people who work in the upper town ride it up but walk down the stairs beside it to return. I guess that’s why Marko took us down, rather than up—to avoid the crowds.

Tunnel

The last stop on the tour was through a tunnel. Actually, there is one main tunnel and then four that run perpendicular to it. It used to serve as a bomb shelter. Now it’s mainly a tourist attraction. And because it allows them to bypass the old town, locals use it as a shortcut.

Apparently, around Christmas, Zagreb becomes one big Christmas market. There is a wider section in the main tunnel. That gets elaborately decorated in a different Christmas theme each year. Marko showed us pictures from different years.

And there’s an art festival on now in Zagreb. They decorated it for that too. Old umbrellas hang from the ceiling and white paper drapes down from them. Lights change the colours on the paper from pink, to blue to white.

Marko said that since World War II, every neighbourhood must have a bomb shelter large enough to accommodate the whole neighbourhood. They usually put the shelters beside kindergartens so they can get the children to safety first.

The bomb shelter law still exists today. If they build a new neighbourhood, it must have a bomb shelter. It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in me to know that they still feel the need for bomb shelters.

Dolac Market

During the tour, we passed by Zagreb’s main public market, Dolac Market. It looked interesting and both my tour book and my walking tour app recommended it. Marko said the market closed at 2:00 today, so I went before lunch.

A part of the market is in a large open square. Myriad vendors set up tables there to sell all manner of fruits and vegetables. Beside the square, there’s a building where the fish and seafood vendors sell their wares.

But, wait there’s more. Underneath the square is another market area. That contains mostly meat and poultry vendors, but I also spotted a cheesemonger, a couple of bakers, and a spice seller. The whole market is quite lively.

Lunch

I ate lunch in a restaurant with tables out on a street not far from the market, a little below the cathedral.

My, once again, leisurely lunch started with bread with two different tasty spreads, followed by lamb gnocchi in a very thick parmesan sauce and topped with a green leafy vegetable of some sort. I also had a glass of wine and an espresso. Very nice.