Our Christmas Trip to Zagreb: Part 3

We had no set plans for Tuesday in Zagreb.  We slept in again, had some breakfast and headed into town around 1:00.  I had heard good things (on tripadvisor) about the Museum of Broken Relationships, so our loose plan was to park on the edge of downtown (near the train station) and walk towards the museum, enjoying the city and finding some lunch along the way.  We were still enjoying unseasonably warm, sunny weather.

Zagreb is a very easy city to walk, and parking by the train station to walk in worked out great and became our norm.  There were several little Christmas Markets and an ice rink set up and many of the buildings are lovely in their own right;  it was fun to walk through them as we headed into the city, starting out by just walking in the direction of the cathedral, as it was easy to spot as we went.

We ended up having lunch directly across from the cathedral.  Such prime real estate ought to hve comanded high prices, especially in a cute pizerria with excellent food, but once again we were please to find a bargain:  2 large wood fired and delicious pizzas, a big baked pasta dish, pasta agli olio, a full liter of really good local wine, 4 sodas, a bottle of water, a hot chocolate and a plate of local dessert (sort of like thick crepes--2 big ones, with cream and chocolate sauce) all came in at less than 40 euro.  We left stuffed.

Wandering across the street, we wanted to see the cathedral.  We were stopped on our way in and asked if they could interview us about how tourists enjoy Zagreb in Advent for the local news.  So we did that, which was kind of fun, and then went into the church; it was so pretty all decorated for the holidays.  Outside, this display shows how badly the church fared under communism, when pollution and no upkeep dulled its beauty (it had been repaired and rebuilt in the early 1900s after an earthquake, so started off those years in good condition).  It's nice that it is being redone and nearly there now.

(speyers as they looked at the end of soviet control, vs as they should look and most do today)

As we were leaving, the live nativity in the little Bethlehem mock up was about to start.  It was about a 20 minute performance put on by local, amateur dancers and was a lot of fun to watch--I was so glad we caught a performance.

I've been wanting a nativity set over here in Europe for a while now.  David and I talked about buying one at a Weihnachtsmarkt in Germany, but ending up not getting one.  There was a lady selling them after the living nativity and we decided having one from Zagreb, that would always be connected with the memory of the day would be perfect--and yes, I carried it around with me up to the museum and then back to the car!

It was late afternoon as we made our way up the stairs near the funicular (a very short funicular!  Walking seemed faster and easier) and to the museum.  The Museum of Broken Relationships gets excellent online reviews and sounded, well, quirky as all get out.  At a cost of about 2.50€ it was worth checking out what the fuss was about and I figured we'd only need an hour at most.

The museum is a permanent home for what started out as a travelling exhibit.  People "donate" various objects which represent a broken relationship along with a letter explaining a bit of the story behind it, and those are put on display. Each letter is translated int both English and Croation.  It's odd, occasionally amusing or touching and often depressing.

This one was from a long distance relationship.  The story was that the couple decided to cut one leg off of the stuffed caterpillar every time they got together and when all legs were gone it was time to move near one another.  O.K.  Yeah.  That just seems so sick and twisted that it is not surprising the relationship did not work out.  I mean, really, who thinks caterpillar dismemberment is a good way to count down to moving in with your love?

Marika and I both liked this best.  It was a letter the writer had written to a girl he met during the siege in Sarajevo (I think, I am suddenly second guessing which city it was).  He had given her some tapes to listen to while they were all hiding.  The siege ended and they were able to get to safety before he ever saw her again to give her the letter or get the tapes back, and he likes to think that music helped her.  So touching.  

Dave was the first of us to migrate to the bar by the entrance and kept saying he couldn't believe they charge to visit.

Rio and I both found it fun and interesting, but also were pretty much done after 20 to 30 minutes and about a third of the exhibits overall.  For the price, it was OK, though I would feel much more positively about it had it been about half the cost, given what it was.

Marika spent an hour there reading every single story (yay for the bar for the rest of us!).

We all noticed that Boulder, Colorado is represented by several items--hmmm, what does this say about my hometown?

After the museum we headed back to the car, enjoying the lights as we walked.  All in all, it was a lovely day in a lovely city.

--Hadley

Our Christmas Trip to Zagreb: Part 2 (Room Escape and Lantern Release)

Our first full day in Zagreb was also Rio's 16th birthday.  Wow, it is hard for me to believe that my "baby" is 16.   In the US this is the age associated with getting  driver's license; in Germany it means that Rio can now legally buy and drink beer and wine (driving waits until 18, though smaller motorcycles can be driven at 16).

(the newly turned 16 year old)

We had a slow morning, sleeping in and then making our way to the nearest grocery store to stock up a bit for the week, check what their hours would be over the holidays, etc.  We always enjoy browsing foreign grocery stores and this was no exception--we were struck by how MANY languages were represented on the shelves.  It seemed that nearly a quarter of the items were not labeled in Croatian: some of those were in English others Spanish, German, etc.  I would think that must make things a bit difficult for local shoppers, but I suppose they are just used to what the brands and items look like, no matter what language they are in.

After lunch we headed into downtown Zagreb for our first visit.  We had booked a live escape game; like those which started in Budapest and now seem  to be cropping up everywhere.  We've never done one before and it sounded FUN, and what a perfect birthday activity.  Similar games in Germany run a bit over 100 Euro for the one hour experiences--here in Zagreb it runs a very reasonable 42 Euro (equivalent).  

http://roomescape.hr/main/index

The kids and David tell me this is like a live action version of room escape games online (I have never played so can't say).  The basic idea is that your group of 3-5 is "locked" in a room for one hour (there is countdown clock going) and have to try to reach your goal by solving all sorts if interwoven puzzles, unlocking various elements, etc.  

In Zagreb there are two scenarios to choose from and we booked breaking into the bank.  So, walking from the parking garage, we joked wondering if THIS was our goal:

Not long after passing the real life bank, we found the little sign marking our destination and headed into the basement for orientation from one of the extremely nice owners.  I liked how they had the "rules" spelled out in Lego figs:

Here we are, ready to begin robbing the bank:

Right after that photo, we headed into the room, which was in the dark (we got one small flashlight to start) and the clock started ticking as we found clues and solved puzzles and worked on breaking into the vault.   I won't tell you any of what we actually did, other than to say that it was a heck of a lot of fun and well worth the cost and we all had a blast.  

I would highly recommend a break from sightseeingif ever in Zagreb and stopping by Room Escape if you  have any liking at all for games, logic puzzles, silliness, or just trying something totally different. 

 Look at how happy we were after breaking in (and the clock above us shows that we had 10 minutes to spare).  We kept talking about how fun it was and how nice the owner was and going over the various puzzles, etc all the rest of the day:

After our bank vault adventure, we stated meandering towards Dolac Market for the annual paper lantern launch.  The city was so pretty all dressed up for Christmas with various holiday items spread out in little pockets everywhere:

I should back up a little here and give a bit of background.  A few years back, Disney put out their version of the Rapunzel story (called Tangled in the US--apparently Disney has decided that Ameircan boys will not go to films named for princesses, huh).  Our family was on a Disney cruise ship when it premiered and they showed the film right at midnight for anyone who wanted to stay up.  The kids went, and the main thing I heard about the next day, above all else, was "the most romantic scene ever in any Disney movie"--the paper lantern scene (which happens to be Rapunzle's 18th birthday in the movie), here is that lovely scene:

So, with that background, I'll say that when we were looking around on google and trying to decide if Zagreb would be a good choice to visit, seeing that they have a paper lantern release on Rio's birthday was a huge draw.  The English language information on the city's website said that the release would be at 6:00 pm, so we made a point of getting to the plaza around 5:30 (I did double check that information again online once we got home--as it turned out that lanterns began being sold at 6:30 and the release was at 8:00!  It was a good thing that it is unseasonably warm here so we were not popsicles by then, I wonder if someone forgot to change a time from a previous year on the translation). 

Anyway, arriving in the plaza, we looked around a bit and enjoyed the lit areas:

Then we were lucky enough to nab an outdoor table at the end of a balcony off to the edge of the plaza--a perfect view but outside of the crowds.  There was no pressure at all to leave as we ordered a few drinks every so often and the crowds in the area grew exponentially. 

 I got in line for lanterns at about 6:15--by which point the shortest of the three lines stretched half way down the stairs into the raised square.  Here is looking back down further 15 minutes later--by which point the line stretched across the street below and out of sight!  This must have been a bigger crowd than usual (perhaps due to the warmer weather?) as, Marika and Dave tell me that at one point our waiter came out, glanced down, did a double take then returned with other staff and all took photos:

We got two lanterns for ourselves (note to future travellers--exact change of 10 kn is the only thing accepted, and one person cannot buy more than one lantern--if you want lanterns for a group of three, for example, all three people must be in line).

Lighting, or trying to light ours (I managed to catch mine on fire and had to put it out, there was a bit of wind up there on the balcony and it is hard to keep the paper away from the flame as the air fills it and pushes the paper out), was not the highlight though--the highlight was the sheer beauty and enchanted feeling of all those lovely, lovely lanterns floating up.  There was a good 10 minutes in which the sky just steadily filled, and it really was magical.  Marika leaned over and whispered "best Christmas memory EVER"  They played "what a Wonderful World" over the sound system and I loved that the entire crowd was pretty quietwith softer oohs and ahhs but no real shouting and just enjoying the beautiful sight together.  Photos and videos do not really capture the effect at all, but we did our best (many thanks to David for the videos and better photos):

A video from near the start:

and another from about 5 minutes after the release began, as I tried to get my lantern up:

If you ever have a chacne to do this in real life, DO--just trust me and do it.  Photos and videos do not capture the magical feeling at all.  It is one thousand times more lovely and powerful in reality.

Amazingly, all those huge crowds dispersed pretty calmly and easily after the lanterns floated off and getting out of our little corner and back through town to the parking garage and then "home" was surprisingly easy.

So, all in all, Rio's 16th birthday was one of the most perfect days I have had the pleasure to have.

and, a Merry Christmas to you all,

--Hadley

Our Christmas trip to Zagreb: part 1

About a month ago, I did my usual pre Christmas search of vacation home rentals--looking for any particularly good deal pretty much anywhere within driving distance of Heidelberg.  One of the more promising looking rentals, from a price, size and appearance perspective was in Zagreb, Croatia.  A quick google search showed that Zagreb is a mere 8 hours drive from us, and has quite a few interesting things to do and lots of neat architecture downtown.  The only thing we were worried about was that the rental house had no reviews at all on Holiday Lettings or Tripadvisor, but someone has to go first, so we took the plunge and booked.

We drove down on Sunday, and were so happy that Rio thought to download a navigation program into his phone that ran off of the gps (no data package needed) because Croatia is the first place we have taken the car that is not in our Navi system and my written googlemaps directions were not that useful when missing one poorly labeled exit (do we bear right or left here????  answered AFTER choosing) means you cannot exit again for 12 kilometers and then can not reverse direction.  Roads here in Croatia are not particularly well labeled, they twist and turn in the most illogical of ways, and are not at all well lit when arriving after dark on the shortest day of the year.  Here is our navi showing us driving in the great abyss:

After a bit of wandering around in a very dark, very convoluted set of streets--and creeping along slowly as it seems to be very much the norm in this area to wear all black and walk down the street in the dark, we found the house.  The owner, who is really, really nice met us at the street (to help us find it) and showed us where to park at the end of the long drive (she lives upstairs).  The house is GREAT.  Better than the photos suggested even--we are so glad we took a risk on a place without a review yet.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g294454-d3984687-APARTMENT_ZAGY_2-Zagreb_Central_Croatia.html

Here are some photos of the exterior (which we did not see until the following morning):

(the apartment is on the lower level)

(looking out the front door--no neighbors right there)

(We like the statue in the front yard; the owner's brother made it)

Inside the apartment is super clean, very roomy, furnished nicely (not a bunch of IKEA things bought for a rental, this feels like a home) and even has lots of CDs, DVDs, real art on the walls, etc  Rental homes are nearly always the way to go for longer trips (a 3 bedroom, with a kitchen for less than 70€ a night, at Christmas?!  Heck yeah!  We'd never find hotels to sleep four comfortably for that, and if we did we wouldn't have room to spread out, a place to cook Christmas dinner, etc).  Here are lots of photos, also in case anyoneis  looking at possibly renting the "Zagy Apartment" finds this review (it is very much worth it--rent it!):

The nice, big entry hall is actually really good for sitting down to remove shoes, storing coats, etc. You can see our Christmas gifts there on the cupboard and our stockings on the bench.--yes we brought those all along (as well as birthday gifts for both kids)!  Those photos above the bench are of the owner's mother and aunt in the late 40s and early 50s; both were opera singers--a really nice touch (note: we asked about them, the owner is really nice but not at all pushy and did not force us to listen to any stories we were not asking to hear)

The living room, dining area and kitchen are all open to one another.  I really like having the open kitchen--I don't mind cooking on vacation, but do not enjoy being isolated from everyone if I do.  Those Christmas cookies on the table were made by the owner for us--they were delicious, mmmmmmm.

Each of the kids' rooms has two twin beds and ample closet space.  There are also dry erase boards with welcome messages on them--cute touch.

The main bedroom has a double bed and large closet and set of drawers.  The bed is a bit short for Dave's 6'5" frame, but this is the norm for him in most rentals (and a fair number of hotels) in Eastern Europe or even down in Spain or Italy.

The bathroom is huge.  I love the double sinks, and if I have to deal with the standard Eastern European thing of a tub with handheld shower and no curtain, at leas this one has a pole for the shower head and the tub is so large that you can turn the shower towards the corner and not drench the bathroom.  There are tons of clean towels too--nice, big, soft ones.  

So, there is a tour of our rental for you all.  After we got settled in and unpacked, we headed back out for dinner at a local Italian place (Paprika in Lucko).  We were thrilled to feed all 4 of us large, and delicious meals, linger with two alf liter caraffs of wine, and 5 sodas and the bill only came to the equivalent of 36€

So, both our accommodations and our meal were great bargains and really nice; starting off our trip to Zagreb on the right foot.

--Hadley