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