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