Europe 2019 - Day 45 (Part 5)

20 June 2019, Thursday 

Then we walked along Ilica street, the longest street in Zagreb. Along this street there is a building known as the “Ilica skyscraper” or “skyscraper on the square”, built in 1959. It is the first building in Croatia to have a glass facade, and the first commercial high-rise building. Along this street was the Museum of Illusions which I passed but didn’t go in.

And that was almost all of Zagreb. As it was only about 3.30 p.m., we went back to the hostel to get some rest, then we were out again at 5.00 p.m. for the free walking tour. I should mention that there are many pigeons here especially in the Main Square, and they are really not afraid of humans, in fact they fly towards you and dodge you at the last minute when you think they are going to crash into you. I’m pretty sure they’re doing this on purpose, for sport. 

After the walking tour we walked along what is known as the Lenuci Horseshoe, a patchwork of central squares and parks named after the 19th century urban planner Milan Lenuci. Locals call it the Green Horseshoe because it connects 7 parks, including the Botanical Garden. It features many landmark buildings, housings, scientific and cultural institutions, ministries, museums, courts, galleries, hotels, as well as the central railway station. 

We started at the Croatian National Theatre, which is a pretty yellow building with a green roof built in 1895, which hosts operas, dramas and ballet, and ended at Kralj Tomislav Square (statue of a man on a horse) which is just outside the hostel, with the central railway station opposite. Along the way we saw the Mirama Museum, the Zagreb University, the Esplanade Hotel which was built in 1925 and provided luxury lodging to Orient Express passengers on their route from Paris to Istanbul (😍), and the Botanical Garden.

Most people here can speak English which is very helpful for us, they are also friendly and helpful, but I do get quite a lot of stares. I find this odd because I do see a lot of exotic looking tourists here in Zagreb so I would’ve thought the locals would be used to it by now. 

The hostel room only had 1 light for the whole room, there are no individual lights for each bed. And the wusses switched off the lights at 10 p.m. I still had stuff to do - blog, shower etc so I had to do all this surreptitiously and quietly in the dark. On one of these episodes I misjudged the location of the bed above me and knocked my left temple pretty hard on the wood with the result that I now have a nasty bump on my head 🙄.