July 2017

Day 29 – Zagreb

Posted on July 25, 2017

The storm, it’s coming.

A chill day today. In the morning, the others went out shopping while I caught up on yesterday’s blog post/photos and watched latest GoT episode. Then we met up for lunch at the Italian place we went to a couple days ago. I had some lasagne and chocolate mousse for dessert.

From there, we walked around the main square a while, stopped for a coffee at a cafe, before resting back at the hotel. Later in the afternoon we headed back out to go to the Zagreb Eye (observation deck) and see the panoramic views of the city from up high.

It was karaoke night, so the scenic views were accompanied by some terrible singers, but still enjoyable nonetheless. We had a drink, looked out over the city and took some photos.

A storm was rolling in though, so the others were panicking and we left soon after sunset so we could make it back to the hotel before it hit. We almost went back to that Japanese restaurant for a bit of food/dessert, but it was full, so we just called it a night, and made it back as it started raining.

Not a whole lot of excitement today, but a nice relaxing way to finish our trip and say goodbye to Zagreb. We leave for the airport tomorrow at 12pm, so we can take it easy in the morning. From there, a bit of a wait for our flight at 3-ish (which is an eight hour flight?), followed by a ten hour wait in Dubai, followed by another fourteen hour flight… feelsbadman.

Overall, not a bad holiday. In fact, I would go as far as to say it was a good holiday.

Day 28 – Zagreb

Posted on July 24, 2017

If someone steals your Tesla, is it now an Edison?

Today was our day trip tour we had booked to Plitvice Lakes, which is a massive national park with eight main lakes. We left Zagreb at 9am, with a small group totalling fourteen, led by our guide Tomislav. We had an hour and a half drive by bus to our first stop, a small milling village called Rastoke. On the way, Tomislav told us about the region, about the country and its history, including its recent wars in various towns we drove through. Very informative and interesting.

We arrived in Rastoke and had a short while to look around, as well as get a coffee and have a bit of a break. It’s very small, but has some really cool waterfalls and streams and interesting to see the mills.

After our short stop, we drove another thirty minutes or so to get to the Plitvice Lakes. It was insanely busy and crowded there. The line for tickets alone was hectic, but luckily as we were with a tour, we had our tickets pre-booked and were able to go right through.

Inside the national park (which is 100 square miles in size), there were fairly narrow trails leading through, which made it very difficult to walk through and see the sights properly, as there were just people everywhere. The views however made up for it. When you first enter, you’re treated to a great outlook where you can see some of the Lower Lakes as well as the Big Waterfall. We then followed the trail leading down, around the lakes, down to the waterfall itself. The water there is amazing, super clear and has a great aqua-green colour which you don’t see too often.

After our long walk around the Lower Lakes, we arrived at a place to have lunch and a bit of a break before continuing to the Upper Lakes. Again, super crowded, and only two restaurants, so we had some long waits for some pretty average food. Then it was off on a boat to take us across one of the lakes, towards the trail for the Upper Lakes.

Once there, we once again walked around the trail, essentially in a large circle, seeing the lakes and waterfalls in the surrounding forest, before returning to the dock area to catch a short boar trip to another place where we could catch a bus back to the exit.

After a long day of walking, we finally returned to the bus to make our two hour journey back to Zagreb. Most people had a nap on the way back, and by the time we arrived, it was around 9pm and actually had been raining a bit. We said goodbye to the others, and decided to grab a bit of dinner before going back to the hotel, as we had had a nice rest and wanted to try a Japanese place we had read about.

The place was called Time Restaurant & Bar and was only a five minute walk away. It was a really nice place, kind of fancy, but an inviting atmosphere. They had a bar area as well as a restaurant with tables, where we sat and ordered Miso soup, spring rolls and sushi. The food was good, but we were too full to try the dessert which is a shame, because it sounded really good. We might come back tomorrow to try it.

After that, it was back to the hotel for some well-needed sleep. Tomorrow is our last full day here in Zagreb, and here on our holiday. We probably won’t do too much – just spend the time locally in the city.

Day 27 – Zagreb

Posted on July 23, 2017

Steak! Where’s my steak?! Where’s Armani? He’s on the phone. Too slow. You’re not going to Paris. I’m so much better than you.

Today I opted to stay in for longer in the morning, and planned to head out later in the day, so we could stay out later and catch the sunset at the observation deck. Well that didn’t happen.

We did go out for an early dinner though to a steak/grill restaurant and had some tasty meat. I had two dishes of chicken, because… hungry (and cheap). After that, we walked towards the observation deck, but came across the main square again and saw the seating and preparation for the last concert of the folklore festival which has been going on since we arrived.

So we decided to grab an early seat and wait for it, watch some, and then continue on. We thought it would start at 7pm, but was a while later before it did, so there was no time to catch the sunset, but we stayed a while and watched the concert.

I will try once again on Tuesday to get up there for sunset, as tomorrow we have a long full-day tour we booked out of the city. Expect bigger blog and a lot of photos then (maybe delayed if a lot to process).

Day 26 – Zagreb

Posted on July 22, 2017

How are you going to toast anything now?

Our plan was to visit a bunch of museums and galleries today, but turns out it’s Saturday and most of them are closed, or if they are open, it’s only for a short while. We walked to a few places and all were closed which was annoying, especially since it was extremely hot once again and such an effort to walk around.

We ended up getting a drink at a nearby cafe and using the powers of the internet to find out what we could do next. We decided to first go the National Theatre and see if there were any shows we could book for another day, but that was closed too. No matter, as it was on our way to a museum which was actually open, The Museum of Broken Relationships.

It was a bit of a walk to get there, and we needed a short rest with cold water and ice cream before we went into the exhibit. The museum itself has travelled around the world and has a bunch of different objects donated from people around the world, along with personal stories about their failed/broken relationships with partners, friends or family.

It was very interesting to read people’s stories, and read some of the messages left in a large guestbook-type-thing by other patrons. A lot of them were quite sad, but there were some funny and uplifting ones too.

After that, we had a short walk to the Rocket Burger cafe to get some dinner. Solid burger and fries, before walking back to the hotel. I wanted to go to the Observatory and check out the panoramic city view, but everyone was so hot and tired, we decided to just go back. I’ll probably try and go up there tomorrow, closer to sunset.

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