Though I by no means had the typical tourist experience in Zagreb (I met up with friends who grew up in town!), I did want to give you a few tips for exploring this cool capital of Croatia:
- Where to Stay: This is probably the hardest part for me to help out with, since I stayed in an apartment with friends, but if I were going back to town, I would look for something as close into old town as I could get. The tram system is great and extensive, so if you do have to stay a bit further out it won’t be a big issue, but staying somewhere near Jelacic Square is going to give you the best experience. Hotel Dubrovnik is literally right there, though I didn’t have the chance to run in and check it out…
- Where to Eat: If there’s one thing we did well in Zagreb, it was eat! There are SO MANY cute outdoor cafes, most of them surprisingly full basically any time you walk by. The best street is Ulica Ivana Tkalcica, just north of the daily food market square, though on the south side of Jelacic Square along Bogoviceva Ulica and the Cvjetni Trg (square) there were lots of yummy options as well.
- What to Do: Zagreb is such a surprising little city, where, much like Ljublijana, you may just want to wander and sit in cafes to while the days away. Of course there are great museums and historic churches, but there are also little parks tucked behind streets with cafes and playgrounds, or antiques markets in cute little squares. From Jelacic Square, most everything you’re going to want to see is an easy walk away – either up the hill to Gradec where you’ll find the historic St. Mark’s church and the (original) Museum of Broken Relationships (HA!, still mad I missed going in there), or up to the right through the market to the cathedral (which is always being repaired due to the extra-soft stone used to build it). Don’t miss the cannon fire which happens daily at noon just above the “shortest funicular in the world”. 🙂