Zagreb

7th April 2010

We were out of the hostel by 7.30am to catch the train to Zagreb. Because we were too early for breakfast at the hostel we thought we'd just pick up a McD's breakfast. We forgot that lots of European McDonalds don't do breakfast menu's and were left ordering Quarter Pounder's for breakfast (Seriously there were no other options!). The two and a half hour train ride was beautiful. The entire journey was through the mountains and followed the Sava river. I ended up chatting with the other lady in our little compartment. She didn't speak the best English, but it was enough to have a broken conversation. It turned out that she wrote Slovenia's biggest pop song of 1964, translated it is called 'Summer Nights'. She says "I am not rich from it, but the people of Slovenia know me and love me". She was on her way to Croatia to pick up some cheap drugs for her arthritis that in Slovenia she'd require a prescription for! Surely that's a perk to not being an EU country!

The train stopped at the border and the Immigration girl came to check our passports. When she had both Dan's and mine in her hand she studied carefully, flicked through everypage then walked outside our cabin and got on her 2-way. She looked confused (as we probably did) then started spelling our names into her speaker. She started to get a little bit worried! When she came back, she handed us our passports with a smile. I asked if there was a problem, but there wasn't apparently and she was on her way. I was surprised at the large number of people who were booted off the train at the border (In the middle of nowhere), probably for not having passports.

We got into Zagreb about 11, and wandered over to find the free tram we could take to the hostel. Couldn't check into the hostel as we were too early, so we dumped our bags and headed to find some lunch. We settled on a cheap bakery and picked up a Burek each (puff pastry filled with cottage cheese, and the other one was filled with like sausage roll mix) and a cake. With drinks, it was under £6, but I still cringed handed over a 50 Kuna note and only getting coin change!

We headed back to the hostel but couldn't find the guy who ran it anywhere. We sat in the lounge room and ate lunch and played on the internet for about 40 minutes before giving up waiting for him and heading out again. On our way out we ran into him and he was able to check us in. We'd booked a private room, so it was in another building across the street in an apartment. Once we'd dropped bags we set off on the 'tourist route' through the old city. It was nice, but there weren't many people around. We'd just about finished the route when we came across a street just lined with cafes and bars, and we thought what a lovely idea. Lets have a beer in the sun. It was splendid.

After afternoon beers we had a look at the markets (which were closed) and the big cathedral. We did a bit more of a wander through the town square, where they were giving free massages for reasons unknown, as well as a statue set up of the last supper. It was pretty bizarre. We headed to the supermarket to pick up supplies for the next day before heading to the hostel for half an hour.

We ended up at a pub of a local brewery just around the corner from the hostel where pints of beer were 8 kuna (Or less than £1!). It was lovely sitting outside in the sun so we ended up staying for a few before having dinner there too. I had a yummy pizza while Dan had a homemade sausage. It was quite long and skinny and spiraled around into a circle. It looked pretty impressive. 6 pints and 2 meals later and we walked out spending 83 Kuna - works out to be just lest than $A16. Love Eastern Europe prices! Belly full of food and beer and I was ready for sleep!