For us southern hemisphere types the lure of a wintry, sparkling Christmas time can be irresistable - and so, with a couple of weeks spare between Ireland and Italy we figured 'why not' - Croatia here we come! Zagreb is really rolling out the Christmas carpet having won the award for Best Christmas Markets in Europe 2 years running - they are very keen to win again this year and the effort they've put in is incredible. We read somewhere that if you can't get into the Christmas spirit in Zagreb, there's simply no hope for you - and we'd have to agree. We arrived on the 29th after a frazzling day of travel - both flights were only a couple of hours - but the mad rush through the airport in Paris to make our connection was dire - fortunately they broke out the G&T on the Paris to Zagreb leg which helped. We had a wander around town in the teeming rain the night we arrived and searched out a restaurant we'd discovered online (Nokturno - little did we know we'd end up eating there 7 nights running... when we find a good thing, we stick with it). We also didn't know (but were ecstatic to find out) that risotto and pasta are two of the national dishes here - it's like being in Italy but paying with peanuts - dinner for two with drinks and a waiter (and everything) €14-20 / A$20-30.

We did a fair bit of research before booking our AirBnB (Where is main square and main Christmas market? Less than 5 minutes walk! Perfect... book that.) Happily all went to plan and the location could not be better - we did a fair amount of walking around Zagreb though did take the excellent tram service to get to the zoo. We started our walking frenzy on our first full day with our traditional Free Walking Tour - wherever we go, assuming no plague or civil unrest, we do a walking tour on our first day just to get the lay of the land/boots on the ground etc. Obviously 'not pouring with rain' is our ideal sort of weather - but it is one of the tiny risks of loving to travel in winter. The tour was not the best of it's breed nor the worst but definitely worth doing. One of the first things we noticed in Ban Jelacic Square that morning was the statue of Governor Jelacic himself (incidentally one of the few people to have a square named after him while he was still alive and able to visit it). At the base of the statue there were half a dozen candles and someone's name and born/died dates. We had of course heard about the newly convicted war criminal who committed suicide by poison in the court in The Hague - but hadn't put two and two together until just then. Turns out he was and is still a general revered by many Croatians who believe he was simply doing his job and protecting his country. Obviously a touchy subject. By our final visit to the main square last night (5th Dec) the shrine had grown to hundreds of candles and a massive photo of the man in question. Interesting times. James broke out his shearling coat on the first day of the visit - I wore my down jacket on the walking tour and it wasn't quite enough for a damp and freezing day - so we made an executive decision and hit our favourite restaurant about 2 pm for a late lunch and had soup in the flat for dinner. Venturing out for a late walk it was fascinating to see Christmas unfurling like roses in a warm room. Some Christmas markets are getting underway, the scent of hot wine is in the air and lights on private premises are being turned on - and still a couple of days to go until the official opening extravaganza.

Right alongside our walking tour tradition we are also great fans of city passes - some cost more (think Paris, Amsterdam and New York), some cost less (think Zagreb and Dubrovnik as it turns out - about A$20/day between us). They mean after paying our fee we feel like we are visiting everywhere for free and of course the public transport is included as well - so if we get on the wrong tram/metro/bus etc - doesn't matter at all. We picked up our passes on Friday morning and kicked off the day with a visit to the Museum of Arts & Crafts - which was more so the decorative arts throughout Croatia's history - amazing furniture, glass, silver, fashion as well as paintings - all in a stunning building of course. We also explored Zrinjevac park and got even more excited at the sight of all the Christmas events getting underway - including a massive ice-rink covering half the park. We hit our restaurant for pasta (salmon and mushroom tortellini in a vodka/cream sauce) and pork ribs with paprika potatoes then finally made it home very, very late... like 9 pm. But it gets dark by 4.30 pm... so definitely felt like midnight.

Our fine weather wishes came true and by Saturday morning the blue sky and sunshine were here along with truckloads/planeloads and just plain loads of tourists coming for a Christmas weekend visit. Our card outing today was the Museum of Zagreb which was interesting and big and rather well presented in an old convent in the upper town - but let itself down with no English descriptions on the exhibits - we got the gist of it from the big explanatory boards that were in English... but then looking at the actual items was a bit of a let down - but hey - it was included in our pass so no huge disappointment and a stunning day to be tripping about the old/upper town of Zagreb which includes the tile-roofed parish church of St Mark's, the stone gate with the magical Mary picture and is also the finish point of the world's safest funicular (little cable car). We took it up this morning which saved our legs for the rest of the day. They used to be proud of it as the world's shortest (at less than a minute) but too many people were desperate to prove them wrong saying that there was a shorter one in their home city... seriously - is it something to be proud of? Anyway a few years back they decided just to call it the safest as there has never been an accident. Mind you, at 50 seconds per journey it's not as though there's a huge amount of time for anything to happen. We picked up a burek (just like in Turkey - pastry with a spinach and cheese filling) and some other nibbles from a supermarket, had lunch a park then hived off back to the apartment for a coffee, a warm up and a snooze... The opening night lay ahead! Before we knew it the magic was happening and the Christmas streetlights were turned on right outside our 2nd floor apartment - wow! Bright, twinkly and absolutely fab. We headed out for an early dinner (5.15 pm - that's just a late lunch in some countries). Even had to queue for 20 minutes - town was THAT busy. And freezing cold - I joined James immediately after the walking tour the other day, and even in my fur coat we got a bit cold when we stood still for too long. There was music everywhere - multiple stages through town and of course police everywhere too - James said not to worry - they were there to scare away troublemakers. Trouble is they scare me too - we avoid crowds wherever possible, but all of Zagreb was one big, happy Christmassy crowd on Saturday night so we just went with the flow. There was a horse and carriage doing laps of Zrinjevac park, but we had our sights set on a ride in a Model T Ford - something we've never done - and, Zagreb being Zagreb - affordable - only €10 for 25 minutes (was supposed to be 15 but the traffic was bonkers). One of the highlights of the drive was tootling past the railway station and the very posh Esplanade hotel - originally built to accommodate the passengers on the Orient Express - ahh the glamour of times past.

Speaking of times past, we had a bit of luck on Sunday and utilised a 'free day'. On the first Sunday of the month it's free to visit Zagreb's Archeological Museum (woo hoo! that saves 60 kunas... which is around half a dinner - yippee!) And it was an excellent museum - English translations everywhere, hugely informative and they are the proud possessors of an excellent Egyptian collection. This includes the Zagreb mummy. There was a fellow back in the 1800s who spent a great deal of time in Egypt and brought a mummy back when he came home - little did he realise, amongst the wrappings, was the longest piece of written Etruscan ever discovered. 'The Linen Book' as it is known was likely discarded then used to wrap a mummy - but is now recognised as a phenomenally important item in its own right. Amazing. Always feel a bit rude looking at a naked, mummified dead person - not as though it would have been in their plans to be lying all dried and shrivelled in full view of the public a couple of thousand years down the track... certainly redefines 'after life'. After our compulsory lunch at home (we have a favourite bakery just around the corner), coffee and nap, it was out into the lack of crowds - if Saturday was 100% then Sunday would have been about 5% crowd wise - much more civilised altogether. With Zagreb cards in hand we headed up Zagreb's inner city sky scraper - all 16 stories of it. Seriously - much higher than it sounds as everything around it is only 1-2 stories. We had a stunning view of the city and Christmas lights and walked around the observation deck quite happily pointing out all the sites (and sights) we'd already visited (Zagreb Card proving once again how nice it is to not keep putting hand in pocket). We headed off to dinner then funiculared (is that even a verb?) to the upper town. We were super keen to see the Christmas-ified version of the Gric Tunnel and were not disappointed - coloured lights and a choir added to the mystery. The pedestrian tunnel (under the Gric area or upper town) was built at huge expense during WWII - it was ridiculed as being an inadequate transport link from one area to another and being unfit for it's main stated purpose of air raid shelter (could only hold 5000 people - and it worked out at 60,000 kunas per head - even today that's around €10,000. It went through many phases (warehouse, squat for druggies and homeless folks, the site of Croatia's first rave and even, during the shelling of Zagreb during the Croatian War of Independence - bomb shelter!) Only 350m in length but with various offshoots to different streets we found it fascinating - great that they got it renovated and open to the public in 2016. We popped out of the tunnel near the main square and not ones to wear ourselves out climbing stairs unnecessarily, we were back in the funicular and in the upper town again for a closer look at another Christmas area - including a stunning Stella Artois beer bottle tree. Very, very cold night - probably tucked up by 9 pm.

Monday saw us up bright and early and planning a huge adventure - actually jumping on a tram. It's only a 3 km walk out to Zagreb Zoo - but knowing what zoos are like we figured we'd walk a couple of kms once there. The trams are a damning indictment of Sydney's public transport (though the trains are 1000% better than they once were and they'll even have a tram soon). We nipped out to the zoo in no time at all and are so impressed with the ZET "Zagreb's Electric Trams! - Did You Know: They transport over 200 million passengers every year? Make that 200 million and 2!) We enjoyed strolling in the wintry sun and waving to assorted friends from around the globe - including a wallaby, black swan and emu from Australia (looked cold), a lion and lioness from Africa (also looked cold) and a leopard - found a bit of sun to bask in so relatively happy. We snaffled a lunch of potato pancake/burek and a bacon & egg roll from our local bakery, tootled home and started thinking about packing. Only thinking mind, then a snooze and eventually off for our second to last Zagreb dinner. Sigh... we've done a bit of research on inexpensive eats in Dubrovnik. We're going to miss Nokturno.

Right. Tuesday 5th Dec. Officially packing day. Sort of. As we are living out of our cabin bags for this 17 night Croatian sojourn it was more difficult to pack than expected since we were still using everything. But we gave it a go then visited a museum included on the card that we never, ever would have bothered with - The Museum of Broken Relationships. Turned out to be absolutely amazing and we spent about an hour there. It was created by a couple who broke up but still got on and eventually travelled about the world collecting items that people wanted to let go of (so they could move on with their lives). Items such as a wedding dress and even a suicide note were exhibited along with a short note from the person who had donated it - what it meant to them and why they were letting it go. It's so good they've even sold the concept to a Los Angeles company so an Americanized version will turn up soon. The afternoon saw a mending and shopping frenzy - my jeans and boots both died the same day - managed to resuscitate the jeans with some patching and sewing but the boots were well gone (good excuse to go shoe shopping). Fortunately the owner's mum lives in an apartment on the same floor and lent me her sewing basket - we also heard the lovely story than Gloria Vanderbilt was was staying in our very apartment and needed to alter a dress - the mum was away but the son let Ms V in to use the sewing machine and even had her autograph it! Speaking of... the floor where we are (3 apartments. Owner, his mum and us) - was once a bank office for BNP Paribas - where they produced their credit cards. Then someone put the address online which was seen as slightly lacking as security - our apartment still has a vault like door - very secure feeling for us! Whilst out and about shoe shopping, we also found a tiny watch repair shop who managed to put a new band on James's watch which was about to fall apart. Must say that was the hardest job. Business must be good as we tried 3 other places and just got a curt "no" - even though the counters were full of watch straps. Lovely to be popular. After dinner (sigh... ribs and salad) we hit the main Christmas square and sampled Fritule (mini-doughnut balls with chocolate sauce) - Nice way to finish our winter festival in Zagreb. Final packing before bed and before we knew it we were up and at 'em on a glorious, sunny Zagreb Wednesday - almost seemed a shame to be leaving, but we were in the car and out to the airport by 10am. Dubrovnik here we come!