Zagreb in Depth
I’ve fully acclimated to European time here in Croatia (seven hours ahead of Central Time back in the States) and set out this morning to explore more of the city. For reference, here’s Zagreb in northwest Croatia with Slovenia to the north and Italy across the Adriatic to the west.
The sun was out today and Zagreb presented a colorful side that I didn’t appreciate with the cloud cover yesterday. Temps in the 60s and a cool breeze provided perfect motivation for hiking around town.
I thought that perhaps with the beginning of the work week the throngs of people out on the street would decrease but I was wrong. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the pleasant weather. Restaurants and cafes were packed.
I located a great lunch place thanks to the TripAdvisor app (seriously, there’s an app for everything when traveling). It’s usually my biggest meal of the day as I prefer a light snack for dinner.
And yes, the desserts were basically dinner…
There’s no rushed eating in Europe, quite a contrast from America. The waiters take their time and you’re invited to linger at your table as long as you like. Many people read the paper over a post-meal coffee or simply watch the parade of humanity go by. That’s what I did as I sipped on my Croatian beer.
After covering the major sights yesterday, I had the opportunity to dive into several interesting museums today. I’d done my research online and sought out two exhibitions in particular that stoked my curiosity. First up was the Museum of Broken Relationships.
Yes, this was a museum dedicated to small mementos representing lost love, lost loved ones and lost opportunities. Patrons from all over the world were invited to share their own stories and artifacts. It provided a mesmerizing, human experience. There were people engrossed in reading placards throughout the space like nothing I’d seen before in a traditional museum.
An example: the record above was a girl’s father singing in Germany in 1942. He was training his voice for the opera when war broke out. He survived his time in the army but lost his vocal chords to shrapnel. He was never able to sing again. The recording played softly in the background as you read the girl’s memory.
Speaking of war, there’s an uneasy feeling today with a rise in nationalism and ethnic conflict in Europe, the US and around the world. I saw several stickers around Zagreb like the one below. This looked like something from the 1930s out of Nazi Germany which was probably the intent.
Ethnic conflict resonates particularly here in the Balkans and in Croatia in what was once part of Yugoslavia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Socialist Federal Republic splintered along ethnic lines.
My next stop was a small, poignant museum called Images of War. I had to work to locate this exhibition. It was hidden deep in the central part of Zagreb. I surmised this was so because it was a chapter of recent history that most people here would rather forget.
I had a hazy recollection of news reporting from the early 1990s about the conflicts in the Balkans. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks killing each other …it seemed so confusing and far away. This exhibition displayed both color and black and white photographs which brought the horror to life.
The photo above showed Croatian men huddled in a passageway, one tightly embracing a terrified dog, as Serbian forces shelled the world heritage city of Dubrovnik (which I’ll visit later).
What I found most startling about the exhibition was the modernity of it all. These weren’t some grainy World War II photos from 80 years ago in a foreign landscape. These were victims who looked much like the people I passed on the street today.
In fact, the photo below showed a Croatian woman killed by shelling here in Zagreb in 1995 with the city’s traditional blue street cars and a modern Volvo in the background. She was dressed for work or a day out shopping with her overcoat, purse and umbrella. She was one of more than 140,000 killed.
I’ve read more to educate myself about the Yugoslav wars (referred to as the Homeland War here in Croatia), particularly as they related to places I’ll be visiting. It’s still confusing and disturbing. The museum’s simple slogan resonated the most: war belongs in a museum.
As I walked back to my Airbnb, the Croatian national soccer team was playing a match on TV. It seemed the whole city had stopped to watch. You can’t mistake Croatia, they always wear the red and white checkerboard.
The local Zagreb soccer team is called Dinamo Zagreb and their fans are the Bad Blue Boys. To me, their mascot resembled the Bulldog back in Skiatook.
It was a thought-provoking day in Zagreb. I’m up early tomorrow to pick up my rental car and drive north into Slovenia.
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