Wednesday May 22 started bright and sunny and then got a bit cloudy with a few very brief (5 minute) showers. High of 24C.
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| Lots of sun for breakfast on the deck- the fruit is awesome |
We walked over to the Dolac main market. There has been a "strawberry lady" selling only strawberries on our street this week.
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| Strawberries galore |
Today we were at the market earlier than yesterday and many meat and cheese stalls were open in the indoor market.
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| Meat and cheese |
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| Eggs only |
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| Mainly cheese |
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| Outside of the separate fish market- we did our shopping here on Tuesday |
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| Lots of fruit and veg folks out today. - farmers' market has been there since 1926 |
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| Cathedral dominates the skyline |
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| Wonderful nectarines |
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| Looking down from the fruit/veg market to the flower market below |
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| Roses |
We started our walk to see the Croatian National Theatre. It was at the end of a street that we hadn't been on before.
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Gorgeous wine store
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The neo-Baroque Croatian National Theatre was opened in 1895 by the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. It is the country's most prestigious performance space. It stages a repertory of international classics as well as modern Dramatic works, Ballet and Opera. The building was the project of Viennese architects Ferdinand Kellner and Herman Helmer, whose firm had built several theatres in Vienna.
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| Croatian National Theatre |
There is a sculpture in front of the Theatre called the Well of Life or the Fountain of Life, designed by Croatian artist and sculptor Ivan Meštrović in 1905. It depicts people in various phases of life that crouch and twist their bodies around a well which symbolises life, youth, and the source of eternal beauty.
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Ivan Meštrović, Well of Life, 1905-- naked figures, including a child, couple in love and an old man.
Strong facial expressions of the figures show joy of life. The sculpture depicts the natural cycle of birth to death. The sculpture was made in 1905 and exhibited in 1909 in the artist's gallery. In 1912, it was bought by Izidor Kršnjavi and installed in its present location. It was surrounded by walls so that the naked bodies would not cause critical comments by the then conservative people of Zagreb. |
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| Sculpture in front of theatre |
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| Close up of a couple |
We peeked inside the Theatre-- very opulent. Unfortunately, we couldn't see more than the entrance.
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| Inside the entrance |
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| Another side of the National Theatre |
Across from the Theatre is the modern University of Zagreb Academy of Music. It is the oldest and largest music school in Croatia, tracing its origins back to 1829, when Croatia was part of the Austrian Empire. In 1979, it became part of the University of Zagreb. Today the Academy has around 500 students and a 150 member teaching staff.
It occupies the reconstructed Ferimport building at the Republic of Croatia Square. It was completed in September 2014. The architect was Milan Šoserič. The building has a rainbow coloured roof cladding complemented by a monumental black pillar structure that covers the main entrance and a 29 metre-high sloping needle and ball in front of it. The needle apparently symbolizes a sun ray and the ball is the sun. Some have also said the needle resembles a conductor's baton.
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| University of Zagreb, Academy of Music |
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| Needle and sphere up close |
There are a number of other important buildings near the National Theatre.
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| Zagreb Ethnographic Museum founded in 1919 by Salamon Berger. It lies in the Secession building of the one-time Trades Hall of 1903, designed by the architect Vjekoslav Basel. |
The parks and squares just south of the Theatre are part of Zagreb's "Green Horseshoe".
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| Kids playing in the park |
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Lots of planned green space in the city
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We walked by the Museum of Arts and Crafts, one of the earliest museums of its kind in Europe. It was established in 1880. It is situated in a neo-Renaissance palace designed by Austrian architect Herman Bollé in 1888.
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| Museum of Arts and Crafts (presently closed due to earthquake damage). |
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| Signs with a number of cultural sites |
We walked back the way we had come but on the other side of Masarykova street (the street got its name in 1930 after Tomáš Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic). We noticed a beautiful building that reminded us of Vienna. Kallina House is a historic residential building regarded as "one of the finest examples of Secessionist-style street architecture in Zagreb." It was completed in 1904 for the wealthy industrialist Josip Kallina and was designed by the Croatian architect Vjekoslav Bastl (1872-1947).
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| Kallina House-- beautiful art nouveau design |
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| Corner detail |
We stopped at Ribice/Tri Točkice, a seafood restaurant for a late lunch. It had an indoor section and an outdoor patio across the street where we ate.
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| The patios are lovely in Zagreb and most have a covered roof, as this one did |
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| We shared a large portion of fried squid and a green salad with beets. |
After our late lunch, we headed to Quahwa for a coffee. We also wanted to get a small amount of coffee beans ground for our "nanopresso" espresso machine that Allan uses to make our morning coffee.
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| Street sign for Quahwa where we had coffee earlier in our trip |
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| We sat outside-- (forgot to take pic until we finished our coffees-- lovely spot to chill) |
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| Allan consulting about the grind he wanted. Coffee is roasted on-site. |
We headed back to the apartment. Strawberry lady was still there---- 3 euros for a pint.
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| Get your strawberries here |
We started our packing and had a rest. Allan made a fish dinner with dorade (orata in Croatia), potatoes, green beans, salad, a glass of red wine and a small fig cake.
We have really enjoyed Zagreb. Very walkable, wonderful café culture, great food and friendly people. It is a major cultural city with many, many, quality museums and galleries. We had been looking forward to visiting Ivan Meštrović Atelier, the National Gallery and the Arts and Crafts Museum, all of which were closed due to damage from the 2020 earthquakes. However, we did have an excellent Walking Tour, were able to visit the wonderful Museum of Naïve Art and the Meštrović Pavilion, home of the Croatian Society of Fine Artists. It was also beautiful weather and we enjoyed sitting out with the locals in the cafés practising fjaka (the art of doing nothing).
We highly recommend visiting Croatia. The entire country has a population of just 3.9 million people (down from just over 4 million a few years ago). The coastal cities of Dubrovnik and Split as well as the capital Zagreb are all worth visiting as well as some of the nearby islands. It is a beautiful country to explore and we loved being on the Adriatic Sea. We would also highly recommend Free Spirit Walking Tours which we took in all three cities. Excellent guides who provided a good mix of history, entertaining stories and helpful advice in orienting us to a new city. We always try and do these tours on our first full day in a new place.
On Thursday May 23, we take the bus to the second country on our trip- Slovenia. We will spend four nights in Ljubljana.
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