1 Day in Zagreb, Croatia

We arrived at 10:30AM in Zagreb by train from Ljubljana. When my hubby and I walked out of the train station, our jaws dropped. How can so much change in just 2 hours by train? Zagreb is like a fusion of a Western European and Turkish city. It has the grandeur of cities that boasts of its spot in the list of UNESCO World Heritage City but also the friendly and welcoming people you would find in small villages.

As soon as we dropped of our luggage at Hobo Bear Hostel, we wasted no time on getting started on the sightseeing. First on my list is the Dolac Market. It is a traditional open air market that's opened year round selling fruits, vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, souvenirs, etc.The stimulating sounds, colors and smells of the market served as the perfect cup of coffee in the morning for me. I must agree with Frommer's that it is "perhaps the best open air market in all of Europe." After some browsing through the market, a red crochet shawl caught my eye. The woman selling the shawl claimed that it's a piece handmade by a local villager and she quoted approx. USD20 for it. The metropolitan cynic that I've become just turned around and left thinking I'll probably see lots of the same thing in souvenir shops around town. I shopped and shopped until my husband complained of his growling stomach and the stalls began to close down for the day. I never saw another shawl just like it or anything similar for a cheaper price. The seller of the shawl never tried to cheat me but I've become too much of a skeptic to see it. This trip to the market is significant in that it brought back my belief in the goodness and honesty of people.

We had pizza for lunch at a pub called Mali Medo recommended to us by the owner of Hobo Bear Hostel. It is definitely the best pizza I've had outside of Italy. Even though it still didn't make up for the lost I felt from not purchasing that shawl, it definitely helped me take my mind off of it for a while.

After lunch we stopped by the Archaeological Museum. We were the only people in the museum; which felt like a luxury. It's like they closed down the museum just for our private viewing. The highlight of the museum visit was the Zagreb Mummy. Imagine my shock when I saw that it was not surrounded by caution tape or locked in a glass case. The mummy lying in a wooden sarcophagus was just out in the open where anyone can get as close to it as they want. Well...as close as you feel comfortable getting to a mummy. I can even...god forbid... touch it if I wanted to.  There was no one there to stop me. But I didn't want to for obvious reasons.  Only a student who seemed to be concentrating on his homework was stationed at the entrance of each floor. I stared at the mummy and studied all the details thinking: "when am I ever going to be this close to a mummy ever again?" This by far is the most thrilling visit to a museum, ever!