Zagreb

Zagreb travel highlights

St. Mark's Church, Zagreb - cultivatedrambler.comstayed: An air bnb at the end of a busy street. Not the best, but it had a bed and wifi. Good enough for this weary couple.

saw: Hotties strutting their stuff. I must say, I think Zagreb had the most attractive looking people. All of the women had beautiful, flowing dresses on and statement lipstick. This gal was jealous!

conquered: Leslie’s version of the Rick Steves walking tour. At this point, we’d spent a pretty penny on guided tours so I tore out this chapter in our book and took us on our own lil tour.

Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb - cultivatedrambler.comThe Museum of Broken Relationships. We hadn’t planned on seeing too many museums on this trip but I’d heard of this one through the grapevine. The museum houses artifacts from people’s past relationships with their partners, family members, etc. along with their stories. It was a nice change to the typical art museum.

Renting and driving a car! It felt SO good to finally be on our own schedule and not dependent on buses or trains. I think it cost us $300 for the car rental, which was over 5 days. And yes, there were toll roads but zero traffic anywhere. Note to travelers: we used Sixt, which was good overall. They did not give us the paperwork at the beginning that you sign saying there’s this or that sort of damage so that you don’t get charged for it. They tried to charge us for a dent, but we talked our way out of it. Make sure you get that paperwork!Plitvice Lakes, Croatia - cultivatedrambler.comPlitvice Lake fish, Croatia - cultivatedrambler.comPlitvice Lakes, Croatia - cultivatedrambler.comPlitvice Lakes, Croatia - culitvatedrambler.comPlitvice Lakes. About a two hour drive south from Zagreb, these lakes are not to be missed! I’d say hiking around for the day was fairly easy. Most everything was flat and they had electric boats and a tram that took you to major drop points so you didn’t have to cover as much ground by foot. The worst part was hiking back up to the parking lot at the end of the day!

Croatian smoked sheep's cheese - cultivatedrambler.comCheese. Snacks were pretty much nonexistent on our trip and as we were leaving Zagreb, Adam joked about a drive-thru cheese shop. Little did we know that those DO exist (in the form of a roadside stand) and we picked up a delicious smoked sheep’s cheese wheel on the way to Plitvice.

other travel notes: Compared to the other places we visited in Croatia, Zagreb was the cheapest so take advantage of that. We had price shock in both Split and Dubrovnik. I think we paid less than $8 for dinner one night in Zagreb!

8Rent a car and take the scenic roads. It was super easy to drive in both Croatia and Bosnia and the Plitvice Lakes were well marked with brown park signs. Croatia also had these killer tunnels that went through entire mountains. The “hold your breath” game would not work well here.

Also, how many phones and cameras are lost at the lakes each year? Slippery boardwalks + electronics seem like a potential disaster to me!

5The cathedral was being renovated and I liked how they showed a run-down part of it next to a refurbished one. The detail is pretty spectacular!

The train from Slovenia to Croatia was only running until it reached the border so we had to depart the train in a random parking lot and were bused into Zagreb from there. The border crossing was a lot different than in previous days. Police were in full riot gear and had a car blockade. Just a little aggressive.

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Decisions, decisions

image1The most common question I got prior to our trip was, “Why did you choose those countries?” When people think of Europe, I suspect London, Paris or any city in Italy comes to mind. Slovenia and Bosnia probably aren’t on most people’s radars and granted, they weren’t on mine either at first.

But in comes my most favorite of all favorite shows, Game of Thrones. Many of the scenes in recent seasons have been filmed in Croatia and that got me thinking…what ABOUT Croatia? I started doing some research and I came across my dear friend Rick Steves Eastern Europe itinerary. After googling a few of the places, we were sold! History, castles, coastline and cheap accommodations? Sign us up.

I basically took his suggested itinerary and adjusted it to the amount of time we were going to be there. Here’s what we ended up with:

Amsterdam, Netherlands – This stop was an add-on more than anything as the cheapest flight was found through here so we added two days to our trip. The flight from Seattle (with a quick stop in Iceland) was really an easy flight. Highly recommended flying into Amsterdam.

Prague, Czech Republic – Seemed only fitting to really start our trip with a visit to the “Paris of the East!” Plus, it’s one of the few cities that was untouched by the war.

Krakow, Poland – Per my hubby’s request. I should have given us a bit more time here, but it’s hard to narrow it down.

Budapest, Hungary – Also seemed to be a “not to miss” place. Like Krakow, another day would have been great here.

Ljubljana, Slovenia – Recommended by a colleague of mine. She said to add a day to this stop and she was SO right. Give this country at least 3 days.

Zagreb, Croatia – The capitol of Croatia. Not a ton to see, but it worked well logistically in our travel plans. It was a good place to reorganize and pick up our rental car for the drive down the coast.

Split, Croatia – Featured on the Game of Thrones. Enough said.

Mostar, Bosnia – A quick side trip that was the biggest unknown. Will it be safe? How’s the drive? What will we do there? All valid questions that were immediately answered as soon as we crossed the border from Croatia. Yes. Easy. Eat, drink and sight see!

Dubrovnik, Croatia – Also a Game of Thrones filming location not to mention a VERY romantic city. A great place to end our journey!

We spent anywhere from 2 to 3 days in each city, which was fine for some and not enough time for others. It was definitely an ambitious itinerary to say the least. As soon as you got semi-comfortable, it was time to pack up and run to the next train. I’m pretty sure we’ll never travel like this again, but it was a memorable learning experience all around!

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