Christine and Keith's Travels: Zagreb, Croatia, Saturday June 21st

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After a leisurely breakfast we set off for a tour of the city with Vladimir as our guide. The following information and other bits on future pages are an amalgamation of what we gleaned by observation, in conversations with various people, in museums and from the tourist information. I am writing after leaving Zagreb and will include some items as they seem to fit, rather than in the chronological order that I learnt them.

Zagreb is the capital of the Republic of Croatia and has a population of one million. To date its population has been rapidly expanding, with two small medieval settlements uniting to become a city and then with massive expansion in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The trend is slowing now with many couples opting for no children or only one. This would reflect the difference between the prices and the generally low wages in a post-communist country where adaptation to a capitalist system is a slow process and where corruption has led to some people becoming very rich at the expense of others. The communist regime played out differently in Croatia with Marshall Tito heading an anti-fascist organisation during the Second World War and then taking over as leader of the post-war Federation of Yugoslavia.

Industries were owned and organised by their workers and each work place or organisation owned blocks of flats where the workers lived. When communism ended and elections were eventually held in1991, the flats were offered for sale to the occupants for a small amount. In some cases, occupancy was disputed and long law suites ensued, some still not resolved after 12 or more years. On our walk we were to see many such blocks of flats, most with regulation sized apartments of about 50 square metres, and a great contrast in architecture to the ornate buildings in the old town and surroundings.

Zagreb is a city of art and culture – it has statues everywhere, some of fictional characters, such as the one of the troubadour who sang about the plight of downtrodden peasants, often placing himself in danger, to politicians, to writers, to musicians, to classical figures such as the naked lady whose drapes rest in an impossible way to maintain her modesty, to modern heads that are all angles and a suggested nose. Equally it has buildings and organisations that promote the arts, with art galleries and collections where the public can enjoy it. One of my regrets is that we didn’t have the opportunity to visit the galleries of Modern Art, of old European Masters and of sculptures. The very first building of note that we passed was The Croatian Fine Artists House – a distinctive and austere circular building with pillars in the middle of a square, designed by the architect Ivan Mestovic, and used as an exhibition space for contemporary artists. It was to become the guiding building for bringing us home each day.

The upper town, on the hills, is the old town and below lies the lower town, part of which has residences and businesses and the commercial hub, and part of which was designed around a horseshoe of connected gardens with large squares between them. Public buildings and former homes of rich residents surround the squares and in many there is a public building of note. The Zrinjevac gardens are immaculately manicured and, like all the others, have gardens with floral patterns or emblems. Treed and shady at the ends, there is a gracious rotunda in the middle where a group in folk costumes were playing instruments and dancing, celebrating their cultural heritage.

Croatia is made up of five regions, each of which features as a tiny crest on the top of the coat of arms in the middle of the national flag. These costumes were beautifully embroidered with flowers and very attractive. The group performing looked either intent, concentrating or glum, but those watching were enjoying the sunshine and the little market stalls of regional specialities.

The main square is enormous and was filled with stalls selling souvenirs for the Croatian soccer match in the European Cup against Turkey, won by Turkey last night. This was a surprise result after nearly a whole game with no score, an equalising goal by Turkey in the final seconds of extra time and a tension filled few minutes of penalty shoot outs. There was also a stage being set up and enormous billboards on buildings; all distracters from the majesty of the square and the statue of Ban J. Jelacic riding his horse as he led the Croatians against Hungary. This was an interesting move since he was the governor, appointed by Austria-Hungary, and presumably expected to represent his superiors as he governed Zagreb. He became a national hero, with his statue taken down in the communist era and replaced after independence. Originally his sword pointed menacingly towards Hungary but, in replacing the statue, it was mistakenly pointed the wrong way, actually an improvement from the point of view of the look of the square. An ancient fountain was uncovered in the 1990s and is now bubbling forth just near the original spring.

To the right of the square, we ‘climbed’ a small incline to the old Kaptol settlement, where the Cathedral of Virgin Mary and St Stephen dominates the view. It is unique in having once been fortified and the remains of a wall and tower can still be seen. An elaborate golden statue of Mary stands in the square, surrounded by angels.

The Zagreb bishopric was founded in the 11^th century and there is a large complex of buildings, including a Bishop’s palace connected to the cathedral. Behind it there was once the bordering fishponds of the sector which were eventually drained to make a public park. Bishops were great leaders in all aspects of society over the centuries, not least in civic improvements. At one stage a bishop created some gardens which were open to those he gave passes to. I wonder if good mass attendance or donations to the church earned passes to the gardens. Finally this system was dropped and anyone could go.

The cathedral has been damaged and repaired many times and today has two gothic bell towers, a very ornate entry and lots of statues and stone details. When the renovations were done after the earthquake in the late 19^th century, many parts were removed and we saw them in the museum of Zagreb, in particular the old entrance, which featured the apostles and saints with Mary.

Cutting across to the other hill and the ancient settlement of Gradec, we passed through a bustling market, uncovered and all set out on trestles. The open square was created in the 1920s when some old houses were demolished. We thought prices in the market were not particularly cheap. The only remaining gate to the city, Stone Gate, is more like a passage and a chapel. At one end of it is the ‘miraculous picture’; a picture of the Virgin Mary that miraculously survived a fire in the original wooden gate in 1731, unscathed. Around it the walls are covered with plaques with messages on them thanking Mary for granting their wishes or supporting them in times of need. The dates on them show that this practice is still current. A continuous stream of people stopped in front of the picture to pray and some pews to the side form an actual chapel area where some people sit to pray, but otherwise this is a very busy thoroughfare, used all the time.

We examined the new and old items in the first chemist shop in Zagreb, operating since it opened in 1355. Time has a different meaning here and ‘old’ really does mean old. Other buildings we looked at in the upper town were the elegant old town hall, the school where Vladimir teaches, the most ugly building ever (according to Keith, it was built in the 1950s) and an as yet unloved and undeveloped square, which should be bustling with restaurants because of its beautiful views of the city, but is in fact a concrete paddock, below which drug dealers prey on the young.

The Jesuit quarter ends in Catherine’s square, with the Church of St Catherine at the end. The square was not named after the saint, but after Katerina Zrinski who was a poetess. Her husband was the Croatian Viceroy (Governor) and he and her brother were tricked into attending a meeting in Weiner Neustadt, where the Hapsburg monarchy had them executed for plotting against them in 1671. The church has an unusual façade that is the shape of a drawing of a house and it has no spire.

The main square in this part of the city is St Mark’s square, with St Mark’s church in the centre. It has a vibrant mosaic of the coats of arms of the city of Zagreb and of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slovenia on its roof.

They look a bit kitschy on a church and were put there in the 19^th century reconstruction. The square is surrounded by buildings of a governmental nature – the Parliament of the Republic of Croatia (with no guards, just a man in a suit looking tentative and a bit like he is not sure what he should be doing), the court and Palace of the Viceroys.

As a square it surprised us by its lack of fountains, statues etc, with only one flower-decked light pole to bring life to it. It must be said that we were visiting at a holiday time, when many people were out of town, but definitely the word for this square would be ‘deserted’.

A quick whiz around the streets located the museums we might visit another day and then we had a light lunch in the very busy street of cafes and promenaders, just down from the central square.

We walked down to the magnificent and truly over-the-top Croatian National Theatre in the centre of Marshall Tito Square.

It is magnificent but also, for me, a case of more is not more. In front of it is an interesting sculpture which at first glance looks like people struggling, but on closer examination it is clear that there are men and women and if they are struggling, they are clearly enjoying it. It is called the ‘Well of Life’ and was sculpted by Ivan Mestrovic.

The last building that we focussed on was the building where Vladimir studied; beautiful to me because of its simplicity and its owls for wisdom on its roof, but now housing the national archives.

The huge and monolithic form of the of Marko Marulic, the renaissance poet who wrote the first epic in the Croatian language, watches the building from across the grassy square. This, to me, was the most beautiful square in terms of design, although it too was lifeless on this day and does not qualify for the square of the year award at all. Keith and I felt that the perfect square must have dignity, history, shade, facilities for people to relax and meet, entertainment or public function spaces, flowers, sculptures, buskers, and free seating (apart from cafes). This does not include advertising billboards, which look ghastly whenever we have seen them.

Vladimir left us and we chose the Mimara Museum to visit. This museum houses the private collection of Ante Topic and Wiltrud Mimara, which they donated to the state. The building is absolutely enormous, and with only an hour until closing time, we started with the top floor, which has paintings by famous painters over the ages. It was organised room by room by style and chronology. Never have I had the opportunity to see so many works of art by so many artists I have heard of as being famous. We absolutely loved it, particularly since we could take our time and come and go and there were no crowds to break into our thoughts. It was so good that I would gladly have started at the beginning again and still returned the next day. With about five minutes to go we sped down to the first floor to see what we were going to miss and it was the most interesting and eclectic collection of over 3000 works of art – sculptures and crafts of all kinds from ancient times from all over the world. Vladimir had said that Mimara was an adventurer, but he must surely have been a lover of the arts first and a collector second. I hope we can return because we didn’t see the ground floor at all and only had a tiny taste after the paintings.

We had not had much internet time and Keith was anxious to check some emails and post some blog, also not as keen as me to go to the Arts and Crafts Museum which didn’t close until 7pm. Off he went to find an internet café while I immersed myself in another round of magnificent paintings. A major part of the rest of the display was to show arts and crafts in context, so each room was set up to elaborate an era, eg the Empire Room (where a whole family of women were shown in a painting wearing dresses with empire waist lines under the bust), and the Art Nouveau Room. Each room had paintings on the walls, finely crafted furniture, ornaments and clocks from the era, and in some, the finest ancient tapestries that you could gaze at close up. It was like being a time traveller, with each step over a threshold being like the press of the time button.

All this would have been enough of a treat, but wait, there was more. A design exhibition showed developments over time, a clocks and watches hall displayed timepieces at different periods with the changes in public taste being guided by, or reflected in, the degree of ornateness and the size. Next was a large hall showing how glassware and ceramics have evolved and, finally, I was in the fashion section. This certainly showed that Croatian fashions were strictly western, with no hint of an eastern connection at all. Clothes were shown from early days up until about the 1980s. Everyone must have had tiny feet, or at least very narrow ones, and it goes without saying that the waists must have been narrower, or well compressed by corsets, to wear some of the styles. I had been pleased to see some gracious older women of about my age in the paintings, dressed in great style and covered in jewels, but none of them could have fitted into any of the clothes displayed here and neither could I. As the only visitor, I had been followed by the attendants, who eventually had given up and were having a chat together. They came to find me at closing time and I was so pleased to have been able to have seen this museum. It was fascinating.

I sat on the steps and waited for Keith to return. Back at the street Vladimir lives in, we walked past his building, which we had difficulty finding because it looked much the same as others, in a street that looked much like other streets. We found it by its number, pressed the buzzer and Vladimir let us in.

We slipped around the corner to the Konzum Supermarket; a true and blatant name for what they want you to do. We cooked and then Vladimir and I watched a strange British version, dubbed in German, of the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry the Eighth in which he was about 20 and gorgeous at a time when, historically, he was grossly overweight, balding and in agony from gout. Keith was on the internet and not concerned by matters of historical correctness. It was interesting to see Sir Thomas More, looking a lot like his portrait by Hans Holbein, which we had seen in the afternoon.

A long discussion of our travel options and the dreadful revelation that Slovenia is now a Schengen country, took ages, as we tried to work out how to proceed and fit in everything we wanted to do, while not violating the Schengen rules. One thing we decided was to rise early and to go to Plitivice Lakes National Park the next day.