13.2.12 Zagreb, Croatia and Trieste, Italy

I fell asleep with my laptop on my stomach. I was tired. But this was the best I’d slept on the trip for sure.

There was no breakfast at the hostel so we went out down the main street that leads to the square and went into a pastry place. I got a croissant with vanilla and a sort of donut with vanilla as well as a macchiato. It was very good.

The city was pretty much completely cleaned up. You could walk on the streets not worry about falling, which was a huge improvement over the last few days. They must be used to snow here since people were out shoveling all throughout the day.

We went into the main square and took the two guided walking tours of the north and south old towns that were on the free map we got. One nice thing about visiting random Balkan countries is not a lot of people go there so they give out great maps. The north side one is more medieval, where we walked around the night before. We went into the huge cathedral, which was started around the 11^th century. It’s on the same scale as a Notre Dame as far as size goes. I’ve been into a bunch of churches throughout Europe and I’ve never seen so many people in the church actually praying in the middle of the day. I don’t think of Croatia as a particularly religious country, but it sure seems like it. They would all do the signs of the cross and many bought candles to light.

From there we went up to a little square with a market like we thought we’d see in Ljubljana, with people selling fruit and little trinkets. Luke was accosted by a lady in Croatian trying to get him to buy something. He didn’t.

We continued up a hilly narrow street to the Stone Gate, which has been turned into a memorial for the people who died in the wars inside it. It’s supposed to be one of the holiest sites in the country and once again there were a bunch of people praying and buying candles.

We went past what we called the Lego Church because the roof looked like it was made of Legos. I’d never seen a church like that before, with bright reds and blues and forming the Croatian crest on the top as well. Unfortunately it was closed, but was hoping the inside was also all Legos. We could look inside a little and they had a sign with people jogging, ice cream, a cigarette, a cell phone, and a dog all crossed out. I thought it was be really funny if a jogger, smoking, on a cell phone, eating ice cream, with a dog came to the church and was really dejected when he couldn’t get in.

We went past another church and over to an overlook on the city. The roofs were all snow covered and looked really pretty. The wall around the area looked older than the almost certainly fake Roman wall from the day before.

We went down a bunch of scary stairs and through a really narrow street covered in graffiti. Near the end of the street a ice sickle fell on my head. It was only a small one, but it still hurt, but I was laughing. Luke thought it was the funniest thing ever. We were lucky it wasn’t a big chunk of ice since we really have no idea how to deal with that situation if I were knocked unconscious. It would been a great story though.

We went through the square again and started the south tour. We came to a big park with a bunch of whiteish trees and a gazebo in the middle. We decided this probably actually looked way better with the snow in it.

The tour took us bunch a past a big impressive Baroque buildings. One of the major failings of the free map tour is it didn’t actually tell us what the buildings were. We went down by the train station and they had a huge equestrian statue overlooking a big square. They’re really big on statues of guys on horses around here

We came to a pretty ornate looking building and Luke decided we should try to go inside. So we did. Turns out it is the National Archives and a building renounced for being the most beautiful in Croatia. Despite not having any signs that we could get in or take a tour, we asked the guy at the desk if they had tours they did. They wanted to give it to us in German and we said okay, if only to just see around the place.

Our guide came down and spoke perfect English. She showed us into a bunch of very fancy rooms and most impressively the main reading room with huge murals and big chandeliers. Everything in the place was made by hand by Croatian craftsmen, something they really emphasized.

She took us upstairs and through both wings and let us go outside on a balcony. She kept asking us if there were anything in the achieves we were interested in and I felt guilty that I didn’t have anything I could even pretend to be interested in, so I asked about their oldest document, which was from 11^th century. We didn’t actually get to see it, but just a photo. It was well worth the 10 kuna we paid (like two dollars).

Next was another fancy building and we decided to go into that one too. It was an art museum with a school in the back, not nearly as interesting.

Finally we came to the National Theater and tried to get them to let us take a look inside. There were rehearsals going on so we couldn’t although we made a good case to the info guy.

In Croatia and Slovenia we had a super hard time with the doors. There’s no real telling which way they’ll open. All the cues in America, like having a handle, don’t really mean anything here. At the theater, you pulled the first door open an the second door was a push. Just crazy.

We were getting a little hungry so we went down to a store which I originally thought was a K-Mart on the way in and got these amazing cheese pastries. I also got a flavored (unfortunately still) water and a Kinder egg with a toy inside. Luke told me they were illegal in the US so I had to get it. Apparently having a toy inside a chocolate egg is a choking hazard. I got an elephant.

We took our pastries over to Chocolate Fest Zagreb 2012 and sat on the most comfortable bean bags I’ve ever been on. They were solid form-fitting since of just sinking into them.

After we ate we went around the tent and picked out a couple different chocolates to get. We got a couple different truffles (awesome) and I got a big chocolate cream dish (it was solid, not the greatest). I wanted to get a chocolate fest t-shirt but they didn’t say Zagreb on them anywhere but the back in small letters, so I passed. They had a bunch of children’s books and Shakespeare plays in Croatian, which I always get a kick out of too.

We walked back up one of the old streets and found a place to sit outside under heat lamps with blankets and get some coffee. I had a café latte, which was much more elaborate than a cappuccino here. I got on their internet and I worked on 5on5s and planned out how we were going to get out of Zagreb. We were hoping we’d have time to stop in Trieste for a dinner but we just wanted to get out of Zagreb before dark. The street signs here are very small and in random places, so the darkness wouldn’t do us any favors.

We took a walk around the town for maybe an hour, stopping in a couple different stores. I wanted to get a Croatian soccer shirt, but they didn’t really have any I was looking for. We went back to the hostel and punched in directions on our computers as backups and stopped in for another cheese pastry for the road.

Luke drove out of the city and we had no problems. The roads were cleared and looked like they would be the whole way.

Once we got a little further out of the city we stopped for gas so I could use up the last 100 kunas I had before we left Croatia. I was jealous of Luke getting to drive in the good weather so he let me. Driving with roads where you don’t think you are going end up in metal railing every couple minutes is a great thing. And the speed limit in some places was 130 km and people were going much faster than that. I got up to 160 km, which I think is 100 mph, so that was awesome.

Turns out we drove though a bunch of mountains yesterday. The sun was setting and it was quite scenic for a while.

We got to the border in what seemed like 30 minutes. The day before it took hours. When I pulled up to talk to the immigration guy, he took our passports and said, “Church?” I had no idea what he meant, thinking it might have been a city in Croatia. I said no. He said church again. I looked at Luke and still had no idea what was going on. He then asked where we were coming from and we said Zagreb. Then he said there were a lot of Americans like us coming from a church event in Croatia. Still one of the most bizarre interrogations I’ve ever been a part of.

We made it into Trieste without too many incidents, other than when there was a merge sign and then the merge was about 20 feet ahead, so I had a get over really quick and slam on the brakes. The guy in front of me did the same thing, so I didn’t feel too bad. And then I’m still pretty sure we’re just blowing through tolls instead of paying them, so I pulled the car over by one and we still couldn’t figure out where we were supposed to go because only the trucks were stopping at the gates. So we made sympathetic, confused faces when we passed through the toll gate where the camera was.

We got off the highway for Trieste and followed a long path down from the hills into the city. We didn’t have any directions on where to go so we just followed the signs to the center, a trick we’d learned earlier. It doesn’t work so well when you missed the right turn to the center and end up going down a super narrow one way into private property, which we did. We managed to figure it out and get into the center pretty easily. There was even a bunch of parking on the street for free.

I did an amazing parallel parking job and once we got out of the car we noticed the spot was reserved for the French consulate. Really not wanting to get the car towed, we had to move the car and went down by the river and found a ton of parking spots.

The first thing we noticed after getting out of the car was how warm it still was. In retrospect, Ljubljana was really miserable. We headed into what we assumed was the city center and I immediately found a Deutsch Bank where I get free Bank of America withdrawals. We found a pedestrian street and went into a hotel and asked the guy at the desk for a map. He was super helpful and pointed out the main sites we should see and suggested going on a pier to see the city.

We went to the main square of the city first and it was among the best I’ve ever seen. It had a bunch of fancy buildings with all sorts of statues and were all lit up at night. They also had a bunch of blue lights in the ground in one spot for some reason.

We went out to the pier which was just at the end of the main square. The guy told us it might be a little icy but it wasn’t at all. Until we reached about the halfway point and it was completely covered in snow. But we trekked though it and got to the end. It would have been a lot more impressive during the day.

We went back into the city and through a smaller square where there was a gelato place with probably more flavors than I’ve ever seen. I got three scups in a waffle cone, black forest cake, Nutella, and white chocolate cherry for just over three Euros, a steal. The Nutella was the best. We sat in these awesome comfy chairs by the window and I tried to steal wifi. I couldn’t get any so we looked at the map and figured out what we wanted to do. Luke had been talking about this lighthouse there since he mentioned Trieste and we thought we could try to squeeze in the castle too. I was thinking we could just walk it but since we had a car and the roads were empty, we decided to go back and get the car and drive over to the lighthouse.

There’s a road that goes along the water and just outside the main city center is where the lighthouse is and we could drive right up to it. As I was pulling into the parking spot, Luke told me not to hit the metal thing. I thought he meant the huge pole in the middle of the spot, and not the metal thing that fell off a car and was in the parking spot which I immediately hit. The car was fine.

The lighthouse was probably one of the worst sites I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t even on the water and was surrounded by a bunch of rundown looking warehouses. And it wasn’t even that tall. We couldn’t go in it either. But at least we didn’t walk there.

We then tried to figure out how to get to the castle but couldn’t find a way to drive up, so we parked underneath a bunch of stairs. We didn’t notice until we parked that there was a really nice Roman amphitheater next to the car. It was closed, but there was a railing that we stepped over and walked into it. I really liked it, in part because I didn’t know it existed and how well preserved it was.

We took the stairs up to a big church with an older church next to it (looked older then the Ljubljana Roman wall) and continued up the stairs to the castle.

The castle was massive, with fortified walls all around it. We couldn’t see a whole lot because the walls were so fortified that whatever was inside wasn’t visible, but we walked around it and came across some more Roman ruins and a nice statue.

The most interesting thing about the castle to me was there was a neighborhood built right next to it and it didn’t look like particularly fancy housing. It must be crazy to live right outside a castle. Some of the apartments looked like they were built on old ruins too.

We went back down all the stairs and got in the car to discover the directions were gone on my phone. We were sort of guessing as Luke looked at the map on where to go and somehow at a stop light I picked up a great wifi signal and we could punch in the train station.

It took us out along the water and up a quiet road that winds through the hills along the water. During the day it must be one of the best drives in the world. But since it was dark and there were literally no street lights, you couldn’t see much of the scenery. It was a whole bunch of fun to drive still. European roads are significantly better than American roads. No bumps, just great flat driving surfaces.

We got out of the city about a half hour or so and the gas light went on. On A4 there aren’t exactly a ton of gas stations around. So we started to panic more than a little. Being stranded on the side of the road in Italy in the middle of winter would have been a great story, but not so fun to actually live. We got what looked like a small town and pulled off the road. Luke used his Italian to talk to the toll collector and asked where the nearest gas station was. He said nine kilometers toward Venice. We really had no idea if we could make it nine more kilometers or not. It was a pretty tense drive.

But we made it. It was the happiest I’ve ever been to see a gas station. It cost 70 Euros to fill up the Fiesta, which is super insane. I let Luke drive the rest of the way.

We didn’t have many problems, although I had to get Luke’s computer out to get us into Mestre. Naturally, we got to the rental car return place and it was closed. We had to drop the car off at the lot next to where we were for an extra 12 Euros and the guy working there was none to helpful. We asked where we could find a gas station since it’s a ridiculous charge to return the car not full and he pointed across the street.

So we took off and couldn’t find one anywhere. We had about 40 minutes to make our train. After 20 minutes we found one. And that gas station was closed too. They had some sort of system where you could buy 10 Euros worth of gas from a machine but we couldn’t get that to work either. An Italian guy came by and tried to help us, saying it was ‘impossible’ multiple times and I was telling Luke we should just go. Eventually we somehow got it to work.

We returned the car and made our train, buying tickets from the conductor. It was one of those trains with the little cabins. We didn’t have assigned seats so we just sat anywhere. The person with Luke’s real seat came so he went out in the hall. Something started burning on the train, like burning rubber, and the guy who took Luke’s seat thought it was just in the cabin, so he let Luke back in. I fell asleep.

We took a cab back to Luke’s. We made it. And we didn’t even fall or die. This was an awesome trip. I told him we should do this again.

My boots are ruined.