Zagreb: #TravelIsHard

If there’s one thing we have learned from our month of traveling so far it’s this: we’re kinda bad it.

I mean, we aren’t terrible travelers, but I don’t think either of us realized how hard it would be to continually plan an around the world trip on the go using only the phones in our pockets. Take our week in Zagreb for instance. We came here with a rough outline of what we wanted to do and see, but after 5 days in Croatia’s capitol city, we found ourselves stumbling time and time again over our Croatia plans, hiking plans, ending up in a police raid, and we even had trouble finding a good dinner. Here are some tips for surviving Zagreb, staying positive and perfecting failing.

 

Traveling to Zagreb: Double check the bus schedule

So, believe it or not, Croatia is not a popular destination for many Scots in mid-April. Fights from Edinburgh or Glasgow to Zagreb (and even the tourist cities of Split and Dubrovnik) were few and far between – or really expensive. The best flight we could find was from Edinburgh to Zagreb via Brussels on Brussels Airlines. The flight left EDI at 6.00, which meant we’d have to be at the airport at 4.00, the airport is about an hour bus ride out of the city, and we’d have to get to the bus station at 3.00. Meaning we’d have to be up and out of the hostel by 2.30. By that calculation, there was barely even a reason to spend money on a hostel if we’d be leaving by 2.00. So, we did what any budget minded traveler would do: decided to sleep in the Edinburgh airport.

 

We woke up the day before our flight in Glasgow in our adorable AirBnB, showered and checked out. We spent several hours wandering around the glorious city before catching a train to Edinburgh where we spend another several hours wandering around another glorious Scottish city. Then we caught the airport shuttle and arrived at the airport around 9pm and started scouting the departures gate for the comfiest airport seating, where we might catch a few winks of sleep. Aaron was bold (and as it turns out, smart) and blew up his camping air mattress and made himself at home in a dark corner. I still had class, and sprawled out on some highly uncomfortable airport terminal benches that were conveniently missing an armrest or two. It seemed like things would be okay, until around 0.00 the Edinburgh airport decided it would be a good time to test the fire alarm system. Needless to say, neither Aaron nor I got much sleep that night, even though I eventually conceded around 2.00 that Aaron had the right idea and joined him in the corned on my air mattress.

 

Check in and getting to the gate went pretty smoothly, although I did have to chug .5L of water at the security checkpoint. The 5 hour layover in Brussels was fine, but the food was terrible and expensive (every single place just sold the same shitty €5 croissant). Even our connection to Zagreb went smoothly and once we got out of customs with our baggage mostly in check (Aaron had a small tear in his bag unfortunately) we were doing good, but very tired.

 

There are several ways to get from Zagreb airport to the city center. There is Uber (which is Uber expensive), the private airport shuttle (not cheap, but cheaper than Uber) and the public bus (cheap!). So we chose the cheap! option. The nice woman at the info desk pointed us off in the direction of the bus stop (across the vast parking lot) and we got our tickets and headed off. We found the only place that looked like a bus stop and we waited. The bus came and we got on just fine, and we felt relieved we were on the right track. We went a couple of stops and I decided to pull out google maps, just in case. And to my surprise we were going the wrong way – right bus but wrong direction!

 

We got off the bus at the next stop, crossed the street and waiting. Luckily google knows Zagreb better than we do and was able to tell us what bus to catch and we soon found our way heading into the city!

 

Traveling to Zagreb wasn’t a failure, but a moderate success with several bumps along the way. We were exhausted and tired when we reached the hostel, but we made it, had our bags, and a clean-ish place to stay. While it wasn’t pretty, we did it. #protravelers

 

“Out” in Zagreb: Sights, Sounds, and Sirens

Saturday in Zagreb is great. The town center was bustling and the weekend market was in full swing. Locals poured into the square to sip coffee and do their week shopping in the fresh food stalls. Aaron and I loved the Croatian coffee, although we were a little sad that there weren’t more take-a-way coffee places so we could sip and walk the city. But that’s not the Croatian way. Coffee time is time to sit and relax and gossip. Like a highly caffeinated brunch.

The Zagreb Cathedral was an amazing sight, we arrived during a  morning mass and it was wonderful to see the centuries old structure in use. The cathedral is grand and beautiful, with two large bell towers and the typical catholic layout of a central nave and aisles on either side. But of course the history is what makes Croatia and this cathedral interesting. The cathedral was first started in 1200s with the rise of Catholicism in Croatia. It went through many changes as the city grew but most importantly is mostly survived the many wars of the past century and survived socialist Yugoslavia. When Croatia won its independence in 1991, plans were made to rebuild and refinish the cathedral and in 2003, much of the stone and carvings were replaced based on the original designs. The effect is a brand new cathedral with gothic and baroque details that make for a stunning backdrop to the city of Zagreb.

Walking up past the cathedral about 2 miles is the hauntingly beautiful Mingje cemetery. Founded in the late 1800s, this sprawling necropolis is a monument to Zagreb’s growth and history set in a picturesque park of tree lined streets and arcades. We strongly suggest taking an afternoon to wander through Zagreb’s past and see this beautiful park.

While in the city, we also recommend checking out the Museum of Niave Art – a museum dedicated to Croatian self taught artists that has most similarities to American Folk Art. There are some great paintings that reflect the rural life and struggles of the Croatians in the past century. It’s a small museum but it’s central location and cheap entry price definitely make it worth a stop. We really liked seeing some more traditional, local art as well.

But the true colors of Zagreb don’t start showing themselves until after sundown and the locals head out to the cafes and trade coffee for pitchers of beer. The clubs don’t even open until 11pm, and they stay partying all night till 5am. We had a beer or two at a local pub before heading out to the only gay bar in Zagreb (and as far as we can tell, all of Croatia). The Hotspot is a small basement club located just a few hundred meters from the main square behind a nondescript door with a surly but friendly bouncer taking a small cover. The club was great, but tiny, with two bars flanking a small dance floor and remixes of American top 40 tracks adding to its clubby vibe. Unlike other underground gay clubs I’ve visited in Rome and other highly catholic countries, there was no dark backroom or place to have casual hookups, which made The Hotspot feel classier than I expected.

The night was just getting started when something unexpected, scary and ultimately a blessing in disguise happened. At 00.30 in the morning, the lights came on and the music stopped and about 10 police officers dressed in bulletproof vests and carrying billy clubs barged into the club. The club came to a standstill as patrons were lined up against the walls of the club, the bathrooms emptied and all normal activity stopped. The officers were gruff and asked the closeted gay patrons for their IDs and asked simple questions to see if they were high or too drunk.

However, the quiet club actually made it easier to talk to our Croatian counterparts, and we were able to get the inside scoop on gay life in highly catholic country. We were assured this police raid was not a typical activity and most people had never been a part of one before. Some people felt The Hotspot was targeted for being gay, but others swore this was just a typical raid and was not a gay thing – the police apparently do this to straight clubs too.

 

Most people we talked to were not “out” in their daily life and looked forward to Friday and Saturday nights at the gay bar. One guy said he just started watching RuPauls Drag Race and loved seeing gay culture being celebrated in that way. For once it made me happy to be American and I was happy for our role in bringing happiness and comfort to a community that struggles with queerness. Work it girl!

 

The police kept their questioning up for about an hour, and actually brought in an auditor to count the tills and make sure no illegal transactions were happening in the club. Somehow they skipped over Aaron and me (I guess we scream American), but it seemed like everyone else in the club was questioned and had their IDs run. At 1.30 the police left, and lights went down and the bars reopened. We danced the night away with our new Croatian friends, feeling a little more connected to the community and life in Zagreb. While it was a violating experience – having the only queer safe space in Croatia raided by the police – we made the most of it and like repressed cultures throughout history, turned the negative experience into something positive.

 

Planning Plitvice – Problems in Paradise

The weather in Croatia sucks right now. It’s cold. It’s rainy. And we want to be hiking in Velebit, but when we are planning on going it is predicting snow. We are ready for cold but we are not ready for freezing.

So we switched gears and decided to go south to the famed Plitviče (plit-VISH-eh) Lakes, a national park about 3 hours south of Zagreb. Planning this park was harder than expected due to a new online ticketing system that requires you to book two days in advance with only a certain amount of tickets available for each hour/timed entry.

 

Since this was a semi-spontaneous decision, we wanted to book the next day, and since we didn’t foresee getting tickets for the park as a problem, we had already booked our bus. Note to travelers: confirm the entire plan before booking. Luckily TripAdvisor and some other third party sites sell second hand tickets for the next day and we were able to scoop up a 3pm entry time.

 

The next problem came when we looked for places to stay. Every hostel or campsite was located about 2 miles from the park entrances (there are 2 entrances about 2 miles apart from each other on the same road), and busses stopped running at 5pm. So our bus from Zagreb got to the park at 11, but we couldn’t enter until 3, and we had to be out and at the bus stop by 5. It wasn’t going to be enough time, so we got tickets to the park for the next day as early as we could, and then a late bus to Split. We still had to figure out how to get to the campsite and back to the park and we feared we wasted $30 on entry to the park for just 2 hours on our first day. But at least we had a plan, if not perfect, it would work. Hopefully.

 

#travelingbytheseatofourpants