I left Split early this morning, for Zagreb – which is my final base on this trip.
I chose to leave early, so that I had plenty of time to enjoy Plitvice Lakes National Park along the way, and beat any bad weather. It made sense at the time, but I was rethinking the plan a bit at 5:30 this morning.
The main road actually gets closed a lot, because of the strong winds, but we were lucky and got to take the direct route today – there are other roads that don’t have the same wind impact, but would add about 1 hour to the drive.
Plitvice Lakes National Park
This park is one of the oldest, and largest, in Croatia, and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. The protected area is about 73,350 acres, and the park gets about 1 million visitors every year. That’s why I had to get up early – to beat all the annoying tourists.
The park has 16 lakes, which are split into upper and lower clusters. I went through both areas, which is more feasible because there is transportation (a small truck, and a boat) between the two.
I chose path H, which was about 5 1/2 miles. They have it well organized, so you know what you’re getting into, mostly (I somehow managed to walk 7 1/2 miles).
Lots of unpaved trail, but for steps, they installed actual steps instead of rocks. The issue is, it is hard to see where a step ends and another begins. I actually kind of miss the rocks.
Then more time in to the car, and another gas station espresso, and then to Zagreb to get settled in my new apartment. I was tired, but still did a bit of Zagreb exploration before bed. I’ll write more as I explore more later this week.
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, and includes about 1/4 of the population. Croatia is sometimes divided in the potato/tomato parts of the country – I have left the tomatoes, and entered potato land. I love potatoes, so this does not make me sad. Whereas the area I had been, along the coast, has a strong Italian influence, this area has a much stronger Austrian/German influence. It’s true of food, and language – even within the schools, along the coast they learn Croatian, English, and Italian. Here they learn Croatian, English and German.
(and technically, everyone can speak 5 languages – they add in Bosnian and Serbian. If you ever hear someone claim this, you can call b*llshit – Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are the same basic language. Think of British English, American English and Australian English – we might all have a few unique words, but the language is basically the same).
I immediately noticed tons of construction, everywhere. It turns out that’s because there was a huge earthquake in 2020 – Zagreb is near a fault line, so small tremors are common, and even big earthquakes are common-ish. In the new area, buildings are built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake. The issue is in the older areas – the Government in Zagreb mandates that all buildings in the old area be rebuilt in an identical fashion. So they get a bunch of damage from an earthquake…and just have to rebuild the same way, to face the same issue all over again. This most recent earthquake was a 5.5.
Cathedral of Zagreb
This is a good example of the rebuilding that is happening. This Cathedral used to be the tallest building in Zagreb, until the earth quake.
There were chandeliers in the Cathedral from Las Vegas. In 2001, a priest was visiting Vegas (which leads to unanswered questions, but ok). The Gold Coast Casino was under renovation, and they were going to sell their old light fixtures. This priest convinced them to donate them to the church for free. This raised a bit of a stink locally – something about not wanting something with so much sin to be in the church, but the priest worked around it by blessing the fixtures. They were destroyed in the earthquake, so I assume another Vegas trip is getting coordinated as I write this.
Funicular Railway
This is the shortest one on the world. It takes 64 seconds to ride – 40 seconds of actual movement, and then 24 seconds to shift/lock it into place.
It covers 66 meters, or about 215′ – but you have to know it in meters, to understand what the new price is in Euro – 66 cents. They switched to the Euro in Croatia on 1/1/23, and at that point updated the ticket – before then, it cost 5 kuna, the old currency. That would have made it 67 cents, and that’s no fun.
The funicular was installed in 1890, making it the oldest public transit in the city. There was a theater at the top of the hill; a local developer built the transit, after seeing all of the rich people walking up the hill in nice clothes. Turns out, rich stayed rich by not wasting their money on rides, so the original owner went bankrupt. It is now owned and managed by the government. The ticket is only good for one way – you have to buy another ticket to go back to where you started.
Lotrscak Tower
Lotrscak Tower houses the Gric cannon; they fire the cannon everyday exactly at noon marking midday. The tower is just next to the funicular.
It used to be a bell tower; they would ring it in the evening, notifying everyone that the walls to the city were about to be closed, so if you were outside the walls trading/working, you knew to head home quickly.
The cannon was installed in 1867. There is a story that an Ottoman commander was in the area, considering trying to fight for Zagreb; the cannon went off, and he thought it was a warning shot, and decided to avoid the city after all.
Long day, so I’m off to bed – I don’t even need any tea tonight!