while not null: Europe Trip 2025

I went to Zagreb (pop. 767k) - the capital and the biggest city of Croatia, by train from Ljubljana.

The vista after crossing the border from Slovenia:

Zagreb was my base for a return trip by train to Split. My first impression was not very good - here is what I saw getting off the train at the Zagreb main station:

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Bikes

There are very few bike paths or lanes and very few bike riders. If bike infrastructure is present, it is usually a very narrow painted lane on a footpath that was not too wide to start with. Rarely I've seen attempts to take even a tiny bit of space from cars. I rented a city bike a couple of times, but unlike in Ljubljana it was not pleasant, safe, or convenient to ride. Here are the photos where some bikes or bike infrastructure was present:

Bike stands. This street is sometimes closed to cars.

Someone left a bike here.

The photo above is interesting, because it shows an approach to safety when doing construction works that I also saw in Łódź, but which would be impossible in Australia: the concrete ballast blocks are being replaced, while the trams continue running and the footpath continues to be used by pedestrians. I put the N95 mask on at one point because the workers used jackhammers and there was a lot of concrete dust. Oh, and the heavy equipment uses the footpath too, sometimes driving backwards with nobody to warn pedestrians.

Back to bikes:

Standard nextbike city bike.

A spot with most bikes - Trg Petra Preradovića.

A bike stand on the corner.

A bike path created from a wide footpath.

This was in Karlovac, not Zagreb, but it shows the most peculiar design: if I understand correctly, bike riders get the level crossing, with traffic lights, but pedestrians are supposed to use underpasses.

A narrow painted bike path on already narrow footpath, meanwhile cars get 3 lanes.

Narrow, on street, bike lanes, along 3 lanes of car traffic.

Again a very narrow bike path, taking part of a footpath, and still a car-brained sociopath takes half of it.

A bike path cutting through a zebra crossing.

This footpath was wide enough for a decent bike path.

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Cars

The city is overrun by cars. Cars park everywhere, including on footpaths, in courtyards, in the Upper Town (Gornji Grad) Square, under a bridge, and even in the middle of a street. I saw two public underground car park entrances in the centre of Zagreb. The oldest part of Zagreb had fewer cars for a while:

"In 2008, Gornji Grad was closed to car traffic except for residents, making it a primarily pedestrian zone.[2] In 2014, Zagreb Administrative Court struck down the order prohibiting other cars from parking at residents' parking spaces, and car access and parking was again allowed on Gornji Grad, albeit at a hefty fee for non-residents."

Church of St. Mark from 13th century - now sitting in a car park.

More parking on the other side of the church.

A bit of flat space near the Kaptol Fortress - built in the 15th and 16th century - now a private car parking of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Institute.

How did that silver car get up there?

This car has the lights on, but is parked in the middle of this street.

The white van parked on the footpath, and 2 more vans parked between tram tracks. This street was very unpleasant for walking.

Different street, same story.

1 lane for driving, 2 lanes for parking. Bike lane partially on the footpath. Zero trees.

Just one long parking lot.

This street has 3 lanes for driving, plus diagonal parking on both sides.

Who's lurking there?

Oh, there's more of you.

Did you get lost, little blue car?

This screams: come to the city centre by car.

Another underground car parking.

Falling apart old house, new Porsche.

Run out of spaces under the bridge.

Careful lady! There is a car in the pedestrian underpass.

Car parking, boss level: in the middle of the street.

Some of these cars are expensive - I see a Tesla there, but the whole thing does not look like a place anybody cares about.

There is no way for a fire truck to get to this office building.

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Trams

The trams are frequent, go almost everywhere, but are uncomfortable - I don't know if this is the result of the poor state of the tracks, or poor design of trams: suspension, hard plastic seats - including the modern looking ones by KONČAR - but the ride is bumpy. There is no metro, no urban rail, just trams. There are buses, too, but unlike trams, which are everywhere, I don't remember seeing any in the city centre, except a minibus in Upper Town. Buses seem to operate further out in Zagreb.

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Architecture

A lot of buildings in Zagreb look ugly. Sorry. It doesn't matter if they are old or new. Somehow, the architects come up with designs that look chaotic, imbalanced, impractical or cheap, and then it gets worse: residents convert balconies to sunrooms, install A/C units on external walls - each in a different spot, install external blinds, replace old windows with new ones that are different shape and colour, cut out holes for extra windows, paint external walls using not matching colours, or leave them dirty for decades, build additions without an approval, or just abandon apartments or buildings. I haven't seen so many abandoned buildings in all my travels - 35 countries now. I did not see even one nice apartment building or even an office in Zagreb - everything is a bit off if you look closer: asymmetry where you expect symmetry, round where you expect square, etc. what the heck is going on? Even my AirBnB was strange: it was a low ceiling, ground floor apartment, with windows onto the courtyard of a tenement house, next to a restaurant.

Are earthquakes part of the reason? It cannot be the only thing. There are many more earthquakes in Japan, and it looks much better. There was a 13th century cathedral in the centre of Zagreb. It was damaged in an earthquake in 1880 and rebuilt in a completely different style (neo-gothic, two towers), and still if you look closely in the photo below, the windows on both sides are not the same. This sentence in the wiki article must be sarcasm, right?

"The northern bell tower is 108.20 m high, and the southern bell tower is 108.16 m high, so such a small difference in height speaks eloquently about the skill of Zagreb craftsmen."

Hermann Bollé, responsible for the rebuilding of the Zagreb Cathedral did not care much for preservation of history. Here's his approach to the St. Mark's Church:

"During that restoration, the following was done: [...], the floor in the church was significantly lowered, the tombs under the church were buried, the Renaissance west portal was demolished, all the inventory with the Baroque altars was removed, the Gothic frescoes were destroyed (which Kršnjavi wanted to preserve, but he failed), a choir was built, and according to Hermann Bolle's design, three altars made of vineyard stone were installed."

The timeline in that article shows a series of requests to demolish the church. I'm starting to understand why buildings look the way they do in Croatia: all is temporary: either an earthquake damages the building, and then it is rebuilt differently, or someone requests to demolish it and they get their wish:

In 1771, the idea of demolishing the church arose because it was too narrow, and it was proposed that the parish church be the church of St. Catherine. Josip II saved the church from demolition, saying that it is a solidly built monument that must be preserved.
In 1805, the city representatives again had the intention of demolishing the church, but Bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac and learned parish priest Dr. J Karvančić resisted.
In 1848, some again proposed the demolition of the church, but others were of the opinion that it should be thoroughly repaired.
In 1888, the church of the Virgin Mary was demolished, so that a fountain could be installed in front of the church during the arrival of King Francis Joseph.

This is a very different approach from what happens in Poland, where, generally, important old buildings are preserved and whole historical districts were reconstructed after WW2. Even now, 80 years after the war, there is a possibility that a large chunk of historical part of Warsaw (Saxon Palace) will get rebuilt.

Warm up: A/C units, graffiti and whatever is going in the top-right corner.

Leftmost gutter downpipe and top floor in the building on the left, the whole building on the right.

Stuff of nightmares.

As far as I can tell this is a modern office building. It looks like it's wrapped for demolition.

Abandoned.

Grim

Ugly in the centre, abandoned on the right.

Abandoned.

Balconies are off. Kormoran-class camouflage.

Nobody agrees on anything.

Roof tiles are falling off.

Ugh.

This street will never have harmony.

At the top is the historical Upper Town - this looks like an abandoned illegal construction.

This little addition is in the historical Upper Town.

Partially abandoned old building in the centre? Steel structure supporting the building on the right? The concrete pieces at the roof edge of the building on the left look like they could fall off at any time.

Just depressing. I thought Croatia was a relatively rich country.

Did this building catch fire during renovation? What is its shape?

Janja Gora. Abandoned home with 'death to capitalism' (smrt kapitalizmu) written on it.

Aircons

The randomness of the windows in the building on the right.

Abandoned. Top of the wall falling off.

Make your own window.

There are no body corporates/homeowners associations in Croatia?

Aircons, balconies. This building is not thermally insulated.

Most residents of the new high-rise will look straight into a wall from their balconies.

Different angle of that high-rise: look at the pillars supporting these appendixes with balconies - could it be a late addition to the design?

Whatever.

Panorama of Zagreb from the train.

Dugo Selo

Does anything match here? Look at the gutters in the top right.

Zagreb has no city architect, or they don't give a f*ck.

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The bottle deposit scheme is weird: if you bought a bottle of beer, on return you can use the deposit only to buy another bottle of beer - you cannot get cash, you cannot buy anything other than beer - at least that's what happened to me... Reading about it now - maybe that shop was classified as "small" and was not required to return cash... or I was supposed to use the machine outside the shop - there were some drunks loitering around it, so I went straight to the cash register.

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Upper Town

The Upper Town, which is Zagreb's historic old town, is weird too. It is not easily accessible: it is on a hill, the funicular was closed for repairs, and once you climb there, you cannot get to the most famous church, because most of the square is fenced off, either because there are government offices there (state parliament and prime minister), with a car park, obviously, or because of ongoing reconstruction works nearby, or both... Reading about it now, it's even weirder - instead of moving government offices, they closed off the historic centre of Zagreb to tourists:

"On morning of 12 October 2020, a 22-year-old Danijel Bezuk from Kutina came on St. Mark's Square with assault rifle (AK-74) and started shooting at the Croatian Police who were protecting the entrance of Banski Dvori, in his attempt to enter the Banski Dvori where Prime Minister of Croatia has his office. [...]
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, President Zoran Milanović held a press conference in which he called the government to protect the central state institutions, saying that "they are not a tourist destination". Therefore, since October 2020, the St. Mark's Square remains closed for visitors, tourists and residents who live at nearby buildings.[7]"

Stairs to Upper Town

That's as close as you can get to St Mark's Church. Organised groups of Chinese tourists stand out - like in Slovenia.

The Upper Town looks deserted.

Some buildings are being renovated.

There is also a pedestrian tunnel under the Upper Town (Tunel Grič) - built as a bomb shelter/shortcut.

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Main Square

A nice thing was that the newer Trg bana Josipa Jelačića below the Upper Town and some streets leading to it are made car-free on some days or nights. There are bollards that come out and block car access. I happened to be there when a quite large pro-Palestine gathering was taking place. The speaker was very happy because of the declared ceasefire.

A street temporarily closed to cars.

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Beach and Mountains

Zagreb has two great attractions I didn't know about: it has a pebble beach for swimming in summer, and it has a cable car that will take you to the mountains for walking in summer or skiing in winter (it was closed for maintenance when I visited). You can get to both* by tram! The cable car station (Žičara Sljeme) is right by the tram stop Gračansko dolje, but to get to the beach (Plaža Jarun), it is a 14 minute walk from the Srednjaci tram stop: