Balkan-ing it up, FINALLY!
Yes, yes, my journaling this semester has been erratic to say the least. I honestly don't know how that happened. I have notes from all my travels and the occasional fun thing happening at home, but life just got in the way. I was honestly planning to catch up on it all over the summer, but then proceeded to pack my paper journal into one of the boxes that I shipped home. Oops. Whenever I get the boxes--I shipped them in June and was told that they would take 3 months to get to Tennessee, meaning they're either going through the Suez or being floated over on rubber ducky inner tubes--I'll post a blast or two from the past. Fun.
So, guess where I am? That's right, the BALKANS!! I've been planning this trip for so long and I can't believe that I'm finally doing it. I originally planned to drag a certain someone whose name starts with an M and ends in an A-R-T-A with me, but she ended up having to go work in Norway. Bummer...but she does get to go to Norway, which is pretty cool. I told her to take lots of pictures of fjords and try to find some Norse legends in English for me. In return, I'm carting some shiny Albanian things home.
So, slop on some sunscreen and take the plunge with me...
26 JULY, 2007: ZAGREB
Today was marked by an early start after a very late night saying goodbye to most of my favorite denizens of Krakow and then tossing and turning with anticipation. I was up and out well before my alarm ever thought of ringing. I was a little worried because I had to change trains to get to Zagreb in a small town called Breclav (NOT Wroclaw), on the Czech-Slovak border and had about 10 minutes to do so. Needless to say, I was a little nervous because my train to Warsaw had been inexplicably 20 minutes late two days before and that was not a good sign in my book. I prayed that the Austrians would keep the Czechs and the Poles on schedule and tried to drown my mind with the latest Harry Potter because I'm a sell-out (and was also hoping that my prediction that JK Rowling would kill off Harry, thus sending an entire generation into therapy, would come true). It wasn't half-bad, but the woman is NOT a successor to Tolkien. I will throw whoever claims that out of a closed window. I also made friends with the fellow in my compartment, a Czech musician on holiday with his two specialized guitars. He was very nice and spoke good Polish, so we had a very nice time.
Changing at Brelcav was actually not as difficult as I thought. It turns out that a lot of people were making this connection because the train passes through Bratislava on its way to Zagreb and then to Split. It was a very long ride because there was no AC and I was all by myself from Bratislava (why people are so crazy about this place I do not know, it didn't look all that impressive) until some random town in Hungary with a name like Stromboli or something like that. Then, the two people in my car only spoke Hungarian, so there was no way to communicate. And then the train went from a fast one to one that stops at every. single. stop. on the route. Definitely my least favorite sort of train, though the countryside was quite beautiful.
Once I got to Zagreb, I made my way to Hostel Lika and hung out with some people there until it was too hot to do anything else but lie in bed and try to sleep. It's a nice little place, a bit far from the center, but the garden makes it all worth it.
27 July, 2007: Zagreb
Today was my day to explore Zagreb, Croatia's capital. The first written record of the city dates back to the establishment of a diocese here in 1094 by one of the Hungarian kings. A cathedral was erected and the surrounding cannonical settlement, Kaptol, eventually became modern Zagreb's Upper Town. On a neighboring hill, the town of Gradec was established around the same time. Eventually, the Hungarian kings granted the town a Golden Bull, offering its citizens exemption from country rule and some forms of autonomy. In the 16th century, Kaptol and Gradec began to be referred to collectively as Zagreb, and eventually became the political center of the area as the capital of Croatia and Slavonia. In the 19th century, Zagreb became the center of the Croatian national revival, which led among other things to the codification of the Croatian (or Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, or Serbo-Croatian) language by Romantic scholars and writers in the Illyearian Movement. In the 20th century, Zagreb managed to escape major damage from both World Wars as well as the Third Balkan War in the early 1990s. There was some sporadic fighting, but the city was nowhere near as devastated as Sarajevo for example.
i wandered around the city, taking everything in. Compared to Krakow, there is not a lot going on and the city is rather spread out, but it's pleasant to walk around and the museums are quite good. First, I stopped at the Archaeological Museum and looked at exhibits about prehistoric settlements around Zagreb as well as the excavation of a Roman town called Andautonia, not far from the city. There was also a really interesting part about the discovery and raising of the Croatian Athlete, a copy of the Athlete of Ephesus, from an ancient shipwreck. After that, I wandered up to the Dolac Market and perused the fruit and veggie stands. I wanted to go into the nearby Cathedral, but didn't have a shawl and was clucked at (no kidding!) by the guard when I got too close (I wasn't even trying to get in...I just wanted to look at a statue by the door, honest!). The man was more like a grandmother hen and I had to run away so I could laugh at the expression on his face without getting in trouble. After a quick bite to eat, I wandered around some more and went to the City History museum, which was fantastic, except that there weren't nearly enough English captions. My favorite part was definitely the film room, where clips from the Croatian school of animation were shown. In the next room there was a documentary about the fighting around the city in the 1990s as well as one of President Tudjman showing reporters around the presidential palace after the Serbs bombed it in an attempt to assassinate him. Old broken chairs and glass flanked the television screen.
After I left the museum, I didn't really know what to do with myself. I tried to go to a sculpture museum, but I couldn't find it. Instead I went to a lookout point and took some photos before sitting and doing some people-watching. After a while, I ended up striking up a conversation with a boy about my age and we ended up chatting about this and that. He's from the Netherlands and was also traveling on his own and not exactly sure what to do with himself. We ended up going out to the cemetery, which was huge and beautiful. Walking in, you go through a set of wrought-iron gates into a courtyard in front of the church. On each side, there is a walkway with columns and ivy that makes me think of the illustrations to a version of "Tintern Abby" in a book I have back at home.
Back in the city, we had a couple of drinks at Tolkien's House, which is by far the best cafe-bar outside of Nowa Prowencja. It's done up to the nines in Tolkien references and memorabilia and absolutely fantastic. I wish some of my fellow Tolkien lovers could have been there too, because my friend wasn't a die-hard fan of the books and thus I had no one to squee with. After a delicious burek (cheese-filled pastry), I caught the late tram home and crashed almost immediately.
So, guess where I am? That's right, the BALKANS!! I've been planning this trip for so long and I can't believe that I'm finally doing it. I originally planned to drag a certain someone whose name starts with an M and ends in an A-R-T-A with me, but she ended up having to go work in Norway. Bummer...but she does get to go to Norway, which is pretty cool. I told her to take lots of pictures of fjords and try to find some Norse legends in English for me. In return, I'm carting some shiny Albanian things home.
So, slop on some sunscreen and take the plunge with me...
26 JULY, 2007: ZAGREB
Today was marked by an early start after a very late night saying goodbye to most of my favorite denizens of Krakow and then tossing and turning with anticipation. I was up and out well before my alarm ever thought of ringing. I was a little worried because I had to change trains to get to Zagreb in a small town called Breclav (NOT Wroclaw), on the Czech-Slovak border and had about 10 minutes to do so. Needless to say, I was a little nervous because my train to Warsaw had been inexplicably 20 minutes late two days before and that was not a good sign in my book. I prayed that the Austrians would keep the Czechs and the Poles on schedule and tried to drown my mind with the latest Harry Potter because I'm a sell-out (and was also hoping that my prediction that JK Rowling would kill off Harry, thus sending an entire generation into therapy, would come true). It wasn't half-bad, but the woman is NOT a successor to Tolkien. I will throw whoever claims that out of a closed window. I also made friends with the fellow in my compartment, a Czech musician on holiday with his two specialized guitars. He was very nice and spoke good Polish, so we had a very nice time.
Changing at Brelcav was actually not as difficult as I thought. It turns out that a lot of people were making this connection because the train passes through Bratislava on its way to Zagreb and then to Split. It was a very long ride because there was no AC and I was all by myself from Bratislava (why people are so crazy about this place I do not know, it didn't look all that impressive) until some random town in Hungary with a name like Stromboli or something like that. Then, the two people in my car only spoke Hungarian, so there was no way to communicate. And then the train went from a fast one to one that stops at every. single. stop. on the route. Definitely my least favorite sort of train, though the countryside was quite beautiful.
Once I got to Zagreb, I made my way to Hostel Lika and hung out with some people there until it was too hot to do anything else but lie in bed and try to sleep. It's a nice little place, a bit far from the center, but the garden makes it all worth it.
27 July, 2007: Zagreb
Today was my day to explore Zagreb, Croatia's capital. The first written record of the city dates back to the establishment of a diocese here in 1094 by one of the Hungarian kings. A cathedral was erected and the surrounding cannonical settlement, Kaptol, eventually became modern Zagreb's Upper Town. On a neighboring hill, the town of Gradec was established around the same time. Eventually, the Hungarian kings granted the town a Golden Bull, offering its citizens exemption from country rule and some forms of autonomy. In the 16th century, Kaptol and Gradec began to be referred to collectively as Zagreb, and eventually became the political center of the area as the capital of Croatia and Slavonia. In the 19th century, Zagreb became the center of the Croatian national revival, which led among other things to the codification of the Croatian (or Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, or Serbo-Croatian) language by Romantic scholars and writers in the Illyearian Movement. In the 20th century, Zagreb managed to escape major damage from both World Wars as well as the Third Balkan War in the early 1990s. There was some sporadic fighting, but the city was nowhere near as devastated as Sarajevo for example.
i wandered around the city, taking everything in. Compared to Krakow, there is not a lot going on and the city is rather spread out, but it's pleasant to walk around and the museums are quite good. First, I stopped at the Archaeological Museum and looked at exhibits about prehistoric settlements around Zagreb as well as the excavation of a Roman town called Andautonia, not far from the city. There was also a really interesting part about the discovery and raising of the Croatian Athlete, a copy of the Athlete of Ephesus, from an ancient shipwreck. After that, I wandered up to the Dolac Market and perused the fruit and veggie stands. I wanted to go into the nearby Cathedral, but didn't have a shawl and was clucked at (no kidding!) by the guard when I got too close (I wasn't even trying to get in...I just wanted to look at a statue by the door, honest!). The man was more like a grandmother hen and I had to run away so I could laugh at the expression on his face without getting in trouble. After a quick bite to eat, I wandered around some more and went to the City History museum, which was fantastic, except that there weren't nearly enough English captions. My favorite part was definitely the film room, where clips from the Croatian school of animation were shown. In the next room there was a documentary about the fighting around the city in the 1990s as well as one of President Tudjman showing reporters around the presidential palace after the Serbs bombed it in an attempt to assassinate him. Old broken chairs and glass flanked the television screen.
After I left the museum, I didn't really know what to do with myself. I tried to go to a sculpture museum, but I couldn't find it. Instead I went to a lookout point and took some photos before sitting and doing some people-watching. After a while, I ended up striking up a conversation with a boy about my age and we ended up chatting about this and that. He's from the Netherlands and was also traveling on his own and not exactly sure what to do with himself. We ended up going out to the cemetery, which was huge and beautiful. Walking in, you go through a set of wrought-iron gates into a courtyard in front of the church. On each side, there is a walkway with columns and ivy that makes me think of the illustrations to a version of "Tintern Abby" in a book I have back at home.
Back in the city, we had a couple of drinks at Tolkien's House, which is by far the best cafe-bar outside of Nowa Prowencja. It's done up to the nines in Tolkien references and memorabilia and absolutely fantastic. I wish some of my fellow Tolkien lovers could have been there too, because my friend wasn't a die-hard fan of the books and thus I had no one to squee with. After a delicious burek (cheese-filled pastry), I caught the late tram home and crashed almost immediately.