Zagreb, Croatia to Split, Croatia (days 54 & 55 - March 1 & 2, 2023)
Zagreb City Museum
Day 54
First few hours of my morning were spent at the Zagreb City Museum where I learned a lot about the history of the city from back in the iron age to modern-day. It is quite an extensive museum, worth the visit. I didn’t take a lot of pictures throughout the day, just trying to take in some of the information. My problem is my failure to retain much of it :D
A lot of information was given about the Cathedral of Zagreb. The structure has been rebuilt a number of times at the same location over the years. For the majority of its existence it only had one tower instead of the two seen today. Walls were built around it to protect it from the threat of the Ottoman Empire. After the earthquake in 2020, which damaged the left tower, they used explosives and a crane to remove a 22 ton chunk of the spire top.
Next stop was the Museum of Broken Relationships. A light hearted museum where people donate belongings along with stories about the object and their ex lovers. A good bit of humor to end off my time in Zagreb.
Zagreb was a nice place to visit. I did find it tough to make the most of my time there. The weather affected me more than it has in other locations. Some personal struggles didn’t help much either. Coming back in the spring or summer would be the ideal time I think.
The road leading south
Day 55
Arriving at the bus station for my 9:30am trip to Split, Croatia, we set out on the 4-1/2 hour ride. I am really glad I ended up taking the bus and not a plane for this trip. Such beautiful landscapes and villages to see! An hour or two into the ride we arrived in some snow-covered hills and mountains. Large evergreen tree forests covered the hillsides. Little villages dotted the hills and valleys, most having a church in a prominent location. That is something that struck me so far in my time here in Croatia, I like how the churches are usually the buildings that stand out in the towns. Even in Zagreb, the cathedral could be seen from so many different locations throughout the city. I feel like we don’t put that same emphasis on our church buildings today. Maybe that is ok, because they are just buildings, but interesting to observe none the less.
Lots of tunnels cut through the mountains along the way. Near the end of the mountains, there is a 5 km long tunnel followed by a few shorter ones. After exiting one of the last tunnels before the other side of the mountains, the landscape changed really drastically. It was really amazing to see. We had been driving along in snow with the snow covered evergreens, about two feet sat on the ground next to the road, and then we suddenly ended up on the dry side of the mountain. There were no trees and the ground was no longer covered with snow. Rocks covered the ground with scraggly bushes in the small patches of soil around. The sun had also seemingly popped out of nowhere after having driven through rain and cloudy skies. I have never seen such a drastic change in landscape before. Pretty cool to see how the wet and dry sides of mountains influence the landscapes and vegetation.
Near the end of the journey we started another downhill descent where we had a great view of the cities wrapping along the coastline of the Adriatic Sea.
Arrived at the Airbnb where brother Joel had been waiting for around 5 minutes. He had flown in just as I arrived in Split, pretty good timing! We have a great view of the harbor just outside our place. We walked along the water for a while and then stopped for some pizza right next door to our place. Croatia has a lot of Italian restaurants; Croatian food shares a lot of similarities with Italian cuisine.
There are plenty of things to see in the area and the neighboring cities and islands, should be loads of fun!
Wisdomous words of the day:
What you see is not all there is…
The first 26 days of my trip can be found at: https://jwworldtour2023.blogspot.com/
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