Why Visit Zagreb?
In addition to being a little less expensive than Split and a lot less expensive than Dubrovnik, Zagreb is a lightly touristed charming city. It has lots of greenspace and quaint streets made up of medieval buildings from the Austro-Hungarian empire. Visit Zagreb for its laid-back vibe reminiscent of the Southern California of lore. As we walked around, we kept remarking how quiet and peaceful everything seemed. Everyone seemed at ease, without the rushing around that we’ve experienced in other European cities. The drivers gave way to pedestrians, unlike some other cities (Medellin we’ve looking at you), and people seemed friendly, even if we didn’t speak Croatian.
The Route from Sarajevo to Zagreb
We took a bus from Sarajevo for the equivalent of $31 each. Our bus was double-decker with all the seating on the upper level. For the first time in our travels, stowed luggage was not included in the ticket price, so we paid about $2 a bag . When we boarded, someone was sitting in our seats (tickets on long-distance buses have assigned seats). We moved to the front row and got no grief from the driver’s helper when he checked our tickets. So we had a great view the entire way!
Leaving Sarajevo, the drive was scenic and green, and very sparsely populated. All along the way, we saw reminders of the recent war that we talked about here and here. We crossed over briefly into the Republica Srpska, the other entity in the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) government. The only difference we saw is that road signs went from Roman spelling being first to the Cyrillic spelling being first.
The border crossing into Croatia from BiH was straightforward. Our passports were collected on the Bosnian side (while we remained on the bus) and returned before we got to the Croatian side. On the Croatian side, our bus waited its turn (about ½ hour) and then everyone had to get off the bus, present passports and return to the bus. A few minutes later, after a 20-minute bathroom and food stop, we were on our way to Zagreb. The total travel time was 7 hours, about an hour longer than scheduled.
Arrival in Zagreb
The bus station in Zagreb was quite large and very hectic. Fortunately, our Airbnb host was picking us up to bring us to the apartment. We probably could have taken a bus, as Zagreb has a good public transit system, including buses and trams.
When we left Zagreb, we used Uber to get to the airport. The cost was $17 for the approximately half-hour ride. The Uber car was marked Taxi, same as our experience in Split. Yes, the “taxi” fare would have been higher.
Orientation to Zagreb
When planning your visit to Zagreb, note that its historical core is divided into two sections: upper town and lower town. Upper town is much smaller, contains most government buildings, a few small museums, and older buildings. Here you’ll find Zagreb’s most photographed building, St Marks Church. Lower town is the business and commercial center, with larger museums, most restaurants, shopping, and buildings primarily from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and newer.
The main shopping street, Ilica, is in lower town. It runs east-west and marks the dividing line (as well as the hill) between upper town and lower town. Part of lower town is loosely pedestrian only.
To get between the two towns you can take:
- A path called Strossmayerovo šetalište which starts on Mesnička north of Ilica.
- A funicular, for 5 Kuna*, north of Ilica about halfway between the other two options.
- Walk the picturesque street, Radićeva, north from Ilica and turn left at Kamenita ul., which brings you through the picturesque Kamenia Vrata (Stone Gate) that contains a shrine.
Make sure to walk along is Ul. Pod Zidom, a pedestrian street which runs by tons of restaurants (some with good prices), close to the Cathedral of Zagreb (free to visit), and Dolac farmers market.
During your visit to Zagreb, be sure to spend some time wandering around its many parks and greenspaces. We’d recommend a walk through the parks that form a horseshoe, Park Zrinjevac, Park Josipa, Trg kralja Tomislava (King Tomislav Square), continue along Ulica Antuna Mihanovića and walk back through the parks next to Trg Marka Marulića.
Zagreb Museums
Although Zagreb has several museums, we explored only two during our visit:
- The Museum of Broken Relationships. An artistically offbeat look at how various people experienced the ending of a relationship. A nice change from the confronting museums that we visited in Sarajevo and Mostar. Admission 40 Kuna for adults and 30 Kuna for seniors (didn’t need to show identification, guess we look old). This was Ian’s first time getting a senior discount without even asking for it. Took him a while to snap out of the “now I’m really old” funk.
- Our favorite was the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art. A museum dedicated to spotlighting artists with talent but without any formal artistic training. Lots of scenes of Croatian life with an emphasis on primary colors. Admission 25 Kuna.
Zagreb Costs
In our research, we checked out the website Numbeo for Dubrovnik, Split, and Zagreb. We found a much larger difference for items of importance to tourists than Numbeo shows.
- Restaurants – In Dubrovnik , it was almost impossible to find entrées for less than 100 Kuna. In Split , we were able to find offerings in the 80 Kuna range. In Zagreb, we had no problem finding entrees in the 40 Kuna range. We were able to go back to our preferred modus operandi of eating lunch out most days while we were out exploring.
- Beer – In Dubrovnik we were paying 30 Kuna for a beer in a restaurant, in Split it was 20-25 Kuna, and in Zagreb it was 15-18 Kuna.
- Wine – While less expensive in Zagreb restaurants than in Split or Dubrovnik, it was still expensive, and we recommend drinking beer in restaurants and wine in your hotel room or apartment.
- Museums – In Dubrovnik, most museums charged 120 Kuna for admission. In Zagreb, admission to the museums was 25-40 Kuna.
- Groceries – Less expensive in Zagreb although the difference between Zagreb and Split wasn’t great. Between Zagreb and Dubrovnik was again huge. In Zagreb, we spent 400 Kuna for five days of breakfasts, dinner, snacks, and wine.
Zagreb Airbnb (Mis)Adventure
We are happy to report that so far, we’ve had great luck with renting apartments through Airbnb. While Zagreb is no exception and we had a beautiful apartment, we were in for a bit of a surprise. The first night we arrived, after settling in, we went out for dinner since grocery stores are not open on Sunday evening (we’ve decided to try to avoid traveling on Sunday from now on). We ended up staying out longer than expected, watching the World Cup, but headed “home” early in the Croatia match. Sitting in the living room reading, we were suddenly surrounded by hundreds of flying insects, as they swarmed around the light.
We quickly grabbed our Kindles and beverages and left the living room; luckily it had a door that we could close. We frantically messaged our Airbnb host, who like most people in Croatia was out watching Croatia in the World Cup, so we didn’t hear back right away. Sitting in the hallway, we started noticing the insects getting under (or over) the door. We turned off the lights and retreated to the bedroom through another door, hoping that they didn’t find us in there and trying to figure out what to do if they did.
Luckily our Airbnb host got back to us that there was bug spray in the closet. Ian armed with the can went back into the hall, then kitchen, and finally living room, filling all the rooms with the lethal mixture and trying to hold his breath. With the can almost empty, he retreated to the bedroom. With our bedroom door closed, very few found us that evening.
Morning Inspection
The next day, we went to survey the damage and found carcasses everywhere. After sweeping up, we had four piles with at least 100 insects in each one. The mystery was: where were they coming from since all the windows were closed? The concern was: would they return? We didn’t have much bug spray left. Our Airbnb host’s brother, who was supposed to come over with more bug spray, instead delivered ant traps which we knew weren’t going to help. Apparently, something was lost in translation.
The Invasion Continues
As day turned into dusk, we kept monitoring all the doors and windows without seeing anything. Just as we thought we were out of the woods, Ann glanced out the window from the kitchen towards the dining room. Lo and behold! About a hundred insects in a frenzy along the wall below a window! We went over to that window, which had wood paneling below it and there were hundreds of insects trying to get through. Ian ran and grabbed the last of the bug spray and we sent another plea to our Airbnb host. Luckily, she had a backup spray bottle in the closet with enough for us to keep them at bay that evening. We hadn’t realized it was there: different product in a different container in a foreign country.
The next day, our host’s father came over, with extra cans of bug spray, and treated the window. We didn’t see many more for the rest of our stay, but we did see some evidence that the were inside the paneling chowing down. We think there was a termite nest inside the wall, and we were just lucky enough to be there when they were swarming. You might ask, why didn’t we just buy a can of bug spray after the first day? We tried but couldn’t find any at any of the stores we checked. One of the numerous and sundry joys of not speaking the language and being in a foreign culture.
How We Ended up Visiting Zagreb
Since travelling long term is very different from planning a 2-3-week vacation, we’re often asked how we determine where we will go next. So here is a little behind the scenes of our process. We can give more detail in a future post, if people are interested.
Once we’d decided that we were visiting Sarajevo in BiH, the planning for the next destination started.
- First step: what places of interest are within a day’s overland travel? We bring up Rom2rio first to see if they are reachable by train or bus. If only by bus, we will bring up getbybus to check routing and price. For this leg of our travels, results yielded: Belgrade, Serbia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Zagreb, Croatia.
- Then a quick look using Skyscanner explore feature (selecting non-stop flights) and Google Flights explore map, entering the origin, leaving the destination blank, and choosing an entire month. This search yielded reasonable flights to the same three places: Belgrade, Serbia; Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Zagreb, Croatia. Other choices were Scandinavia and Germany (too expensive) or the Middle East (too hot in July).
- Our first choice was Ljubljana but a quick look at Airbnb and Booking.com yielded no quality reasonably priced accommodations, and it would require us to use Schengen time.
- We had no interest in Belgrade on this trip, plus the air connections out of Belgrade weren’t much better than Sarajevo.
- We were able to find a reasonable Airbnb in Zagreb, so that’s where we decided to go. It turned out to be a good choice.
Croatia Wrap-up
Of the three locations in Croatia that we visited, the only one that we would return to is Zagreb. We could easily see ourselves here for a month. While we liked the vibe in Zagreb, and it is a nicer-looking city than Sarajevo, our concern is how hot it might be in July and August since most buildings do not have A/C. On our last day in Zagreb, July 5th, it was 88 degrees, whereas Sarajevo is about 10 degrees cooler.
A Lesson in Currency Exchange
We spent so little money in Zagreb that we headed off to Romania with quite a few Kuna in our pockets. Big mistake: we should have changed them before leaving Croatia. None of the banks or exchange offices in Romania will accept Croatian Kuna. Lesson learned: change these lessor currencies into Euros before leaving unless visiting the country next door. We didn’t have any problem changing Bosnian currency into Croatian and wouldn’t have vice versa.
We spent a total of 23 days in Croatia spending $2355 (excluding all international transport) which is an average cost of $102 per day. As a comparison, our four days in Dubrovnik averaged $190 per day.
*At the time of writing, 1 Croatian Kuna = $ .16.
Next Up: Romania: Bucharest and Sibiu
Ian & Ann