-Europe.Croatia.Zagreb-
In October 2024, my friend SM expressed an interest to finally come visit me after years of me moving to Europe. I looked at my calendar and was surprised I had no fixed plan for Christmas holidays. So I proposed to have a trip over Christmas and she accepted the challenge!
To be honest , I didn’t think it would be challenging until I actually sat down to plan the trip. I hadn’t taken into account that SM being a Malaysian might actually feel cold during winter. Go figure!
We went back and forth with which airport she should fly into and finally nailed down dates and flight. After that – we were set and I started the daunting task of planning where in Europe we could go.
Note: This post contains affiliate links where I may earn a commission from at no extra cost to you. I promise that I am only endorsing products I use myself and trust in. This support in turn helps me sustain this website to bring you more travel tips. Win-win right ?
Table of Contents
The Big Trip Plan
After Covid and with rising inflation – the truth is Europe is expensive, even for someone working and living here.
Keeping in mind the exchange rate of the Malaysian Ringgit vs the Euro – I set about to check where we could visit. Luckily for me, SM has not been to many places in Europe so far and her one wish when I pressed for it was to visit Rome in Italy.
With that in mind, came a lot of nights of research until I came across a basic flight to Rome for less than 20 Euros from Albania. This formed a rough plan of a visit to the Balkans before flying to Rome. I ran the rough plan by SM and she was agreeable. That was sufficient for me to do the more detailed planning.
Train ride to Zagreb
SM arrived and spent a night in Villach while I was still working and the next day we were ready to embark on our 12-day journey. She left her big luggage at my house while bringing along a smaller backpack for our travels.
Off we went to the train station for our first leg of the journey to Zagreb , the capital of Croatia. The train was an older one and we boarded to find a six-seat per compartment that had only one passenger inside. We decided to take our seat there. The next four hours was spent catching up with my friend whom I have not seen in years. The time flew by and the other passenger got off leaving the whole compartment to us. Different ticket conductors came to verify our tickets. I was glad to have printed it out.
At a certain point – I got unsure of where exactly the train would stop as we checked Google maps and the stop seemed to be further away than expected. I tried to ask the other passengers but no one spoke English. It was good that the conductor came around again and confirmed that we were 2 stops away.
Zagreb
We arrived at the Zagreb main station and upon exit could see the lights of the Advent markets adorning the Christmas huts just across the street. With our backpacks we made our way to our accommodation. We first walked past the jovial Christmas Markets offering food and mulled wine.
Zagreb Christmas Market
I have seen a number of Christmas markets in Europe and some of them are guilty of being too packed and full of people but in Zagreb they have pockets of Christmas markets spread out enough across the city. It was also set up in the bigger open spaces which was key to feeling less like sardines in a can and I honestly liked it.
Accommodation in Zagreb
Our first destination is to get to our accommodation to place our heavy luggage before heading out to meet my friend who already arrived earlier in the day. We got to the main square and with the aid of Google Maps was surprised to see how close we are staying to the main place in Zagreb.
After a short struggle with finding the actual entrance , we got hold of the key kept in the lockbox and made our way into the building. Just common in Europe we climbed stairs and was momentarily confused with the directions I got – the key did not fit the door and so we went around some more to check out other possibilities and in the end we found it – the room was facing an internal courtyard which was pretty dark when we arrived. We opened the door to find a completely modern room.
We dropped our luggage and just took the necessities and headed out to meet up with my friend. Where else to meet but at the statue of the local hero at the main square. We were practically a 2-min walk away from it.
Exploring Zagreb
I was very happy that my friend YT joined both SM and me to explore Zagreb. YT arrived already around noon and has been going around and so we appointed her our official tour guide for showing us around – what a quick promotion right ? But like she said : she had already covered and seen a lot of the things to see here.
We started off exploring the square a little bit and the one thing we had in common was that all of us could speak together in our local Hockkien dialect. So we were startled when we heard a foreign voice asking “You from Penang ?” We turned around to see a family who were also Hockkien speakers and were obviously from Penang as well. What are the odds ? We exchanged pleasantries – took their group photo and continued exploring. SM was fascinated by the people dressing up as Santa and a big bear. I just found it creepy – not knowing who is inside who are hugging people for photos.
Looking for the Oktogon
Next , I had the Oktogon on my pinned places to visit which was very near to the main place so we started there. We went in search of it and it was not that easy to find the first time around. But once you know it – super easy ! I liked the design and the roof and it was a good place to start our Zagreb exploration as we teased YT about getting us lost so fast : It was a joke of course as she had not been to this part- but it was surely an ice breaker to build a nice atmosphere for going around together.
The shortest funicular ride .. ever
While walking on the main street we stumbled upon the Funicular station and saw that it was not brightly lit but still in service. We debated upon whether we wanted to take it and decided to have an experience. The tickets were 0,66 Euros / person / way – Very cheap for the experience, I must say. After getting the tickets we went into the cabin of the funicular. It filled up with more people but was still spacious and we were on our way up. A very short minute later we arrived! So where did we arrive to ? It was the upper town of Zagreb. We looked down and already could see a view of the Lower Town.
St Mark's Church and Gas Lighting
.YT led us to the interesting church she had come across earlier in the day. The St Mark’s Church was beautiful even when it was dark with a big decorated Christmas tree in the compound. There were barriers preventing us from getting closer but it was for sure unique with its colourful roof tiles. Only later after I did some reading , did I find out that Zagreb Upper Town still used gas lighting for their street lamps. There are officially two lamp lighters manually lighting them! Isn’t that so interesting ?
Since we could not get any further we decided to move on to the tunnel.
The Tunnel --- the magic tunnel
Ok – one thing is for sure there are a lot of stairs in Zagreb of course due to the gradient of the Upper Town and Lower town but i mean there are a lot! We went down stairs to reach the Gric tunnel with YT leading the way as she was already there earlier. We walked through and it got more illuminated as we walked . We found an installation inside the tunnel that we stopped to check out. At the other end we exited to a normal street back in the Lower Town. It seemed a little bit magical to me , almost like Alice in Wonderland ending up somewhere else.
Going Back up the Upper Town --
Now back in the Lower Town – we had to decide what to do next : I felt by now a little bit hungry and we looked around for some restaurants in the vicinity. Finding nothing of interest, I looked at my map and saw that we were near a lookout panoramic point. Turning on Google maps, we didnt find it and concluded that it must be in the Upper Town in reality.
So following the map we once more headed uphill to the Upper town. Guess what ? more stairs… as we saw a very chill Japanese designed door leading to a nice outdoor bar area (note to self: next time – try it)
The Viewpoint
More stairs later , we came to a fork to go left or right, we took the (right) path and it lead us to the Viewpoint which is very much worth dropping by : With views over the rooftop and the Zagreb Cathedral in the distance – We took photos and enjoyed the scene with the moon right behind. After that we went back down to the Lower Town, passing the Dolac Market which was of course empty at this time of the evening.
I am Hangry.....
Right on cue , my stomach started grumbling when we reached the Old Town. We were still not completely sure where to have dinner and then we passed by a Korean Restaurant. YT and I having been deprived of Asian food – voted to try it while SM was chill with our choice and so we decided to try Cro.K . It was nice to be inside a warm place (with no stairs – ) . We were handed the menu which looked decent to me. YT and SM decided on the spicy dish while I stuck to the Chicken Bugolgi, which I was glad – when the other 2 started to struggle with the pretty spiced up dish. The price was ok – costing 14 Euros for my dish but I found it delicious enough to go back there again.
The medieval gate and an important Shrine
Coming out of the restaurant back into the cold was not so nice but we had one more stop to explore which was the Stone Gate , a medieval gate which led to the old town. It is well preserved with an important shrine to the Virgin Mary. It had a tranquil feeling to it , lit by candles at night I could barely see the writings on the slab of stones next to the fence. After this visit, we called it a night. SM and I walked with YT back to her accommodation.
Zagreb Cathedral up close and bidding farewell to YT
Her accommodations were just opposite of the Zagreb Cathedral very central as well. It gave us an opportunity to see the Cathedral up close. Repairs and restoration work were still being carried out from the damage caused by the earthquake in 2020. Maybe I will have a chance to visit when it re-opens in the future. YT was already looking forward to her nice breakfast place she found nearby. With that we wished her a good journey back and SM and I made our way back to our own place. I was ready to get some sleep. We set the alarm for 6:30am as we start the next leg of the journey the next morning
Just Watch It!
Related posts you might like...
