Zagreb, Croatia July 25-28

 

Just when you think you have the trains figured out, you find out the train you were going to take isn’t running, see last post, or you find out that the Eurail pass you used to get into Serbia isn’t good in Serbia.  That’s what happened when we checked to see when and if there was a train from Beograd to Zagreb.  The clerk told us that yes there was a train, but no, you can’t use a Eurail pass in Serbia.  We I showed her the map and she showed me the list.  My map showed Serbia as a country we could travel on, but the list said it was not covered. 

So, off to the ATM we went to make sure we had enough money to pay for a ticket from Beograd to the border of Serbia and we decided to buy the tickets on the train if we had to.  Boy was I nervous.  Duane is never nervous.  So, finally, the ticket taker comes around.  I confidently give him my pass, he looks it over and gives it back and moves on…..great.

So the rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived in Zagreb in the early evening and just walked across the street to our hotel.  After checking in we decided to go eat.  So off we went in “that” direction.  Boy oh boy!  Zagreb is beautiful and clean and full of people but not noise.  We walked along a huge park that ended in a great square, the new town square.  Blue trams ran every which way, street performers made music and we just smiled.  We had no expectations when we booked here.  It was a place to stop so that we wouldn’t have to travel over night to get to Zadar by the the sea.  We are staying for 3 nights now.

The next day, the 26th, we spent walking from 10am to 6pm (a normal tourist day).

                

                                 

Today we took 2 trains to another town where there is a Neanderthal Museum.  They found some of the oldest remains in the world here and they made a diorama of what they looked like, did and cared for each other.  It turns out they knew quite a bit about medicine.  They could heal broken bones and stem infections and lots of stuff you wouldn’t think they would know hundreds of thousands of years ago.  After visiting the museum and seeing the dig site, we walked around town and found some more stuff to buy that we didn’t remember we needed.