Zagreb

I walk up and down the train carriage recounting the seats to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake. The seat reservation in my hand is for seat 11. I’m definitely in the right carriage but the seats seem to start at one, and then jump from four to 38. I ask a passing employee who looks for it too and then shrugs and tells me to pick any seat. I do and am shortly turfed out by someone with the reservation for that seat. At the front of the carriage there’s space been made for a wheelchair (presumably seat 11 was part of the sacrifice) but in the absence of wheelchair users, the space is now full of inter-railers camped on the floor with meaningless seat reservations.

Six hours and one eventual seat later, we roll into Zagreb. My guide the next day, Robert, tells us to explore Croatia you need a car because ‘our railways are sssssshhhhit’ as he rolls his eyes. He’s sardonic and funny, telling us stories and folklore about Croatia and Zagreb before following up with ‘nice story buuut… there’s no evidence so who knows’.

Zagreb isn’t a city I immediately fall head over heels for. It takes a bit of exploring to find the heart of it however the old town is incredibly endearing and littered with statues of famous Croatians sat at tables with an empty seat beside them in an attempt to encourage tourists and locals alike to ‘sit and meet’ these historical figures. We meet Croatia’s first feminist and female journalist, Marija Jurić Zagorka, Faust Vrančič who invented the parachute, and perhaps the most famous Croatian, Nikola Tesla (who renounced all citizenship before he died but the Croatians are still quite happy to claim him, and to get him on the Euro before Serbia, who also claims Tesla, ever get the chance).Read more