Rainy Day in Zagreb

Rick Steves book states that Zagreb is probably good for one full day, and he is probably correct. Andrew spent the day reminding me of this statement. It didn't help that it was a rainy day. Despite the light rain, we decided to rent bicycles and do our own tour of Zagreb. We biked south of town to the river valley and biked along the river. The Sara river valley is very large treeless river valley with huge berms of land on either side as it is probably prone to flooding. We cycled along the river before returning to the city and cycling up into the hills and villages above the city to an old railway tunnel where we ate our lunches before a wonderful downhill run back into town. Some of their bike lanes in downtown Zagreb were dedicated lanes but some of the bike paths on the sides of the roads were shared with pedestrians and had also been co-opted for parking so it felt like sidewalk biking. The traffic congestion is pretty bad here in Zagreb and taking the buses is a rather slow way of getting around town. I am a little surprised that they have not put more money into their bicycle paths but like everywhere else the bikes are competing against cars for space and the cars always seem to win.

After we returned the bikes we had a hot drink at a McDonald's and wandered around in the rain a little more before visiting a wonderful Botanical garden. Andrew is rather obsessed with Cold war tunnels so we went and found some that were open to the public and used as short cuts beneath the upper town.

We bused back to the airport to pick up our rental car for 6 pm from Alamo. I never like picking up rental cars. Croats seem to have quite an abrupt way of dealing with people which the sales agent demonstrated. He put on a very hard sell for taking out additional insurance stating that North American cards don't cover car insurance in the Balkans.. It was almost like a curse. I declined. We have a nice MG small SUV. It was lacking the trunk cover which I didn't like as one can't hide your luggage. After checking out the car I insisted on a cover and the agent did go the added distance to find a cover from another vehicle that didn't quite fit but will suffice. Andrew drove back to our apartment on a ring road in quite heavy rain and we called it a day.Read more