Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Zagreb – Vagabund Pizza

    This is going to fall into the category of pretty much pointless blog posts, although to be fair, I have a lot like that. Unfortunately, I visited this restaurant in Zagreb two years ago and I appear to have forgotten just about everything about it. Which isn’t ideal when trying to write a little something about it.

    The kitchen area.

    This is the house pizza, which would explain why I ordered it, which has toppings of salami, bacon and mushrooms on it. If I could remember anything about the visit then I’d mention if it was a decent pizza. But I can’t, so I won’t.

    This is why I should write about stuff at some point fairly close to the event taking place….

  • Zagreb – Harat’s Pub

    Harat’s is the largest chain of Irish bars in the world, although they’re nearly all in Russia and eastern Europe. There is now though a solitary presence in the United States, as a Harat’s opened in Miami a couple of months ago.

    That’s an eclectic mix of beers to say the least, but the presence of Belhaven Black and Guinness make it entirely acceptable to me. The prices aren’t cheap, something like £3 per drink, but there must be a transportation cost in getting these beers over to Zagreb.

    Most Irish bars around the world are a little over-stated and gaudy, well, with the exception of the Irish bars in Ireland which have heaps of character and charm. The bar was fine though, staff spoke good English, beer selection was acceptable and the atmosphere felt welcoming. There’s an outside area to the pub which overlooks the market, although that was rather too smoky for my liking.

  • Zagreb – Antun Gustav Matos Statue

    Antun Gustav Matoš was a poet and writer who has become one of the most important literary figures in Croatian history. He lived in Zagreb for some of his childhood but had to be careful on his later return to the city as he ran off in 1894 to avoid conscription into the army.

    All was forgiven with regards to his desertion by 1908 and so he returned to Zagreb. It wasn’t though a long return as he died in 1914 from throat cancer, at the age of just 41.

    The statue in memory of the poet was designed by Ivan Kožarić and although I thought it seemed quite modern and contemporary, it actually dates back to 1978. It’s located on the Strossmayer Promenade, which has views over the city centre.

  • Zagreb – Do Worry

    Either this is some local cultural thing that I’m not aware of, or something has been lost in translation here….

  • Zagreb – A Story of a Rail Crossing

    I needed to cross these railway tracks, but as I approached the barriers came down. This is a perfectly normal occurrence with trains and I thought that I’d stand there until they went back up again, as this is usually how these things work.

    However, two people walking near to me decided to lift the barrier up a little and carry on their walk across the tracks. I assumed that they were locals and knew what they were doing, so I decided to ignore them and stay waiting where I was. Then two more people came along, although there was no sight of a train, and they did the same. Another small group came along and they also offered to hold the barrier for me. Friendly, but I still didn’t want to get run over by a train.

    After another eight people had crossed, I was getting irritated at this situation. Being British and obeying rules, I decided that this was most inconvenient. And then, as can be seen in the above photo, a bloody pushchair is pushed across. By this time the barriers have been down for around five minutes and there’s a total absence of trains.

    At this stage I decided I was just going to have to wait, as stepping onto railway tracks with a barrier that’s down just doesn’t seem sensible. Then I hear a train is coming, which pleases me greatly as I start to think that the barrier might go up. I’ve probably been here now for around eight minutes, although I didn’t time it exactly as I didn’t know I was spending the entire afternoon here.

    Anyway, the train above comes along and then screeches to a halt. And two other people cross in front of the train as it’s stopped. This set-up that a train has to stop to let pedestrians across seems bloody ridiculous to me. This is all made more bizarre as that barrier isn’t easy to lift up, so everyone going through is either doing some kind of limbo move to get under it, or they’re struggling to lift it up.

    At this point I’m now quite grumpy about the situation. I decide that I’m not going to walk in front of the train, so I pretend that I don’t want to cross. There’s a signal box to the right of the crossing and the man there was waving at people, although I wasn’t clear whether he was waving them across or waving at them that they might die.

    After around another two minutes the train goes and the barriers go up. And I then get the above photo, but I was conscious that a bloody train was likely to come flying along just at this point.

    When I got back to the hotel I recounted this story to someone who pretended to look interested. His reply was “we’re Slavs, we don’t do what we’re told” and he added “it’s the Germans and the Poles who do what they’re told, they would wait all day if that barrier didn’t move”. I’m sure there’s some truth to this, although personally I’d add that as a Brit, I’d have probably stayed there all day as well….

  • Zagreb – Views Over the City

    There are some areas across Zagreb which give some excellent views over the city centre. The photos below were taken from the Kaptol area of Zagreb.

  • Zagreb – Étien’s Whale

    Going along with the artwork of the turtle created by the French artist Étien, he created this enormous image of a whale on the side of a disused building. There is a sweet spot of where to stand to look at the whale where it seems entirely in perspective, and this does make it look even more realistic. This grand mural, which was painted in 2015, has won numerous awards over the years.

  • Zagreb – Étien’s Turtle

    A very clever piece of street art by the French artist Étien.

    The turtle looks rather different from another angle.

  • Oradea – Eva Heyman Memorial

    Eva Heyman is one of the key iconic people from the tragedy that unfolded for the Jews in Oradea during the Second World War. Heyman was born on 13 February 1931 and she kept a diary during the Nazi occupation of the area, detailing how Jews were treated.

    Eva was sent to Auschwitz on 2 June 1944 and accounts suggest that she remained strong and didn’t lose her willpower. Unfortunately she was in pain from her wounds and she was found by Mengele, who ensured that she was killed. She died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz on 17 October 1944.

    Her mother wrote:

    “A good-hearted female doctor was trying to hide my child, but Mengele found her without effort. Eva’s feet were full of sore wounds. ‘Now look at you’, Mengele shouted, ‘you frog, your feet are foul, reeking with pus! Up with you on the truck!’ He transported his human material to the crematorium on yellow-coloured trucks. Eyewitnesses told me that he himself had pushed her on to the truck.”

    Eva’s last diary entry was:

    “It has to be terrible in the wagon, and now no one says that we are going, they all say they deport us. A gendarme patrols in front of our house, yesterday was in the Rhedely Gardens, because from here they start the trains with the Jews, not from the station, so that they do not see the town says Grandpa. There were about 80 people in a wagon and so many people gave them a single bucket of water, and it is even more terrible that they have cracked the wagons.

    The gendarme said he could not understand the Jews, they did not even cry to the children, they all moved like sleepwalkers, they did not even live, they jumped into hard cars without a word. Although I, My Little Diary, do not want to die, I want to live, even if only the whole sector I can stay here, I would wait for the end of the war in a cellar, or in the attic or in any hole, My little Diary, I would also kiss the gendarme who looked crucified and took our flour, only to kill me, only to let me live. “

    The diary was recovered after the end of the Second World War and was published in 1948.

  • Oradea – KFC

    In between my visiting other more locally run restaurants in Oradea, I felt the need to visit to KFC as well. I didn’t want to go for myself of course, but just so that I could tell Dylan and Leon about it in case they asked.

    In case anyone is interested, which I admit is highly unlikely, the chicken strips in Romania are similar to others KFC outlets in eastern Europe, thinner and tastier. The staff member was very friendly, and with his Romanian and my English we struggled through. Primarily because the staff member had a greater knowledge of English than I had of Romanian if I’m being fair….