ZAGREB - Croatia (Sun 5 July)

They say that this is the cultural centre of Croatia, and judging by the number of museums, galleries and churches it is. However we have heard that there has been a move recently towards ceasing Sunday trading, almost all the shops were shut. And the galleries and museums that were open, were only open for about four hours. Despite all of this it is a very cool city with a very different feel to what we have seen of the rest of Croatia.

We went to the Mimara Museum. This a museum filled with 3750 pieces of art, a collection that was until 1987 a private collection. The top floor is dedicated completely to paintings. Now when we are talking paintings we are talking about paintings by Constable, Turner, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, and in pride of place a Renoir. I think the most appealing thing about this collection was that we weren’t jostling with hundreds of other people to see them and we weren’t held back by ropes, or separated by glass or perspex from some fantastic pieces of art that we had only seen in art books previously. The two floors below this held sculpture, pottery, tapestries, glassware, from around the world and through the ages. Ante Topic Mimara, spent most of his life outside of Croatia, but donated his collection back to his homeland in his later life. This is an underrated museum and well worth a visit. What a cool collection it would have been to have. We were just trying to imagine what it would have been like. You can imagine him having a few friends around for dinner, and him saying “Oh … come and look at what I bought last week”, and leading the way another great work hanging in the hallway.

We spent the rest of the day visiting churches and mooching around the old city. We walked up the hill to St Marks church, through the Stone gate. Within the stone gate is a shrine containing a paining of the Virgin Mary behind an iron grill, several pews and the walls are covered in plaques of deceased locals. According to the story, the painting was in a house that burnt down and the only thing that wasn’t destroyed in the fire was that small painting.

As we walked up the hill we were following a tour group and I gained anew appreciation for the leaders of these groups. There was one guy in this group who was a right plonker. I quote “Why are we walking up this hill”, “Because we are going to see St Mark’s square”, “What’s in St Mark’s square?” “St Mark’s church”, “But I thought we were going to see a square.” “We are, and the church is there also.” “So why is it called a square, if it’s a church?” “Because the church is on the side of the square.” “Are we nearly there?” … and so it went on. It was like group of 60 year old children. As they went through the Stone Gate the same guy wanted to know “Can I get a plaque with my name on it?” I wanted to tell him that it could be arranged … at short notice.
The most re’mark’able thing about this church (excuse the pun), was the roof. The roof was covered in brightly coloured glazed tiles depicting the Croatia coat of arms/flag. Very cool.