Zagreb, Croatia
In many ways, Zagreb is a strange little inland city. When one thinks of Croatia, turquoise waves, orange clay roofs, pristine beaches, soft grey stone, and giant pizzas come to mind – which is a very good description of coastal cities such as Split and Dubrovnik. Both Split and Dubrovnik are amazing destinations in their own right, but have very little to do with Zagreb. One of Europe’s smaller capitals – and one of its least well-known – Zagreb is a hipster inland city resisting mass tourism as hard as it can. The city glitters with its regal governmental and public buildings, shines with its colorfully painted facades, softens with its broad urban squares and parks. Unlike international Split where the air rings with a dozen languages, Zagrab is decidedly Croatian. It is too far from the shiny surface of the Adriatic Sea to attract the same numbers as its coastal cousins, too small to pull in the crowds that other ‘continental’ Central European places like Prague, Budapest, Vienna or Krakow have managed to draw. Instead, Zagreb is quietly humming along to its own markedly Croatian beat – and is all the better for it.
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