Zagreb

The centre of Zagreb is easy to read once you know it has three layers. The Upper Town, Gornji Grad, is the old Gradec on the western hill: cobbled lanes, a Parliament square and small museums. Kaptol on the eastern hill holds the Cathedral. Between and below them, the Lower Town, Donji Grad, is the flat grid of the 19th century, with the main square, the station and the Green Horseshoe of parks.

A small stream, the Medveščak, once ran between the two hills and divided them. It was covered in the 1890s, and its course is now Tkalčićeva street, the pedestrian terrace street where locals go for a drink. The stream explains the shape of the old city, and the street’s gentle curve is a trace of it.

The Lower Town was planned in the 19th century on a grid with a chain of squares and parks. The Green Horseshoe, or Lenuci Horseshoe, is named for Milan Lenuci, the city planner who shaped it. Ban Jelačić Square is the hinge where the old and new towns meet, and most trams pass through it.

The layout makes for a simple plan: the Upper Town and Kaptol in the morning, the Lower Town and the Horseshoe in the afternoon, and Tkalčićeva in the evening. The funicular on Tomićeva street, one of the shortest in Europe, saves the climb between levels.

Kaptol grew around the bishopric, founded in 1094, and its Cathedral. Gradec, on the next hill, was a market town of craftsmen and merchants. In 1242 the Hungarian-Croatian king Béla IV gave Gradec a royal charter, the Golden Bull, after the Mongol raids, making it a free royal town with its own walls and law.

For centuries the two were rivals. Bishops and merchants quarrelled over taxes, markets and law, and the road between them, now Radićeva street, was sometimes a border. The rivalry is still visible in the names: Kaptol for the clergy, Gradec for the townsfolk. In 1850 the two towns and the Lower Town were united into a single city, with Ban Josip Jelačić as its symbol.

The 19th century made Zagreb a Habsburg provincial capital with theatres, museums, coffeehouses and a railway. The Lower Town grew on a grid, with Ilica as its shopping street. The city also became the centre of Croatian national culture in the years before 1918.

The 20th century brought the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Second World War, socialist Yugoslavia, and in 1991 independence. The Upper Town squares and the Cathedral are the city’s oldest layer; the Lower Town is the Habsburg one; and the concrete estates south of the Sava are the socialist layer. Walk from one to the other and you cross most of the city’s history in an afternoon.

Zagreb sits on a seismic zone, and the city has been shaken more than once. The great earthquake of 1880 damaged the Cathedral and many houses, and the neo-Gothic Cathedral you see today owes its spires and much of its style to the reconstruction led by Hermann Bollé, an architect who also designed the Mirogoj cemetery arcades.

The most recent shock came on 22 March 2020, in the early morning, with a magnitude of about 5.3. It damaged many Upper Town and Lower Town buildings and the Cathedral’s northern spire, which lost its top, and residents left their homes during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Restoration has been slow, and scaffolding still covers some buildings.

For a visitor the effect is practical: some sights may be closed or partly hidden, and some streets have safety barriers. Check the day’s status for the Cathedral, the Upper Town museums and any building you have on your list, and treat scaffolding as part of the story rather than a spoiled photo.

The rebuilding after 1880 is also a reason the Lower Town looks so consistent: much of it was built or rebuilt in the 1880s and 1890s in the historicist style. The 2020 earthquake is a reminder that the city is still doing the same job, repairing and adapting.

Zagreb eats by the market. Dolac, on the slope between the Cathedral and the main square, has been the city’s main food market for about a century, and the red umbrellas of the upper level are the city’s postcard. Stallholders come from the surrounding villages with fruit, vegetables, honey and dairy, and locals shop early.

The signature dairy purchase is fresh cheese and cream, sir i vrhnje, eaten with bread. The signature dish in restaurants is štruklji, rolled dough with cheese, boiled or baked; it belongs to the wider Zagorje area north of the city. Zagrebački odrezak, a stuffed and breaded cutlet, is the city’s take on a schnitzel, and kremšnita is the custard-cream cake that fills coffeehouses.

Coffee is a social ritual here, and the standard is slow. A Saturday morning coffee on the Lower Town’s terraces can last two hours, and Sunday brings the old habit of a late-morning stroll and a drink, called špica. Cafés do not hurry you and do not expect you to order again.

Beer and wine have moved forward too: Croatian craft beer is easy to find, and the continental wine regions around Zagreb produce whites and sparkling wines that rarely leave the country. Try a glass of local wine with a cheese plate on a Tkalčićeva terrace.

Zagreb’s museums are often small and personal, and the best known is the Museum of Broken Relationships. It began as a travelling art exhibition by two Zagreb artists, Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić, after their own relationship ended, and it has been a permanent museum since 2010. People donate objects from ended relationships with a short story, and the objects range from the funny to the painful.

The city also has a Technical Museum, a museum of naive art, a museum of illusions and a large art collection at the Mimara Museum. Most are within a short walk or tram ride of the centre, and many close on Monday, so check the day before.

The city’s outdoor museums are also worth a slow walk. Mirogoj cemetery, with its long arcades and monuments, is often called one of the most beautiful cemeteries in Europe, and Maksimir Park, opened in the 1790s, is the city’s oldest large public park.

Note the noon cannon at the Lotrščak Tower, a tradition since 1877, and the funicular, which has run since 1890. These small things are the city’s character: not grand monuments, but everyday details that locals treat as their own.