The week began at home and ended in Croatia’s capital Zagreb where we were to spend 5 days, a brief vacation.
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I start with some grab shots from my morning walks with Mochi. I see this guy sleeping in the beach lounge almost every morning. I have no idea if he has an arrangement with the company that runs the lounge rental business. Two other possibilities are that he is just a homeless guy who has found a good place to sleep (but I doubt it since homeless people usually have bags with their possessions with them, and he has none); or he may be working there and is simply saving money from his seasonal employment:
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Someone has been playing in the mud:
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The battle of ideas:
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On Tuesday evening our book club met in the usual bar El Palmito. Since there would be no meeting in August, quite a few of us showed up. Our Kenyan trainee Victor, here talking with Christine and Kirsten, was among them:
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The book of the month was “Pavilion of Women” by Pearl Buck. Here it is in English, Finnish and Danish in the various formats:
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A couple of late-comers brought old-fashioned hardback editions in English and French:
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Kirsten and Caroline:
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Our Belgian trainee Charline speaking, Tina listening. Unfortunately, Charline, like most of our trainees, will be leaving us in September when her year-long traineeship ends. We will miss her, she is a delightful young woman:
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Harrie talks about the book:
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We had good conversation, and afterwards some of us continued the meeting in another bar called Mala Mama:
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On my way to the car park, I spotted this guy wearing a Ukrainian t-shirt with the classic slogan from 2022 “Go fuck yourself”, addressed by Ukrainian soldiers to a Russian ship that demanded their surrender:
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On Wednesday Eri and I met for lunch at a modest Brazilian restaurant near her apartment:
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On Thursday morning my wife and I flew to Zagreb to start our brief vacation in Croatia. My wife had chosen an apartment right on Trg bana Josipa Jelacica, the main square of Zagreb. It turned out to be an excellent choice. The apartment was nice, spacious and modern, and the location was unbeatable. My wife did her usual siesta while I went for a walk in the neighbourhood. The main landmark on the square is the statue of Croatian national hero Ban Jelacic, complete with sabre and pigeon:
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Walking towards the cathedral, I stopped at this nice model of Zagreb, with a brief explanation of the history of the city:
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My only previous visit to Zagreb was in early March 2020, the last business trip before Covid shut down the world. A couple of weeks later the city was hit by a serious earthquake. While the number of casulaties was small, there was extensive damage to many buildings around the city, especially older ones. One of spires of the cathedral fell down, and there was other damage to the church, which is still being repaired 6 years later:
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The bells, waiting for the tower to be restored:
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I had read in the Lonely Planet guidebook about the many murals in Zagreb, and I was looking forward to seeing them. Street art is one of my favourite art forms. And it so happened that on my way back from the cathedral, I passed Opatovina, a street of bars and restaurants, but also a small park with a huge mural covering the entire wall, with Gulliver as the theme:
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Our apartment building on the square. Here too, damage from the 2020 earthquake is still visible:
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In the evening we went out for dinner, and afterwards walked around a bit, passing this bar projecting words of wisdom onto a façade:
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Friday morning. I stepped out on our balcony and was greeted by the sight of the daily Dolac Market, still being set up:
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A bit later, the customers showed up, beginning around 7 a.m. I love such markets, and taking a walk through the Dolac Market became part of my morning routine during our stay:
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I came across this young mother giving some fruit to her two little girls:
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Her daughters’ opinions of the fruit were quite distinct:
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The outdoor market is for fruit, vegetables and flowers. In the adjacent market hall, one can buy meat, cheeses, other dairy products and baked goods:
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On the edge of the market vendors were offering clothes and souvenirs:
We spent the rest of Friday on the first of 3 days trips, to Plitvice Lakes National Park, which I documented in a standalone gallery.
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On Saturday morning I took another walk and photographed still more traces of the earthquake:
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My wife and I did our own things during the day on Saturday. She went for shopping therapy while I took the tram to Zagreb’s Contemporary Art Museum, a place I did not have a chance to visit in 2020. Much of the art on display had a connection to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, not surprisingly. This work, by Bosnian artist Šejla Kameric, is called “Bosnian Girl”, from 2003. The artist juxtaposed her self-portrait onto various statements expressing prejudice against Bosnians that were (are?) common among Serbs and Croats:
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This work by Croat artis Boris Ljubicic is called “Vukovar 18 November 1991”. That was the day the battle of Vukovar, a small historic town in Croatia, ended during Croatia’s war of independence, with the town almost totally destroyed:
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The Contemporary Art Museum did not suffer any significant damage during the 2020 earthquake. Other museums around Zagreb were not so lucky, and the Contemporary Art Museum is housing some of their exhibits while repairs are being made, such as this “Paris Room” from the Croatian School Museum:
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Even the parking lot of the Contemporary Art Museum provided visual stimulation:
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While on the tram to the museum, I had noticed some interesting murals along Avenija Marina Držica. So on the way back to the centre, I got off the tram and walked a few hundred meters along the avenue, taking in those murals:
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In the afternoon, I took a walk in a nearby park called Zrinjevac Park. At the entrance to the park, some entrepreneurial young girls were setting up a table to sell unwanted books and toys:
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A hollow tree functions as a nice photo location:
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My wife’s shopping therapy completed, we got together again in the evening, and visited the Museum of Illusions, one of Zagreb’s several quirky museums (there is also a Museum of Broken Relationships and a Museum of Hangovers). I was not too keen, but my wife really enjoyed it:
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Infinite well:
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Big and small:
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Painting of a MAGA brain (that, at least, is my interpretation):
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Walking back to the main square, I was amused by this place advertising their “original Berlin style” kebabs:
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Peace sign on a supermarket window:
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The main square gets lively in the evening:
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And Croat children get to stay out late, like their Spanish counterparts, at least during the summer holiday:
A complete Zagreb gallery can be seen here.