Showing posts with label Croatia. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Zagreb - the end of 7 weeks in Croatia
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| WW2 tunnel under the city. |
We had booked three nights at an AirBnB in the centre of the capital Zagreb a couple of weeks ago and organised with Jakeo to get dropped off there mid-arvo Monday the 17th after finishing up with him at Eko Selo Strung. It was starting to get chilly so our first intentions when visiting was to do some shopping and stock up on warm clothes. We were also hanging for some western food, veggies and modern culture as well as some time to ourselves.
Our AirBnB host was a beauty and she set us up in a ripper apartment, gave us some good tips on Zagreb, tours and things to see. First things first we headed to a place called Mundoaka Street Food where we had a pulled pork burger with chips, and crispy pork-loin fillet with coleslaw to tame our cravings!
After dinner we went for a little walk around the city centre before hitting the sack for an early night. Some things we noticed was how well dressed everyone was - this wasn't too unusual because even in the rural areas the women especially put a lot of effort into their appearance but it went up a level in Zagreb.
We did a walking tour on our third day here to get the grit and lowdown on the city. Our guide took us around for a solid two hours, she spoke openly about some of the corruption in the city/country, and gave us some great history. During our time in Croatia we'd heard a lot about the corruption and on the tour we were able to get an example of it. The mayor of Zagreb has been in position for 16 years and recently went to prison for bribing and corruption charges. His bail was set to 15 Million Kuna (3million AUD) and after a month it was paid by some of his powerful mates. He is still the Mayor, and with up coming elections they believe he will remain the Mayor. He is known locally as Tony Fontino (tony for mafia, fountino because he has a plan/dream for Zagreb to have 2000 fountains installed throughout the city!).
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| Our apartment ft. parquetry floors. |
After dinner we went for a little walk around the city centre before hitting the sack for an early night. Some things we noticed was how well dressed everyone was - this wasn't too unusual because even in the rural areas the women especially put a lot of effort into their appearance but it went up a level in Zagreb.
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| The central square - Zagreb is a mini Vienna in terms of architecture and feel (since it was mainly established during the Austro-hungrian empire) |
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| The love lock bridge, with the mosque and cathedral in the background. |
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| pretty cool graffiti.. |
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| The newest building in the upper old town area of Zagreb, I think our guide said it was built really quick before the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984 for administrative purposes... Weeks after the construction was completed the building started to fall apart and since has been left empty and unused. Painted by French artist Etien. |
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| Lunch at the Submarine BBQ - IT. WAS. AMAZING. I love these pint cups! |
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| The city map sculpture. Seems to be fashionable in Croatia because Split had the same setup. The two blocks closest to Brendan are the 'old town'. |
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| It's Autumn in Europe! |
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| Entrance to the WW2 tunnels beneath the old town. |
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| Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - there is quite a bit of controversy locally about how well off the people associated with this cathedral are. Nuns are getting around with the latest smart phones and the Priests drive nice cars. A lot of the residential area surrounding the cathedral is owned by this church and is all rented out, they don't pay tax's and get handouts from the state etc. In a country which isn't overly well off, I can see why some people aren't overly happy with them. |
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| Renovations have been going for a few decades apparently - as long as our tour host could remember. |
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| Fair dinkum - the cathedral's light chandeliers were donated by a Las Vegas casino! A Croatian man whom was working at the casino at the time salvaged them from being thrown out, convinced the casino owner to donate them to the cathedral. Look the part eh. |
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| The Dolac market - affordable and fresh fruit and veggies. |
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| This used to be the largest door/gate to inside the old fortified city. Notice the dongle on top of the building - that was what people used to put on top of their houses to keep demons/witches away. |
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| The Mary painting behind all that metalwork which some how survived a major city fire back in the day. A miracle... |
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| A tribute to Nicola Tesla - born in Croatia. Supposably was to sort Zagreb out with electricity but I'm not sure if that eventuated. |
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| There are 200 of these street lights dotted around the old town - they are still gas fired and every night two blokes run around with a lighter on a big stick and light them all! Each morning they run around and turn them off. Tesla must of forgot to wire these into the system... |
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| One of the original 4 towers of a Zagreb wall (specifically the south east wall) built in the 13th century which protected the city a long time ago - the Lotrscak Tower has a cannon called a Gric Cannon, and every day at 12pm for the last 100 years the cannon has been fired. We've heard two legends about the cannon, one says that during a Turkish siege where the Turks were camped across from The River Sava, the cannon was fired randomly and hit a Rooster/Army Leader and killed them. The Turks couldn't believe the accuracy and power of their counterparts weapons so retreated. |
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| The grey apartment buildings built in "New Zagreb" - built during Yugoslavia from the view point of Lotrscak Tower. |
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| Church of Saint Mark. Popular for its tiled roof. This used to be the main centre square of the town when it was fortified. |
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| Statue of popular prime minister Ban Josip Jelacic of who the main town square is named after. The statue was a gift to Zagreb from the Austro-Hungrian empire. During Yugoslavia times it was cut into four pieces and removed from the square as it was showing nationalism - which was against the communist way. We learn't something about horse statues here - if the horse is rearing on both hind legs the rider was killed in battle, one raised leg means the rider was killed as a consequence of battle. If all horse legs are on the ground, the rider died of old age or a cause completely unrelated to battle. This statue was slightly controversial as Ban Josip Jelacic died from Syphilis (unsure if that is classed as a consequence of war or not) |
We enjoyed Zagreb, the streets weren't crowded and 90% of the population seemed local. It's becoming very popular for its gastronomy and according to our walking tour guide, the last 5 years Zagreb has really grown culturally and is becoming an exciting town to live in. We defiantly got this vibe and felt very comfortable here.
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| Nom nom nom. Most meals out here cost around 30AUD for the both of us including drinks. Very affordable. |
In terms of pure sites to see, there isn't a great deal and mostly the old town can be visited in one afternoon. In terms of similarities, our workaway host Jakeo said it was very similar to Vienna since it was mostly build during the Austro-Hungarian period at the end of the 19th century and we tend to agree. A very small version of Vienna.
Unfortunately I don't think many people come here to tick it off their bucket list because it doesn't have a wow factor like the coast of Croatia for example - apparently they do Christmas well though. When researching Zagreb it was very popular for its Christmas markets and festivities. I think Zagreb is mostly a stop over town for travellers in-between visiting the coast, Hungary or Slovenia.
Overall our stay in Croatia was successful. We saved some cash at a workaway, learnt some language and Croatian customs and visited some of the most beautiful national parks we've ever experienced.
The Dalmatian coast was also amazing and we have some awesome memories from Sail Croatia.
For a country which was ruled under communism for 47years, suffered so much from civil war in the 90's, was hurt by the global financial crisis, they have done it harder than we can imagine coming from Australia. Our experience has been a safe, friendly and nothing but positive. We just hope that the growth Croatia experiences in the future is spread throughout its country and not kept to the people running the show.
Saturday, 22 October 2016
WA4 - Eko Selo Strung
Our fourth Workaway began with a 9hr bus ride from Dubrovnik to Zagreb, still not 100% recovered from Sail Croatia and coming down with a cold, this was a long day... We were to meet our new host in Zagreb around 6pm at the bus terminal. After a few minutes of miscommunications between each party we finally found each other. Jakeo was our new host.
We did a quick lap of the city centre of Zagreb before heading 110km south east to a little village called Plesmo on the edge of the Lonjsko Polje National Park to Jakeo's retreat/village project Ekoetno Selo Strug where we'd spend the next four weeks.
Our daily routine was:
Overall our main responsibility was to look after the horses, ensure they were let out of the stable area each morning, fed and put back in the stable area each night. Over the 4 weeks there were numerous occasions where the horses escaped from their paddocks or stables so we had to do a bit of maintenance around the place to keep the hooers in... By the end we'd overhauled the paddock fences and managed to keep them locked in behind the electric fences.
Horses were: Ringo (ex trotter - a troubled horse who loved human company, easily spooked and was an outcast among the other horses), Grome (the boss of the group, really nice to ride plenty of go), Had (solid cold blood horse who was slow and lazy, very safe), Lisa (stubborn cold blood mare, very strong) & Spot (still a foal).
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| View looking back from the yard, the right white house is to be a day spa type house, behind that is two old buildings yet to be renovated. In the centre is a couple of the villas which are used for accommodation. |
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| Restaurant overlooking some carp filled ponds. |
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| Views from the restaurant. |
Our daily routine was:
- Get up before 8am to feed/water 5 horses and feed/let out the chickens, ducks and rabbits.
- Fix ourselves breakfast at the restaurant. Typically porridge, sometimes we'd make poached eggs with bacon. Drink coffee and discuss the plans for the day.
- Work - this included cleaning the stables, maintaining electric fences for the horses, cleaning the villas, mowing and whipper snipping, painting the villas, refurbishing the chicken pens, helping in the restaurant or kitchen.
- Lunch was around 12.30 and was fixed by ourselves or Maja one of the employees, she was the manager of the retreat and jack of many trades.
- Work would continue until 3ish depending on the weather or whether we'd achieved our goal before hand.
- Free time before dark (around 6.30pm) then we'd fetch the horses from the field to lock them in the stables, lock up the chickens etc. and head to the restaurant for a cold beer and dinner.
Overall our main responsibility was to look after the horses, ensure they were let out of the stable area each morning, fed and put back in the stable area each night. Over the 4 weeks there were numerous occasions where the horses escaped from their paddocks or stables so we had to do a bit of maintenance around the place to keep the hooers in... By the end we'd overhauled the paddock fences and managed to keep them locked in behind the electric fences.
Horses were: Ringo (ex trotter - a troubled horse who loved human company, easily spooked and was an outcast among the other horses), Grome (the boss of the group, really nice to ride plenty of go), Had (solid cold blood horse who was slow and lazy, very safe), Lisa (stubborn cold blood mare, very strong) & Spot (still a foal).
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| Ringo (trouble maker) |
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| Spot |
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| Grome and Lisa |
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| Horse stables/yard. |
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| Old electric fence would short out with significant overgrowth. chop chop and some new wire and we fixed her up. |
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| Our humble dwelling for the 4 weeks, a couple of hundred year old Croatian house built for a servant back in the day. |
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| Our little wood stove - had to load wood from the top. Door below gave access to coal bed and lighting the stove. |
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| Retrieving the horses one night from the paddock. |
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| Amy on Had - we rode the horses a few times but not as much as we'd expected. We were too busy working on other tasks and then too tired after the days work to get out and about on them unfortunately. |
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| Amy's first ride in/on a Porsche |
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| A communist statue in Plesmo. |
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| A refurbished 'lookout' used by soldiers a couple of hundred years ago to keep an eye on the Ottoman across in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the border just behind me. |
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| Amy in one of the may fields of corn, most defiantly the most popular crop among the local farmers. |
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| Couple of pigs for visitors to look at in the National Park. They were very hairy. |
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| Jasenovac memorial for a concentration camp during WW2. Unfortunately when we visited we didn't have our camera so this was the only photo we managed to get - it also sucked because the sunset on this night was amazing and one of the most stunning we've ever seen! |
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| Cutting up bulk potatoes in the restaurant kitchen. |
Things we learnt:
- Make friends with the chef.
- Complement people whom speak English as a second language on how well they speak English.
- Gamish - It was popular to drink half wine/half water (either mineral water or tap water)...
- Rakjia - local traditional sprit, like a Russian vodka/schnapps/gasoline in some cases.
- The Croatian language we picked up along the way: Molim = Please, Hvala = Thanks, Bok = hi/bye, dobro = good, jutro (utro) = morning, vecer (vetchi) = evening, kaku si = how are you, dobar tek = bonapetit, Zivjeli (jevile) = cheers.
- Croatian women work extremely hard, some of the hardest working women we have ever seen.
- Meat, bread, potatoes are certainly staples.
Our spare time we grabbed a couple of bikes and explored the local heritage listed village Krapje. Everyone in the village still lived very traditional lives, growing their own produce and owning a handful of chickens, sheep, pigs. According to Jakeo, not many had employment and relied on minimal welfare to get by, a very basic way of life.
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| Small village with a small grocery shop about 3km away form our stay. Beers were 8kn or $1.60AUD. |
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| Local rooster running the show. |
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| Traditional houses in Krapje, some in better condition than others.. |
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| Local waterhole - a popular spot for fishing. |
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| The River Strung - massive!! Biggest river in Croatia. |
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| Krapje church |
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| Amy found a feral cat - tried to mother it but unfortunately we had to let it go. |
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| Enjoying a wine at the local backyard winery. Freshly pressed grapes in the press. |
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| Jakeo & I enjoying a Gamish & some tucker at a local traditional restaurant 30km away from Eko Selo Strung. |
Our fourth workaway was over 4 weeks. It was our longest stay and we agree it was too long to spend in one place. One of the goals for taking up this workaway was to cut back on the spending since we'd had a couple of expensive months and for the 4 weeks we successfully spent a total of $100AUD (mainly feeding our chocolate addiction at the Krapje convenience store!). We got itchy feet by the end of it and was really looking forward to getting to the next place. We learnt so much about Croatian culture, food and customs. Working at the Restaurant we met many other Croatian's whom visited and were able to learn a bit about their way of life and history of the area. We also met a lady whom grew up in Croatia and then spent 40 or so years in Australia before returning to Croatia around 3 years ago. It was very interesting listening to her views on Croatia as she saw the country from an insider and outsider perspective. Our conversation with her answered many questions we had about life in Croatia. "Croatia looks beautiful and appealing at first glance but it's all bullshit".
Overall this workaway was a very rewarding experience. We had some challenging moments, especially in regards to communication but Maja (a legend) set us on the right track from day one, she did a great job looking after us, making sure we were comfortable and happy. We certainly grew as people and both have a new appreciation for our homeland Australia.
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| Enjoying many drinks with Jakeo on our last night - Thanks mate! |
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