Croatia: Zagreb and Perković

To get to Croatia, we took an evening train from Vienna to Salzburg (sadly we only got to see it in the middle of the night), and then hopped on the 2 AM train to Zagreb. Instead of beds, we'd only reserved the couchettes for a few euros, and we weren't expecting much, but it was surprisingly luxurious. We got lucky and had the cabin to ourselves, and they gave us sheets and pillows and a hefty blanket, and the cushion/mattress was just long enough that I could stretch all the way out. We both slept super well the entire ride. So well, in fact, that when we rolled into the station around 8:30, I hopped out of bed and off of the train without remembering to grab my phone from under my pillow. I realized this just as the train started moving away down the track (commence swears). Luckily, we knew that Zagreb was the end of the line for that train, so it was probably not heading out right away. I tried to explain my situation to three different people at the info desk, and they told me I might be able to find it on platform 6 where they clean the trains. So I left Matt with the bags and took off sprinting (my sprint these days is kind of a rapid hobble. Europe is rough on the feet). I looked up and down the platform and didn't see our train. As I was walking back to figure out my options I saw a couple guys with walkie-talkies, and one of them spoke some English. I wish I had asked his name and address so I could send him a thank you card and Christmas cards forever, because he was the absolute best. The whole time he kept nodding and smiling and giving me encouraging thumbs up so I wouldn't worry. He got on his radio and started doing some detective work, let out a whoop and a "POOOOKER!" when I told him I was from Las Vegas, and then took me across the tracks to a secret section of the station, where we miraculously found our train car and the cleaning ladies directed me to the office where my phone was. I'm so grateful for my new Croatian friend.

After that, we spent the morning strolling around Zagreb, and it was really charming. It felt really un-touristy and quiet and welcoming.


We never found the Naive Art Museum or the Museum of Broken Relationships, so that was a bummer. I really wanted to know what that was all about. 


Zagreb Cathedral


How fantastic is this lettering on the wall inside the cathedral? I did a little research later and found out that the alphabet is called Glagoljica, and it was used in Croatia for hundreds of years before they adopted the Roman lettering system. I love how angular and almost pictorial it looks.



At one point we hiked up 1,000 stairs and found ourselves at the entrance to a park that was actually just a forest and we were super okay with that. 



My very favorite thing was when we stumbled upon the botanical gardens near the train station. It was very serene and not overly manicured, which is just the way I like my gardens/greenhouses. I could've spent hours in there.


I wish this picture adequately showed the INSANE size of these poppies. So woah. 


Have you ever seen such a full peony bush? I mean what is happening here? I want to use it as my pillow. 



Around lunchtime, we caught our train to Krka (well, the town just outside it), which is when our next train mishap began. But first, a picture of the gorgeous rainy greenness outside the train window.



Also worth remembering: as soon as the train pulled out of the station, all of the big, burly men sitting near us pulled out their lunch sacks and started eating these sandwiches made with the thickest slabs of bread I've ever seen. I'm talking 5-inch tall sandwiches, and only 1/4 inch of that was meat. I don't know why but we loved that so much.

Anyway, back to getting lost in Croatia. Usually we’re those silly looking people who get up and go stand by the door fifteen minutes before the train even stops, but on this ride they kept taking ten-minute smoke breaks at every stop, so we didn’t feel super rushed. As we saw our stop approaching, we casually stood up and walked toward the door. The train stopped, we put on our backpacks, and then the train started again. We figured it was just repositioning or something, but then the ticket taker man walks up and tells us to sit down because we’re leaving the station and we were out of luck. I guess Drnis is not a popular stop or something? So we sat back down and figured we’d get off at the next stop and take the next train back in that direction. Turns out the next stop was Perković, Croatia: population 115, a nice place to grow your garden, home to an exceptionally vocal bird population, not a great place to catch a train. Even though we were only twenty minutes away from where we were staying, the next train wasn’t coming through for over four hours. So we left all of our belongings with a man in the station (if you could call it that), and walked around for a bit.



It was honestly one of the most beautiful little towns I've ever seen, and I'm secretly really glad we got stranded there. Regardless, after about an hour—in which we saw hundreds of chickens and three humans—I messaged our Airbnb host and he graciously offered to send us a taxi so we wouldn't have to wait for the train and risk missing the last bus of the day. Taking a taxi always feels like the ultimate defeat, but luckily Croatia is super inexpensive. Eventually we got to the house we were staying at and got some sleep before our next wild Croatian adventures.

In other news, one of my wisdom teeth has grown in on this trip. So that feels weird.