Day 20 - Wednesday 1st June

Breakfast is included in our accommodation at the Zagreb Regent and we decided to have it in the terrace on the eastern side of the hotel. Yesterday's forecast for today was for rain but it was fine and warm. A very nice place to have breakfast.

Our driver and guide, Davor, was waiting for us at the entrance at 9am as promised. He had a grey 4-door Skoda sedan with manual transmission. He drove us north to a location close to the border with Slovenia to Trakoscan Castle in the Zagorje region. This castle is on top of a hill near a road that was a major route from Austria in centuries past.

Davor told us that Croatia was part of the Austrian empire for about 500 years. This part of Croatia around Zagreb is regarded as Continental Croatia because of the influence of occupiers from Hungary and Austria whereas the coastal parts of Croatia have a different look and feel.

The castle was built about 600 years ago and was expanded and refurbished in the 19th century. The family who owned it had to leave the country at the end of WWII when the communists took over. Later it was refurbished and transformed into a museum of this aspect of Croatian history. We walked through the castle from one level to the next to admire the architecture, furniture and paintings. It is clearly popular with school excursion groups.

Next to the castle there is a beautiful lake. After we left the castle, we walked to the other side of the lake to get a better view of the castle. John and Gaye had been here a week or two ago and had recommended that we take in the lake walk.

Davor then drove us to another location near Kumrovec, which is also close the the border with Slovenia, for a traditional Croatian lunch.  The school excursion groups were already there when we arrived. The kids were remarkably well behaved.

The restaurant is in a pleasant valley next to a stream. Apparently they are big on various meats in Croatia and in this part of the country they concentrate on veal and pork. I ordered pork cutlets with baked beans - which might sound pretty ordinary - but it was excellent. The baked beans were nothing like what we buy at a supermarket back home. Mr Heinz has a lot to learn from the rural Croatians.

At Kumrovec, the government has built a replica of a typical rural Croatian village. Part of the motivation is that one of the houses is where Tito was born. This provided a contrast to how the nobles lived at castles like the one we visited this morning. The school excursion groups arrived as we were leaving.

Davor dropped us back at our hotel at 4:30pm and then met us outside the hotel again at 5pm to take us on a walking tour of Zagreb. We went through streets, plazas and parks and then to the funicular that takes you up to the old town at the top of the hill where we walked past various museums and the buildings that house the government and the parliament. We had an excellent view of the main Zagreb cathedral.

We then walked down to the "newer" part of town and went inside the cathedral. As you would expect, it was an impressive, tall, ornate building. For dinner, he took us to one of his favourite restaurants for more nice food and wine.

About half an hour after we returned to our hotel, he heard the rumble of a thunderstorm and the sound of heavy rain. We'd made it back in time. The thunder rumbled for an hour or two.