Zagreb - Finale

So, final dissertation on Zagreb, then I will stop.

I decided to take a cycling tour of Zagreb, despite my misgivings about bike seats (based on French experience).

They said to meet in front of the Mimara Musej at 10. Adila, our guide, was pleased to know that I was from New Zealand as it would seem that the results of a survey (apparently not the same guys from Contiki who decided that NZ women are promiscuous) were in the paper that morning, and that NZ was listed as fourth in the world as the place to do business – easy administration, trustworthy, absence of corruption, (loose women) etc- , and feeling disillusioned that morning, she had googled our country to see if she and her husband and children could emigrate there (immediately). The population of our country may increase soon by four… (your thoughts Diana?)

There were only two other customers, an American couple, so the four of us set off. I wanted to see if I could sneak the bike into my backpack, it was so wonderful! Such a seat, such handlebars!

The tour was three hours of basically getting the layout of the inner city – stopping at various places for history lessons, comment and local themes – you know, politics, Tito etc. It made us appreciate the real town planning that went into the city at its inception. There is a wonderful horse-shoe shaped green belt with glorious trees and ponds with statues and fountains, all donated by the founding citizens. These parks were full of people sitting, walking, relaxing in the sun, and staring at the idiots on the bikes.

There are university campus’ scattered throughout the city and so the streets are full of young people, which adds to the dynamic feeling of the city. People from Zagreb compare the city to Vienna. People who don’t live in Zagreb say that the people who do live in Zagreb and say things like that have delusions of grandeur…

We followed the trams along the tram tracks, wended our way through pedestrians on the footpaths (the Americans kept ringing their little bells), and glided through parks.

At the end of the three hours, I doubled back to check out the Museum of Broken Relationships. The concept of this museum was dreamt up by a couple as they separated, to deal with various things left from the relationship that they couldn’t decide what to do with. It has developed almost into a therapy of sorts for people from all over the world who have items left from relationships that they wish to put ‘somewhere’ to emotionally close on what has perhaps been a traumatic severing.

Interesting concept, and I thought that it would be quirky and amusing, which it was for the first few exhibits. (Aside - The original (separated) couple have continued to travel the world together exhibiting the museum and there are all sorts of whispers about whether they will get back together – the world loves a happy ending).

The reality of it was slightly different, because never having personally been vitriolic at the end of a relationship, I was taken aback by the emotions in the stories which accompanied the exhibits!

There was an axe – the donor, a guy, had been in a relationship with a woman who decided after a few months of moving into the guy’s house( with her furniture), that she had fallen in love with the neighbour (a woman). They confessed, said that they were going to go away for a fortnight together and then she would be back…. And so for each day that she was away, he chopped up a piece of her furniture!

There was a wedding album with the accompanying message – ‘married 2004, cheated 2005. If you ever develop enough culture to visit a museum, I hope that you will understand what you did to me!”

There were 9 different rooms each filled with themed momentos, each with their own anger and their own story. When I left, I felt infused by a negativity that I didn’t recognize as mine.

To move on from that feeling, I decided that a visit to the Mestrovic Gallery (with a ‘sh’ and a ‘ch’) would be a good solution, which it was, thankfully. Mestrovic was a twentieth century sculptor and architect from Croatia and is arguably the greatest sculptor of religious subject matter since the Renaissance. He is the first living person to have a one man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

His work is situated in what was originally his house in Gornji Grad. It is a beautiful setting, and his work is magnificent, worked in brass, marble and wood. The statue of Gregory of Nin in Split (you know, the one that the tourists (including myself) have photos of themselves taken whilst rubbing his big toe) is one of Mestrovic’ works, as is the Fountain of Life in Tito Square in Zagreb. Come to think of it, I think that that is one of the suggested name replacements for the current reference to Tito!

Basically at that point I had run out of time. Dinner and wine were calling before the late flight back to Split. *sigh*. Yes, Zagreb. Lovely.
(Big shout out to my friend in Zagreb - thanks, it was wonderful!)