Zagreb, Croatia
Funny museums; questionable beer
Something I like about traveling is visiting places about which I had absolutely ZERO idea. And in this case, this goes for both Zagreb as a city and Croatia as a country.
I mean, you can kinda figure out that Zagreb's gonna have big buildings and lots of people since it's the capital and biggest city and all. But that's pretty much it.
Perhaps there are reasons that people, myself included, don't know a lot about Zagreb. City standard-wise, it's definitely up to par. And for a change, I'll state up front that it's well worth a visit. However, for someone like me, and going by that one week I spent there, the features that make Zagreb worth a visit seem to not be found in the general department of, say, architecture and urban geography rather than the department of specifics.
Since y'all would probably wanna know where the metal bars are at, let's just get that outta the way up front. You're gonna find a lot of alleged metal bars in Zagreb online, but as it turns out, most of them are closed. And it's symptomatic that Google and its 'Maps' feature are poorly updated in this general area, with some places either being closed or not existing, or just being a coupla streets away for some reason.
Anyway, as Manowar could tell you any day, Valhalla is where it's at. Built in hardwood beams and decorated with various motifs from the Nordic mythology and artifacts that may or may probably not be from actual iron age Scandinavia, Valhalla's got like +50 import beers from mostly Germany, but also other parts of Europe.
It seems like during the afternoon, they play hardcore and punk, but then on evenings, they switch pretty rapidly to actual, memorable metal like Maiden, Priest, Slayer, Manowar, and even stuff like Alestorm and Gloryhammer. As is to be expected in the Balkans, the beers are fairly cheap – even the imports. And some of them are gonna shake your foundations. Surprisingly for an import joint, the best ones I sampled this time around were locals: Nova Runda's C-4 IPA and The Garden Brewery's Imperial Hazelnut & Coffe Stout.
Apart from Valhalla, there's Hard Place down a bit south of town. While Valhalla often plays deep cuts and more peripheral genres like death and viking metal, Hard Place is where you're gonna hear the hits. Like, we're talking Guns n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Skid Row, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Scorpions, etc. And of course, beers are cheap, as is customary down here.
Also, while not a metal place by any stretch, Alcatraz is a nice late-night alternative to those stupid, all-pervasive "clubs" with their HORRIBLE fucking reggaeton SHIT. Alcatraz tends to play actual reggae and ska, which is cool, but they'll put on Priest and Maiden if you ask them nicely – especially if that one cool bartender with the Slayer t-shirt is there. Also, the indoor decoration is hella cool – you're not gonna find many square inches that aren't covered in stickers, LED lights, pictures, flags, masks, posters, magazines, license plates, dolls... whatnot.
We also did find one decidedly metal and hard rock record and merch store – Maldoror – which, apart from albums and t-shirts, also has books, patches, banners, jewelry, and clothing. Oh, if you're into steampunk, you should check out the Mr. Fogg café and restaurant. Its entire interior is that whole, unmistakable combination of rusty gears, valves, chains, and bronze pipes in Victorian design aesthetics. And it's got more than a fair selection of beers and liquors. The music there isn't really steampunk-y (I mean, that would probably be ragtime or cabaret), but they did play Roxette, which, as we can hopefully all agree, is still better than 99% of all other music in the world, ever.
Then there are the museums. The most entertaining one would definitely be the Museum of Hangovers – only one of its kind worldwide. Apart from the many drinking anecdotes, you're gonna find stuff about the American era of prohibition, facts about alcohol-related deaths and diseases, and a drunk-driving simulator. The cute girl in the reception might also give you a rakia before and/or after your visit, and you've got the opportunity to get in for free if you manage to hit bulls-eye on a dart board wearing drunk-simulator glasses. (NOTE: This will not happen, though.)
The Zagreb '80s Museum is pretty much a walk around an apartment that's furnished as a typical '80s apartment would look like. Some cool features here are the actual functional console games and the backdrop of banging hits from that wonderful era – stuff like Queen, Dire Straits, Eurythmics, The Police, and even The Cult is constantly adorning the atmosphere. I mean, I coulda stayed there for hours just for the music.
And then there's the Museum of Broken Relationships, which, like the aforementioned hangover museum, is also conceptualized in Croatia. In its own words, "Our societies acknowledge marriages, funerals, and even graduation farewells, but deny us any formal recognition of the demise of a relationship despite its strong emotional effect". And having long since been through all that, I can only get behind that sentiment.
The exhibition itself consists of artifacts from broken relationships – artifacts that have a certain meaning or symbolism – and stories centered around those artifacts. We're talking things like love letters and hand-made gifts, but also just seemingly random stuff, and it all has some story attached to it. We're also talking all kinds of broken relationships – not just romantic ones, but also lost family members, for example. And the stories range from heart-breaking (e.g. toxic relationships; couples separated by war, etc.) to bittersweet and sometimes kinda funny.
In terms of the local cuisine, I wasn't exactly overwhelmed, but it's definitely decent. Of course, burek and goullasch are prevalent, which is nice. And if, like me, you like to challenge your culinary boundaries, you can have a big ol' helping of tripe and bacon in paprika sauce with parmesan. That and a šljivovica, and you'll be good to build a garage in a coupla hours.
However, my best culinary experience in Zagreb was on Street Food The Passage, and it wasn't local, but a double cheese burger with bacon, mushrooms, and caramelized onions.
Local beer's kinda the same level: A coupla decent ones, but apart from those aforementioned microbreweries, nothing overwhelming. The most prevalent one is Ožujsko, which is acceptable on tap and bottle, sub-par on can, and downright undrinkable on plastic bottle. (Unless maybe you're from Poland or something...) Its younger competitor Karlovačko is all-round better, but it tends to get a little too sweet after a while.
Tomislav and Grička Vještica are solid and tasty, but they're too dark and heavy to keep swilling them down. Vukovarsko is bad, and Velebitsko is just plain awful. The best regular beer you'll find is probably Pan, and it's probably the best one because it's made by Carlsberg, which, as you'll know, IS probably the best beer in the world. (In terms of regular big-market, industrial lager production anyway.)
In terms of the local scene, we didn't find any shows. The bartender at one burger restaurant did notice our metal shirts and asked if we were going to see Gojira that evening, but it was sold out, and we were too busy going to museums to bother finding tickets. However, we did find a coupla good Croatian bands online.
Cold Snap is a decent groove metal / metalcore band if you're into that sorta thing. Chains of Suffering is a decent thrash metal band. And sounding like a perfect blend between Skid Row and Black Label Society, Animal Drive is a kickass hard rock band. – Or, rather, they were, because apparently, they split up in 2020 for legal reasons. Boo.
Also, Black Cult is a pretty bitchin' black metal band. What makes them so pretty bitchin' are the facts that they're not only able to hella wail on their instruments, but they're also one of those far-sightedly envelope-pushing black metal bands that choose to apply an actual producer to actually produce their music.
Finally, if you're in Croatia, whether in Zagreb or elsewhere, you should go see Plitvička Jezera – Plitvice Lakes National Park. It's a bit of a drive from Zagreb, but it's worth it. The area's huge, beautiful, and serene. We're talking turquoise water; natural waterfalls; forest everywhere – just lots and lots of pretty, unspoiled nature. We did the longest walking route of 18.6 kilometers in about 5 hours. If you think about it, that means you can, too.
One thing about Zagreb that's annoying is the bus station. There are no clear indications of which busses to what destinations leave from which platforms at what hour. There are multiple screens at the station, but they're not showing the departures; they're showing the arrivals. Yeah, because everyone have come here to pick someone up, right? It's not like all these people are standing here because they're planning to get on a bus and go somewhere, right?
Moronic fucking system. Also, when you're getting on your bus, you have to pay a fee of €1 (or, at the time of writing, 7.6 of those Croatian money things) for having your luggage stowed – never mind the fact that you've booked a Flixbus ticket and Flixbus doesn't do that anywhere else. So you can't just spend all your money before going. And even though you've booked with Flixbus, don't expect an actual Flixbus to arrive. Expect something local with a squeaky seat and a broken A/C – that way you won't get disappointed.
Anyway, as I said in the beginning, Zagreb is well worth a visit. Curiously, there doesn't seem to be a lot of people during the summer, but nonetheless, it's pretty; it's cheap; it's fairly easy to get around by foot, and as you can probably gather, it has its good share of things do see and do. You should totally also do the free walking tour when and if you're there. And of course they have a Tesla museum as well; (just turned it was closed on the day we'd planned on going).
If, like me, you're used to the Balkans, Zagreb might not have many downright surprises in store, culture-wise, but it'll be a good time, regardless. And if it's your first visit to the Balkans, you'll wanna come back to the area. I might not wanna stay in Zagreb for much more than a couple weeks in any case, but even if you're only there for a week, you can make a helluva week of it.