For our last full day the sun has returned which is good as we had a slow day yesterday we have a lot of things we want to see today. We set off after breakfast in search of the funicular but after a slight diversion we ended up at the top rather than the bottom but at least we made it up, we came out by Lotrscak tower which is the one the noonday cannon is fired from, it is a medieval tower from the 13th century fortifications, in the 19th century a lookout was added to the top but other than that not much has changed. The tower bells used to summon townsfolk to return to the town at sunset when the gates were locked for the night. The cannon firing tradition was initiated on New Year’s Day 1877 although there are a number of stories about where the cannon came from one story is that it was presented to the townspeople by the Hungarian King Bela IV in 1242 as a reward for protecting him from the marauding Tatars – on condition that the canon was fired every day! From the tower we walked up the road to St Marks square, past the old city hall which was used until World War II when it was moved to the new town, but it is still used for marriage ceremonies and the city assembly still holds sessions there. This is also the site of the first theatre built in 1833 by a local merchant who won the main prize at the Vienna lottery. The square is surrounded by government buildings including Banski dvori or Governors Palace which is where the office of the Prime Minister and is the seat of the Croatia government. The square also has the Croatian Sabor or parliament, the current building dates for the 20th century but parliament has held sessions on this site since 1737, the votes to sever political ties from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1918 and Yugoslavia in 1991. From there we walked down towards the Stone Gate which is the only remaining town gate from the Middle Ages. In the centre of the gate is a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it has a painting that miraculously survived a fire in 1731 which has become a place of pilgrimage ever since. Next to the gate is Zagrebs oldest pharmacy founded in 1355 and has traded continuously since then. After this we stopped for a drink and check what we were doing for the rest of the day. We set off along Radiceva which is a sloping street that leads from the Upper town to the main square. The street was originally lined with wooden houses but they kept burning down so over time they have been replaced by brick buildings, this street was one of the principle business centres in the 19th century and it is where the first branch of the Croatian savings bank. We walked up to the priest’s tower which is a round tower at the northern most point of the Upper town and was built in the 13th century to help ward off the threat of Ottoman attack, by the 17th century it was no longer needed for this purpose and became the city’s main food storehouse. Later the nuns of St Clare held classes in the tower and in 1903 an observatory was opened on the top floor. We returned to the main square via Opaticka which has a number of magnificent palaces although unfortunately not open to the public, there were a few mentioned in the guide so we ‘peered’ in through the fence but couldn’t really see anything, Opaticka brought us back to the stone gate so we went through it again, this time turning right back to the main market square. The only area of the main town left for us to explore was Tkalciceva which was built along the course of the former Medvescak creek the traditional boundary between Kaptol and Gradec, Kaptol was the church controlled area to the west of the creek and Gradec was the secular area. In the 18th century there were a number of watermills in the area and it became the site of workshops producing cloth, soap, paper and liqueurs. It was paved over at the end of the 19th century and is now home to a number of restaurants. Also paved over is the ‘Bloody bridge’ which linked Kaptol and Gradec and was where the numerus disputes over rights to the watermills sometimes turned violent! Our final activity was to walk to Mirogoj which is Zagreb’s main cemetery. It is at the top of the hill just outside the city and is a couple of miles walk. It was opened in 1876 and is said to be the most beautiful in Europe. It was well worth the walk as it is massive, not just the entrance but the graves and tombs are also really large, its interesting as it is a multi-faith cemetery with crosses and the star of David next to each other on the graves . We walked the length of the façade which must be almost 1km as you can’t see one end from the other, then it was time to head back to town and a late lunch of pizza! Today was probably our busiest day so after lunch we walked back to the room for a well earned rest, as we had a late lunch, this evening we just went to the bar round the corner for a few drinks, then picked up a snack on the way back before heading back to the room.
