Postcards

LOTRŠĆAK TOWER

Every day, for more than a hundred years, from the top of the Lotršćak Tower, precisely at noon, there is a cannonball shot to remind of an event from Zagreb's history. According to legend, the Lotršćak cannon fired at noon at the Turkish camp across the Sava and blew off a rooster (or a turkey) the cook was carrying on a tray for pasha. After that the Turks ran away and did not attack Zagreb...

ZRINJEVAC

... or the Square of Nikola Šubić Zrinski, is a Zagreb square and park with a plane tree alley. It is a part of the so-called Green or Lenucci's horseshoe made up of seven Zagreb downtown squares. It covers an area of 12,540 square meters. In its South part there are busts of important Croatian personalities: Julije Klović, Andrija Medulić,  Krsto Frankopan, Nikola Jurišić, Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski and  Ivan Mažuranić. In the middle of the park there is a music pavillion erected in 1891.

Zrinjevac is also the home of several institutions:
The Supreme court of the Republic of Croatia
The Archaeological Museum in Zagreb
The Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences
The County Court in Zagreb
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EU Integrations of the Republic of Croatia

MAKSIMIR FOREST AND PARK

The first park forest in Southeastern Europe, it was opened in 1794. In 1839 it was changed by bishop Juraj Haulik according to Maksimilijan Vrhovac's ideas in the English landscaping style. The park of 316 hectars, preserving the flora and fauna of lowland forests, has five lakes, both natural and artificial ones. The park's name is also the name of the surrounding suburb and the Dinamo football club's stadium. At the Southern end of the park forest there is a zoo.

THE UPPER TOWN

Gradec or Grič is the name for the old part of Zagerb on the slopes of  Medvednica out of which, together with Kaptol, today's Zagreb originated. In 1242 Bela IV issued the Golden Bulla declaring the city a “free royal city on the hill of Gradec of Zagreb“. From 1242 to 1266 the city was fortified by bulwarks and towers and its shape until the present day changed very little. The city had four gates: the Mesnička Gate, the New Gate (later Opatovina), Dverce and the Stone Gate (Kamena vrata). Of all the gates only the Stone Gate has been preserved until today and has kept the name of the Stone Gate. The center of Gradec is Mark's Square with St. Mark's Church and the headquarters of the Croatian government and the parliament, the Sabor. Gradec was connected with Kaptol on 7th September 1850 which marks the modern age of Zagreb's administration.

MEDVEDNICA

Sljeme is the top of Medvednica, the mountain north of Zagreb. It is 1035 meters above the sea. There are several paths leading to the top as well as a cable car. Sljeme is one of the favourite excursion sites of Zagreb's city dwellers. There is also a ski path on Sljeme which also hosts a Ski World Cup (the Snow Queen). At the very top, there is a 169 meters high radio and television transmitter built in 1973.

DOLAC...

...is the most famous open-air market in the very center of Zagreb. Every day at Dolac you can buy fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, flowers and many other things.  At the site of today's Dolac market, there used to be the burgeois part of Kaptol made of the towns of Opatovina and Dolec. These were towns with humble houses that were torn down in the 1920s in order for the market to be built.

JARUN

Jarun consists of two lakes, the Big and the Small Lake, and six islands which remind of the sea giving Jarun the name of “the Zagreb Sea“. There is a regatta path of about 2 km on the lake. Around the lake there is an asphalt road about 6 kilometers long and Jarun is therefore one of favourite gathering spots of Zagreb dwellers looking for recreation (bathing, jogging, inline skating, rowing, bike riding and more). The lake is a regular host of rowing and sailing, of still-water kayak and canoe competitions, swimming marathons, athletic and bike races.

THE CATHEDRAL

Since the 19th century the Cathedral has been the symbol of Zagreb and all of Croatia and thus the biggest monument of faith and culture, and the spiritual center of the Croatian people. It was consecrated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the co-saint is St. Stephen the King. They call it the Cathedral of our historic personalities such as Stepinac, Šeper and Kuharić, of the Zrinskis and Frankopans. It was constructed in the neogothic style. The Zagreb Cathedral's  construction in the cross-over romanic and gothic style was started after the foundation of Zagreb's diocese. The construction lasted for a long time and it was only in 1217 that it was completed and consecrated. Soon it was to endure a heavy blow during the Tatar invasion in 1242, but bishop Timotej (1263 - 1287) started completely renovating it in the gothic style.

The renovation lasted well into the 14th and 15th centuries. In the 16th century the cathedral was fortified by bullwarks and towers and in the 17th century it got its massive renaissance tower. Fires and enemy's attacks damaged it several times but the hardest blow to it was dealt in the Great Earthquake in 1880. After the earthquake, the cathedral was completely renovated in the neogothic style (1880 - 1906) according to the project of  F. Schmidt, a Vienna architect, and the reconstruction was conducted by Hermann Bollé. It was then that Zagreb's main church got its today's shape with two elegant towers, high roofage, new pillars and altars inside replacing the baroque ones from the 18th century. Instead of the old tombs of bishops and magnates, a new tomb for Zagreb's archbishops was built behind the main altar.

Beside other great names, Croatian martyrs Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan are buried here after their bones were brought from Wiener Neu Stadt in 1919, as well as Ivan Antun Zrinski, Eugen Kvaternik etc. Zagreb's last three archbishops are also buried here: the beatified Alojzije Stepinac, Franjo Šeper and Franjo Kuharić.