Zagreb, fish and Nirvana

With a couple of hours to kill until our room was ready we headed out into Zagreb to explore, armed with the Lonely Planet and a keen sense of direction.

After a restorative CocaCola Zero and coffee overlooking the Market we sought out Amfora - a recommended restaurant - pushing our way through the chain smoking market traders drinking beer at the entrance we entered the bar that smelled like a fish mongers and were ushered upstairs. We looked around for menus but instead were presented with a platter of raw fish - all still with faces!

Through the medium of mime and pigeon English we managed to order fish soup and giant whitebait (for Hywel) and fish risotto (for Sarah and I). I commented on how unexpected it was that this hole in the wall was playing such great music - Nirvana followed by Garbage, then Dusty Springfield launched into Son of a Preacher Man, at this point I realised the iPhone in my pocket was in iPod mode and playing a Genius playlist...

The food arrived - the risotto was a bit tasteless, but this was more than compensated for by the half a kilo of salt that had been added to the giant bowl of tomatoes that accompanied it. The whitebait was more successful.

Dinner at Agava was altogether more successful - Dalmatian ham, Pag cheese, truffle sauce and Dalmatian stuffed beef!

The following day we hit Zagreb hard - culture in the morning at the modern art museum, a picnic in the botanical gardens (procured from Croatia's grumpiest market traders), afternoon nap in the park and a trip to the cinema in the evening before heading to the station for our night of luxury aboard the night sleeper to Split....