Zagreb, February 2024

2024

16 February, Friday

My taxi driver from the airport was a bit like an older Peter Sellers. We got on well and soon he showed me a selfie video in which he introduced a passenger he didn’t meet every day. The camera turned to an amused Luka Modrić. 

From Hotel Dubrovnik I went and got something quick to eat, before moving on to Krolo until half past ten. At the counter I was next to three good-looking ladies who got quite a lot of drinks bought for them for being nice scenery. Eventually the dark one (very pretty) started glancing over, as if shots goggles were sharpening her vision. I too bought them a round, before I left, but I’d also given them a couple of bar stools earlier. They had to be persuaded to take them. The dark girl was willing to stand. She had an exquisite smile and a tasteful grey-green jacket. Nail extensions suggested hairdresser from among the caring professions. 

Of the familiar faces among the male patrons, the man with the rug adjusted it at one point. He was only on water. The old lad with glasses who gave me back my bar stool (2023) turned up on my left and I had a chat with him and got him a drink, as I did for the distinguished man with the shaved head at the end of the counter, beyond the girls. The gent of the joint. He was on white wine and looked important, as he had free access to the back of the bar. Some of these characters are visible in a photo I took on my first visit. 

The man of distinction bought the babes two rounds and laughed when, on my way to the gents, I said to him, U Irskoj, daju nešto malo natrag. Despite the little joke about reciprocity, the girls weren’t bothering anyone. They were just out to enjoy the night. Krolo isn’t a place for noses in the air. Their chief benefactor and I later exchanged a round. It’s a great pub. It sits next door to an undertaker’s.

17 February, Saturday

It turned out I was very tired, and I slept long, even though, after half seven, a wan burst in on me when I was spread-eagled under nothing but a t-shirt. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the entertainment. It must have been a cleaning lady making a mistake.

In the middle of the day, I went up to Grič. The sun was shining. I went up via Mesnička and soon got away from the crowds of the lower town. In Pod Starim Krovovima I had three ‘small’ ones. A grey-beard poetry session ended while I was there, and then, near the bar, a young man in glasses in his thirties started tipping away on guitar and vocals. I gave him a tenner as I left. He seemed genuinely surprised that I funded his jam.

I could have stayed up there longer but hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so it seemed wise to do that. Around four I headed down Radićeva and crossed Krvavi Most, where I spotted wedding snaps in progress.

I was on my way to Leonardo’s on Skalinska, which runs up from Tkalčićeva ulica, the Zagreb entertainment strip. The odrezak wasn’t crisp like the first time there (2022) but it was quick, and I got it into me without side effects.

Tonight, by accident, I came across the sheltered Pingvin kiosk on Teslina in the lower town and a non-greasy kebab meal there (with a drink and a small bag of chips/fries) did the trick once more. The big Croat inside with the two little Chinese women (there for the cooking) asked me for a euro to make the change easier (i.e. for a tenner back out of twenty) but I didn’t have any sitan novac, so I went, OK, pet natrag, je dosta, and I got a fiver back with a beam of success. But it was worth it. When I told him that before I left, he gave me the same knowing smile. I’d say he’d seen it all from in there.

18 February, Sunday 

At eight this morning, a man opened my door, again without even a knock. I guessed technician. I’m back from breakfast now at ten and, as I left the lift, a young Indian fella seemed to have just emerged from my room, again. Wtf is going on with them? Multiple intruders.

On a bench in the city centre park called Zrinjevac, killing time before heading to the airport, I overheard nearby three young people with a camera conducting an interview in Irish. The interviewee was a girl with her arm in a sling, an injury she got from Brazilian jujitsu. She had an American accent. When I spoke to them (“Maith sibh, agallamh thar barr…”), they were even more amazed at an Irish speaker turning up than I was.

Trnava 24 Sept 2023

Slovakia

It was the ecclesiastical capital for the Hungarians back in the Turkish time (roughly 1541-1686) and now Trnava is like a beautiful old mouth that, here and there, has lost a tooth to a cheap replacement. The house of culture on the south side of the main square is the worst example but, across from that, there’s also a post office block, of which I heard a Dutchman observe online that it had at least got a lick of paint (unlike, he said, in Bulgaria). Furthermore, the St. Nicholas bell towers always remind me of candle snuffers but there’s a lot of scaffolding up that end at the time of writing.

Apart from the Baroque legacy, the Ostsiedlung is still visible in Trnava too. The same story as elsewhere in western Slovakia, the Germans were brought in by a Hungarian king in the wake of the Mongol invasion (1241).

I’m glad I went. It’s just more texturally impressive onsite than online, even underfoot, with the rectangular paving stones, known now to me as setts, and the neat, smooth cobbles. All the notable buildings seemed a bit bigger too.

On the Sunday, Trnava was quiet. On the way back to the station we stopped at a café near the bottom of Hlavná, the main street that leads up to the tower on the square. Neither was impressed by the four euro per modest, if tasty, slice of cake. No Slovak is going to pay that for a couple of mouthfuls of cake but at any rate the cheaper beer and coffee were just as tasty and, overall, this country is inexpensive.

On the train back to Bratislava, the only people making noise in the carriage (with their inane conversation about past jobs abroad) were four young Englishmen dressed like well-fed Americans, in shorts and baseball caps. 

The Back Streets of Sopron

Quicker than walking … the tour route (see below) lies beyond the Várkerület that rings the well-known Belváros / Altstadt / Old Town, as seen in the distance at the beginning and end here. Sopron’s German name is Ödenburg and many street signs are bilingual. By train, Sopron lies an hour and a quarter south of Vienna (Wien Hbf). As he was born nearby, Liszt’s first public performance took place in Ödenburg in November 1820, when he was nine. Hence the music in the video.

P.S. the Belváros

Sopron May 2019

Old Town Bratislava

Bratislava lacks the attitude of perhaps most capitals, probably because it’s a relatively new one, politically if not historically. Of course, if you get into a taxi at the airport rank or at Petržalka station – the major one (of two) that lies south of the Danube – you’ll probably get chiselled in some way but the odds remain that you’ll be done for a lot less than you would be in Prague.

The first time I was here, in the Staré Mesto (2016), I got some novädzi gúlaš at a place where a young-ish American with long hair slicked back behind his ears was wearing sunglasses. On a rainy night. At an unlit table. He ignored both waiters who thanked him as he departed. On the way back to the hotel I passed a lone English stag party near Michael’s Gate. The trams beyond the gate made an eerie, whistling sound in the wet. The wheels were whining in the night.

When I came back (2019) the bright morning after arrival meant a sweaty climb to the Castle. At least the shop there had a couch. At least I bought some postcards to justify the seat. (It’s worth knowing that hotovost’ and s kartou denote ‘cash’ and ‘with a card’ in both Czech and Slovak.)

Upon descending we stopped at a place beside St. Martin’s cathedral. The woman smilingly corrected my chléb (Czech) to chlieb (Slovak) after one of my companions nudged me to ask for sliced bread to go with the toast on his platter.

It was the afternoon when I got most of my photos that time and spotted another lone, harmless, English stag party in town. This meandering, photo-taking, was an essay in relaxation. Happily (2023) the old town hasn’t lost the kind of calm humanity it shares with, for example, Zagreb.

Zagreb 28 March 2023

2023

28 March, Tuesday 

AM 

The eight o’clock flight didn’t take off until half past nine so flying faster and shaving half an hour in the air didn’t achieve a whole lot. The taxi man was older and bigger than me and when I stuck out my hand, he squeezed it like a Balkan bear. A man of few words, he drove up to the hotel door, ignoring the pedestrian zone at the late hour. He only smiled when I gave him a tenner. Having given the docket to the night porter, he did it again when saying good night. I wonder how many inhuman fares give these guys nothing, given the damage goes on the hotel bill. In the airport car park, I’d asked him could I sit in front, and he said, no, no, but it was only on the empty road that I copped that the front passenger seat was where he stored all his sh*t. Between the seats I could see a cable and what not. I’m glad I chose a bit of comfort here at the Hotel Dubrovnik. The room has two doubles and a minibar. I’m not sure which of the beds I’ll sleep in.

4 PM 

Got lunch (goulash) at Mali Medo after walking the parks horseshoe; then had a nap. The waiter smiled at the nationality (iz Irske) of the tipper. I was gladly paying extra for any practice. I’d made it to the hotel breakfast before ten but then briefly gone back to bed. A waitress had told me at the coffee machine that I was a good boy to have learnt some Croatian, unlike most visitors. I think I’ll go up the hill to Grič now for a while, though I’m not thirsty. There is pleasant sunshine, though the morning was a little cold. The Croats are not loud. They look human as they pass. They don’t have alien expressions on their faces. 

11 PM 

The lad behind the counter in Pod Starim Krovovima had a beard and a shaved head. He said he thought my accent or way of speaking was Slovenian. Did he give me the one on the house just because I was the first in? I didn’t quite catch that bit. The bog-of happened when I ordered a second drink. He put up two pints for the price of one. I left before dark and down the hill ducked into Krolo, which was dark and busy, though I got a counter stool and soaked up the scene. I left there before nine, thinking I’d get some grub at the Submarine, but by then Croatia was playing on TV and I was reduced to crisps from a kiosk and the minibar. Now I’ve been here twice, I’m a veteran, so to speak. I’ll be back again, with better flight times. 

Prague Scams

2022

25 October, Tuesday 

The taxi driver was waiting in the airport as arranged. No hassle. A presentable lad in a good car, he smiled and shook my hand in response to a decent tip. Once checked in, I had two pints downstairs in U Medvídků. No more orders taken after half past ten put a stop to unwinding. I walked then to the Old Town Square and back. An awful lot of foreign youngsters roamed the cobbled streets.

This truly is the smallest hotel room I’ve ever had (€104 per night, out of season). I’ve walked into bigger wardrobes.

26 October, Wednesday 

In Prague, the chiselling is official. The country’s largest bank (Česká spořitelna) forces conversion charges on cash withdrawals by foreign cards at its ATMs. It’s a completely legal scam. The dreary rain came as I crossed the Charles Bridge and headed uphill. I stopped off in the Church of St. Nicholas to film the ceiling.

The minor tourist mob at the metal detectors kept me out of the Castle. Up there I instead went to find the Black Ox (U Černého vola). The lovely waitress looked very like someone I used to know but this one was a little bit shorter, a little bit curvier and a little bit prettier. It was a long afternoon but I got out of it by six, having paid no more than €25 (equivalent) for a simple lunch plate and a load of pints to pass the time. The Czechs are an unsmiling bunch in the main but this was the only place I heard anyone laugh. The waitress, the man at the taps, a couple of regulars, it was a pleasant sound, in the otherwise general absence of charm. 

27 October, Thursday 

I got scammed by the driver of a taxi the hotel called at my request this morning. The swarthy greaseball didn’t even step out of the car to check for any baggage but I was tired and my antennae weren’t up. Lesson to self: don’t be too tired to deal with the unexpected. This wasn’t going to be as smooth as my arrival but I’d naturally presumed the hotel would use a reputable taxi firm, with or without prior arrangement. “The cab company with the best reputation is AAA Taxi,” says the Pocket Rough Guide to Prague. Evidently the very rough guide.   

For example, the thousand crown note that I had for the fare (an ample amount) disappeared after I handed it over and turned to reach for my bag on the back seat. He insisted I’d handed him a hundred. For another example, he then loudly and falsely insisted 900 crowns were worth €70. By then I was too tired and confused to go, “What?? No it’s f***ing not!” Given I had no more Czech currency, I paid him off in euros to be rid of him. That’s somewhere crossed off. I did Prague and Prague did me. The poster in the hotel breakfast room had already explained what was expected of tourists.

Hitching in the Eighties

Dr. John Flynn

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A Sardinian Sunset

Alghero, September 2022

In the evenings, beneath our windows, a crowd gathered to watch the sun go down over Capo Caccia.

The compact old town’s ‘cobbles’ could be more comfortable underfoot instead of being just pebbles on edge, set in concrete. Wear appropriate footwear. You will see also one or two lines of flagstones on many of the narrow streets but the people and bikes coming against you will prefer to use them too.

The nicest cafe I saw (and sat at more than once) was the Girasol at the southwest corner of the old town.

Here’s a short Italian lesson from the rush of our last morning, when we had to be out at ten. A busy tout (delatore = informer) hailed a cop car to tell the lads I was putting a supermarket sacchetto (plastic bag) of rubbish in a street bin, all of which usually had glass bottles and pizza wreckage filling them by nightfall anyway. I talked my way out of it by explaining the nationality (always advisable) and the circumstance (see above). The polizia just told me to bring the few plastic bottles I had left back to the apartment. That retired couple of ficcanesi (busybodies) had to be out on patrol early for the likes of me. 

Stories of Linz

I’d passed through Hitler’s hometown before I ever got out there. In a heatwave in August 2015, a Hamburg gentleman of about sixty spotted me at breakfast in Vienna, applying a serviette to my face. He came over, hoarsely repeating the German word for Hell. 

Hölle! Hölle! 

On the train to Salzburg that day my mother and I got talking to a retired American couple who’d sold their house in upstate New York to move to Florida. I think Bob sold his mass of Waterford glass on eBay. His wife had fallen off the train that had brought them as far as Linz. I didn’t ask why they had come by Linz. They were thinking of squeezing in the Sound of Music tour, despite the evident lack of enthusiasm of the holiday planner, their daughter.

We left Salzburg two mornings later. In the station a black vintage train pulled up at our platform. Uniformed serving staff jumped out to unravel short rolls of red carpet below each carriage door. Who could these passengers be? They were Australian tourist casualties from Linz. They had to be practically carried off. One old lady was handed down a set of wheels like those that belong in a nursing home. The next woman out that door was a bit younger and had better pins but she sported a broken arm.

I got off in Linz that December. Down past Hauptplatz the bridge over the Danube crosses to the Urfahr end of the city. The car lights on the bridge shone through the murk as an icy mist blew up from the water. After heading back I found a small and dark pub down a long tunnel that is typical of Upper Austria. The pretty young blonde behind the counter didn’t know what a hot whiskey was so I had a few bottles of Weizenbier instead. My eyes at times were stinging with the smoke, long banned in Ireland, as the place filled up.

It was small and dark but there was a lot of people then and it was amazing how the girl handled it alone. Some people were coming to the counter, some were ordering from tables, some were paying up front, some were running a tab. When the boss turned up and held a full ashtray under her nose, as an admonition, she rolled her eyes (“Ah, du spasst mich”) and shook her head.

The guy next to me at the counter wouldn’t have looked out of place among the crew of U-96 (Das Boot), down with all the scraggy beards and hunted eyes. He said the informal people of Upper Austria hadn’t much use for Sie, except with Polizei und Richter (police and judges). He ordered something that looked like a grilled slice of a large brown loaf, topped with some cheese etc. He told me what it was called (Holzknecht) and then I had it too, a traditional meal for poor people working in the woods.

The next night saw a different barmaid there, a dark girl with exotic eyes. I got talking to a bespectacled young darts fan who was only into the darts on TV because some Austrian had qualified for the last whatever of the world championship. J. wasn’t the only person during this trip to ask, Warum Österreich? As for why Austria, I referred to a quote from the actor Christoph Waltz.

Austrians tend to make their lives easier, so first of all they are very polite and second they don’t mean it… The difference between Austrians and Germans is very much like Irish and English.

The down-to-earth impression made by Linz that first time brought me back for a couple of days in October 2017. While we were enjoying coffee and dessert in the elegant Café Traxlmayr, a pair of retired ladies chatting intently over a couple of tall beers attracted the attention of my wingman.

Fair play to the two old dears, tanning the pints in the middle of the day.

That night, we ended up in the small, dark place once more. The girl with the striking eyes was behind the counter. They were green, interesting, hard to read. I took a photo of a young chap buckled at a table where she kindly left a pint of water.

On the train to Vienna in the morning, a row developed between the couple sitting at the table across from ours. She was on the phone for a long time first, a good-looking girl with faintly Asiatic features. Russian, I guessed, from a few words I could make out, such as mozhnó, droog and rabot. When he wasn’t eating (an apple, a banana, other stuff) or sleeping behind a hanging jacket, he spoke to her in English and his accent was Germanic (i.e. Austrian).

They had a weekend engagement in Vienna, so flowers and a present had to be bought for their hosts, but first he wanted to deposit her at the Albertina while he walked around. Unfortunately for her, it seemed he intended for her to carry three bags while at the museum. “I’m shocked,” she said, several times. She also observed that he was “the man in this couple”, which had Mr. Sensitive asking how she managed whenever she was on her own. She countered with, “But I’m not on my own now” so Prince Charming offered to carry one of the bags.

Several times I’ve gone back to Linz. At the Hotel Wolfinger my fourth-floor room overlooked the Hauptplatz rather impressively. I could hear a clarinet by one of the cafés below my window. The trams rolled up and down through the long square with a steady rumble.

It was a quiet Sunday night, the night an old nutter with a cravat and smelly feet marched in with his sunglasses on. He started causing hassle about the pub service, the drink and the music. Diese Musik ist Gift für mich! Poison it may have been to him but it wasn’t even loud. Feeling a mixture of irritation and gallantry, I used du when telling him in exasperation to leave the girl with the exotic eyes alone and just wait for his Guinness to settle. In a how-dare-you tone of voice he announced he had a doctorate (“Summa cum laude” blahdy blah). When I said that so did I (“Ja? Ich auch.”), he then said he had TWO of them. Then he called the cops to report the impudent Gast at the counter but he quickly paid up and fled when the barmaid told him she’d had enough of him. She called the owner. Soon two cops walked in, so we had to do a bit of explaining. Anyway, the Polizei seemed to be somehow familiar with this character and his antics and they soon left us in peace. We did a gentle high five before she observed the nut-job wasn’t as bad as the Nazi who had thrown a pint over her, some other night.

It wasn’t the only boozer in Linz where I saw someone get barred. In a heavy metal bar, the metal from the speakers was generally boring but it wasn’t too loud. One entrant to the pub was refused service. The rather pissed but well-dressed, middle-class gentleman was in a better state than many drunks at home. All he did to cause offence was bow extravagantly to the rockers at the low tables but, anyway, a good suit must be the new long hair, to be met with a frown and expulsion.

The last time I went to Linz, pre-Covid, it was January 2019 and the landscape in Austria was snowy and icy. On the train an Elvis impersonator – der König – sat down with his kit bag nearby before I moved to the dining car, where the low drone of a deep American voice was a constant. It went on and on about a cookery class. The man’s hair, like the King’s, was a mite darker than it should have been at his age.

Having checked into the hotel, I had to get something quick to eat. The cold froze my arse in a heavy snowfall on the way down Landstrasse to the famous Bosner Eck hotdog stand. The lights of that long street looked wonderful through the brief blizzard but I was almost sick with the cold. Back at the hotel I donned a pair of pyjama leggings before heading to the pub.

One Stammgast (regular) called S. told a story about getting his own back on some Russians, who had spiked him with gherkins injected with vodka, by spiking them with an Austrian wine elixir called Sturm, which also acts as a laxative. In his workplace he was “Herr Doktor”, of course, though he did amusingly describe the German managerial habit of shouting as useless for Austrian productivity.

His face dropped a little only when I included Mauthausen in the list of the Austrian places I’d visited. Normally I omit that but this time I threw it in, for the hell of it.

On one of the trains I’ve taken out of Linz sat a retired nurse. After I put her heavy bag up on the rack we chatted all the way to Vienna. Her parents came from Steyr. She said they had never bought into the Nazi fad and added that her father had taken sustained pleasure after the war in reminding those who did that they had done so. In Austrian culture it seems no one admitting to have cheered Hitler on Heldenplatz in Vienna in 1938 is the other side of the comic coin of the Irish once all claiming to have been in the GPO for Easter 1916.

Zagreb, March 2022

2022

4 March, Friday

I got lost trying what seemed the quickest way from the bus terminal and found myself at the main station, the Glavni Kolodvor. Going there first would have been simplest, on an L-shaped route. At least I then saw the crisp three parks between the apartment block and the trains.

After a kip and a shower I wrapped up in my new scarf and went to get something to eat. A burger and chips (fries) are the regulation first rations wherever one storms ashore. I found a small table and a blanket at The Submarine on Bogovićeva in the lower town.

Two bottles of Grička vještica (‘Witch of Grič’) later, I headed for the hill of her name. Radićeva is really steep in part and I missed the Kamenita vrata (gate) on the way up in the dark. It’s the site of some works. Anyway, I made it via some stairs to Pod Starim Krovovima, the oldest pub in Zagreb.

There I requested a veliko pivo (a bottle of Zlatorog was served up) before I got the small table near the door. It’s in this pic I found online, minus the red tablecloth.

The place was buzzing, in a nice way, in which no hammered patron got messy, but the smoking ban is just for lolz. Pizza deliveries peppered the night. I like to prepare for events, dear boy, abroad, and so proved able to read a message in biro taped to the door of the gents. The guys had to share the one for the dolls. I left shortly before the midnight closing time.

5 March, Saturday

Sleeping in segments until I had enough recouped, I didn’t wake fully until one and didn’t leave the apartment for another hour. I needed lunch. I got it at a place called Leonardo’s on the sloping Skalinska. It was a good, crisp Zagrebački odrezak (in this case, breaded chicken schnitzel, stuffed with ham & cheese) when I needed it.

While there I watched a grizzled hawker push trolley after market trolley up that street. For a while he had an assistant with one hand on a front corner, like a navigator, but soon even he vanished. Each time, the Sisyphus used to pause for a rest (a holding position) on the path across from where I sat.

Up on Grič I wandered around the old streets in the dusk. Much renovation is underway. The square around St. Mark’s is fenced off, with lots of cops on the scene. Navy blue overalls and black boots.

A small wedding party headed down to Pod Starim Krovovima to warm the cockles but I wasn’t having any drink today. My last task was to find a supermarket. I tracked down a Spar with my phone. Being able to ask for a plastic bag in a local language is a mark of integration. Such also allows a tourist to approach the tills with un-weighed bananas and calmly explain, Stvar kaže, kraju papira (‘The thing says, the end of the paper’), without earning a ‘ffs’ eye-roll in response.

Zagreb is cheap, safe and easy on the eye.