The view from a cafe after Sunday Mass in the upper town
This is the cafe from which I took the previous photo. The cathedral is in the background. Pope John Paul II led a church service at the cathedral in 1994 to mark the 900th anniversary of the Diocese of Zagreb.
My cousin Yada and I posing by a babushka statue in Dolac, Zagreb's open air market.
The ceiling of the Octogon which is near the city center and an open air pedestrian passageway
The Octagon near the city center
This is the Archeological Museum near Jelacic Square and located in the historical Vrancyzany-Hafner Palace in Zrinjevac Park. The best known and most valuable item in the museum is the famous linen book of Zagreb, a manuscript with the longest preseved text in the Etruscan language, and the only preseved example of a linen book in the entire classical world. Maybe we can visit it when we return to Zagreb this summer.
Zrinjevac Park
St. Mark's Church marks the center of Gradec. The roof depicts the Croatian, Dalmatian, and Slavonian coats-of-arms and also the Zagreb city emblem. Inside are works by Ivan Mestrovic, Croatia's most famous sculptor. He was the first living person to have a one man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He was born in 1883 and lived throughout Europe but returned to Croatia and settled in Zagreb after World War I. When Croatia became part of Yugoslavia after World War II, Mestrovic refused to live in a communist country. He eventually emigrated to the United States, and President Eisenhower personally presided over the ceremony when Mestrovic became an American citizen in 1954. In 1955, Mestrovic became a professor at the University of Notre Dame. Before he died, he signed off his Croatian estates to the people of Croatia, including over 400 sculptures and numerous drawings. He is buried in his childhood hometown of Otavice. There is a Mestrovic Atelier in Zagreb which I visited in 1973 with Yada and M.T. Karlinger. Frank and I also visited it in 1991, but I hope to visit it again this summer.
Annette (in the shadows) walking down from Gradec (upper town).
Lower town approaching the city center
An accordion player across from Jelacic Square
Count Josip Jelacic's statue was decorated to commemorate the 20th anniversary of a famous battle that took place near Zadar on the Dalmatian Coast. During the war with Serbia, Serbia held areas of southern coastal Croatia, but after this battle, a bridge was won back and the southern part of Croatia was once again united with the rest of the country. Yada and Darko translated the signs placed by the statue. They basically are reminding the Croatian people to never forget those who died for Croatia in this important battle.
Yada's homemade apple strudel...yum!!!!
Yada with her 92-year-old mother, Nada. Nada is amazing! She hasn't changed much since we saw her 22 years ago during our visit to Croatia. She has the jolliest personality and is always smiling and talking. One of her secrets of a long life is having some wine with dinner every day. One night when Darko went to visit his aunt, he left without finishing his glass of slivovitz (plum brandy) that we had enjoyed before dinner. Nada eyed the slivovitz, and smiling, she spiked her hot tea with it. Nada loves to talk about her great-grandson, Damian, and she is busy calling siblings and other relatives to chat on the phone. She also does crossword puzzles daily. We loved spending time with her!
Yada serving another wonderful dessert. This one she learned to make from her German aunt. It has wafers on the outside and chocolate inside.
Darko and Yada doing the dishes. Yes, they cooked and chauffeured us around, and after we ate they insisted on doing the clean-up themselves. Frank and I felt like lugheads.
This is a photo of the Colorado Plese family (my mother's family) which hangs in Nada's apartment in Zagreb.
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