Zagreb and the not so orient express.

Not going to lie, this was not the most productive day we've had so far. We had the majority of the day to spend in Zagreb before we needed to board our first night train of the trip. However, we couldn't do anything with our big heavy rucksacks so we had to lug them about wherever we went. To be fair we did do a lot of walking the previous day, so we felt quite content with exploring the areas closer to the train station. 

So, first of all we walked up to the grand hotel that used to serve as a rest stop for travellers of the great Orient Express. We considered having a wee coffee just to experience a small slice of what it might have been like to live such an affluent life (the hotel has been visited by the likes of Queen Elizabeth...). I would love to say that we did... But we gazed at the fancy waiters in their fancy suits and then took a look at ourselves and settled upon having our pack lunch in the gardens with a view of the hotel instead. We we haven't had a great experience with customer service in Zagreb so far, one definitely feels like a bit of a nucence, and often treated with suspicion. There have of course been exceptions, Frank (Fiona's dad) recommended a lovely place for us to go for lunch the previous day and the waiters were very welcoming. There have also been some times where the language barrier has made for some interesting results, such as asking for tea and getting a cup of hot juice instead (or is that a Croatian thing?) or when we asked for iced lattes and ended up with a lukewarm coffee as some sort of compromise? Anyhow, by this point we were happy to serve ourselves.

 

 

After a while though we needed to park our bottoms somewhere a bit more comfy, so we gravitated towards a cafe that sold some delicious looking cakes (surprise surprise). Fiona got carrot cake and I got Nutella cake 😋. A great way to blow the last of our Croatian money! Or was it?

 After some more time lounging about and using up free wifi, walking about the neighbourhood, we got pretty thirsty. One of the phrases most used on this trip so far is 'let's go get a beer'. So that's what we set out to do. Turns out you'll find it very hard to find any bar that accepts card in Croatia, and they don't believe in tabs. We looked everywhere. Regretting spending the last of our cash on cake. We really were in despair, our backpacks were getting heavier and we were ready to abandon all hope, but! The bar right next to the train station was our saviour, we could have kissed the barman (to his horror I'm sure). So all ended well, and our last customer experience was a good one, we even got a free shot of baileys thrown in there🙃

So we were jolly (not drunk) when we boarded the first of two night trains for the night, we got a whole cabin to ourselves until we had to get off for our transfer to the connecting train to Vienna. This was at 1:45am. When we boarded night train no.2 we did not have the luxury of a cabin to ourselves, and we were seated right by the door (the cabin is laid out so that when the seats are fully reclined you have to climb over people to get out) those people you climb over? Us. So unfortunately we got woken up in the middle of the night for the gentleman next to us to get up for the bathroom. Fiona didn't sleep after that and I didn't sleep great either (with 5 people in a small cabin we were super squished together). So our experience on a long distance train could not have been further from that of queen Liz's experience on the Orient Express. Oh well. Character building right?

Claire