Europe’s most underrated capital has everything, except crowds

Is Zagreb Europe’s most underrated capital? I’m beginning to think it might be. It has everything you expect of a European city – trams, leafy avenues, fountains, parks, unusual museums, cafe tables spilling onto cobblestones, a satisfying old town – without the tourist hordes.

Zagreb upper town: Everything you expect from a European city.

It doesn’t have big-name sights, which is a good thing. I’ve no need to plod around cathedrals and bling-laden palaces. I don’t have to queue at some monument. Instead, I can sit in parks where students sunbathe or enjoy beers amid excitable Croatian soccer fans watching televised matches.

The contrast with Dubrovnik couldn’t be greater. Dubrovnik is impressive, but it isn’t Croatia. It’s a hot and overcrowded Disneyfied medieval stage, devoid of local life and filled with tourist restaurants and shops. Residents, who’ve long since abandoned the old town, are beginning to think they don’t want any more visitors.

History and street life side by side.Credit: Getty Images

Not in Zagreb. Visitors aren’t a novelty, but they aren’t an invading horde either. I feel absorbed into the fabric of a growing, rapidly changing city that goes about its own business.

Zagreb celebrates local things in its statues to assassinated politicians and obscure Croatians. Well, obscure to me, anyway, until I flash my phone at the attached QR codes and get a quiet little lesson in history.

In Dubrovnik, history is potted and predictable, and half the time confused by fans with episodes of Game of Thrones. In Zagreb, I’m taught what’s important to Croatians, which is surely what any interesting capital ought to do.

I’m on a tour of the Balkans with Collette, a company that likes to poke beyond the predictable to get a real flavour of the destinations it visits. We started in Dubrovnik but were soon off the beaten tourist trail at Mostar and Sarajevo, then back into Croatia for a stay at rural Karanac.

Zagreb’s Cvjetni Square.

On our first afternoon in Zagreb, a tour with excellent Collette local guide Hrvoje gives us a pleasant overview of the city and sets us up for free time the next day to explore on our own.

All good guides give you the big picture but also take you to interesting places you’d probably never visit yourself. The small Museum of Naive Art proves delightful, displaying quirky landscapes and cityscapes by Croatian artists that play with notions of what proper art might be.

The whole city is quirky. Another museum is dedicated to broken relationships. At midday, a cannon is fired from a tower, making the uninitiated leap in surprise. The old town is still lit by 240 gas lamps. The Church of St Mark has a roof tiled in patterns and emblazoned with coats of arms.

Meeting to mingle: Old Town courtyard.

My favourite corner of the old town is Stone Gate, under whose thick arch a statue of the Virgin Mary hunkers. It has become a pilgrim site. Locals leave flowers and stop to pray in the middle of going about their business. Such things haven’t yet turned into a tourist attraction in Zagreb.

Beyond the old town are rings of squares, shopping streets, an outdoor market, endless beer halls and cafes. Maybe Zagreb is grey and dull in winter, but in summer it’s outdoorsy, coloured with cafe parasols and flowerbeds, and buzzing with energy and the clink of wine glasses.

Collette journeys provide an agreeable combination of curated and leisure time. Zagreb is just the place to mosey about on my own. A good swathe of the central city is pedestrianised. Parks erupt everywhere, inviting me to rest my feet. In the evening, I dine in a backstreet restaurant, surrounded by locals, and the bill is a fraction of what it would be in Dubrovnik. What’s not to like?

THE DETAILS

TOUR
Collette’s new 15-day “The Balkans from Coastal Greece to Legendary Croatia” tour starts in Zagreb and finishes in Athens. It visits other destinations in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

The tour has regular departures until mid-October 2025. From $7699 a person twin share including accommodation, transport, select meals and tour guides. See gocollette.com

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infozagreb.hr

The writer travelled as a guest of Collette.