Zagreb, Croatia

The story of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, may have started right here. At least that's what the legend says.

Once upon a time ... a soldier returning home from battle stopped at this natural spring that was located in the middle of the city. He asked a little girl named Manda to "scoop" up some water. Scoop is the operative word here, because it translates in Croatian to "zagrebiti." The spring had been there since ancient times. The soldier took a needed drink. The gesture became famous. 

Eventually, the city was named Zagreb, partly because of the incident. If it's not true, it should be.

Late in the 19th century, the spring was covered over by a construction job and completely forgotten. However, in 1986 it was found again during some work at Republic Square. A fountain was quickly designed for it, and is a major landmark in downtown Zagreb today. 

With that subject covered, let's move on to the present day - and there's something every new traveler to the area should know. This is earthquake country. We were there in March of 2026. A website reported that there was an earthquake in the region about every other day or so in that time. Most of them probably weren't felt at all, and none of them caused any problems. 

That wasn't the case in 2020. If having a Covid-19 epidemic starting up in the spring wasn't a big enough  problem, a 5.3 earthquake hit the region in March. The center was a little more than four miles from Zagreb. Only one fatality took place as a result of the quake, but the damage was massive to the city. The best guess is that the earthquake did 11.5 billion Euros worth of damage. 

You don't fix that much damage over night. There aren't enough workers to handle it all at once. Even six years later, there is still a lot to do. The major buildings in town are still closed in many cases, and there probably is a long waiting line for workers to come to houses. That's left sections of the town looking a little empty, and in some cases a little sketchy. 

Zagreb isn't what it was because of that, and it isn't what it will be in a few more years. It's still a nice city, with some good architecture around the town. Just arrive with the proper expectations.