Day 3: Varaždin

We had a really nice day in Zagreb on Thursday, but managed to see most of the main sights within an afternoon, so were in the unexpected position of having a free day for an excursion on Friday. We contemplated going to Maximir Park, which is a large landscaped garden on the outskirts of Zagreb that we visited last year, but we thought that we probably wouldn't be able to spend a day there so we turned to the guide book for ideas. Unfortunately I hadn't brought the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to Croatia with me, so we were reliant on only a small city guide to Zagreb which suggested a few places outside the city centre. One of its best suggestions was to visit a mountain called Medvednica outside the town where you could apparently take a cable car to the top and have a lovely view. It sounded like fun, but when we googled it on the shaky hotel wi-fi connection with the aim of working out exactly how to get there, we established that the cable car had actually closed for repairs in 2007 and wasn't expected to open again until 2015. Oh dear!

Luckily the guidebook had another suggestion, the city of Varaždin which is situated about 50 miles north of Zagreb. Although only a small town today, it used to be the capital of Croatia and has some beautiful baroque buildings and a castle. It sounded like an ideal location for a day trip, so the only decision remaining to be taken was how to get there. The guidebook told us that it was possible to reach the town either by train or by bus. The bus journey would be faster, taking only 90 minutes, but would also be more expensive at about £9 each per direction. The train journey would be much slower, taking two and a half hours, but would also be cheaper at only £5 each per direction, and according to the guidebook would be really scenic. We decided to go for the train

After breakfast in the hotel, we crossed the road to the train station and succeeded in purchasing the tickets. We had time to spare, so picked up some tasty meat burek from the station bakery to sustain us on our travels. The guidebook had warned us that the train would be slow, stopping at a number of local stations on route, but I don't think we were prepared for quite how slow it actually was. No sooner had it started up and begun to approach a decent speed, it slowed down again and stopped at the first station. Some of the places we stopped at on route looked more like bus stops than train stations, devoid even of noticeable signs saying announcing where they were. A range of people got on and off as the journey progressed, though we seemed to be the only people who were travelling the whole way from Zagreb to Varaždin. Whenever the railway followed along by the side of a road, the cars had no difficulty in overtaking us, and at times we were slightly concerned that the train wasn't going to make it, as it began to shake and rattle in a quite peculiar manner! It was an extremely pretty journey though, taking us through quite mountainous countryside at times. There was even a sprinkling of snow left in some places

When we eventually arrived in Varaždin, the first thing we noticed was that there wasn't a sign to the town centre. This posed somewhat of a problem, as we didn't have a map and the information desk in the station didn't appear to be open. Luckily there was an information board on the side of the station building, which detailed some of the station's history and explained that a street called Kolodvorska led from the station into the main town centre. We managed to find this street and started walking towards the town, passing a variety of imposing villas on the way. When we reached a crossroads we were uncertain of which way to go next, but Tim bravely practised his Croatian by asking for directions and a few more streets took us right into the centre of the town, where we were greeted with a magnificent view of Varaždin castle.

The weather had really thawed compared to earlier in the week, so we were able to sit outside at a cafe and enjoy a much-needed coffee. The coffee in both hotels had been quite disappointing, seemingly not containing any caffeine, and so we were feeling a bit withdrawn. Suitably revived and now armed with a map of Varaždin from the local tourist information office, we set off to see the sights. The town plan made the place look deceptively big, but when we accidentally walked past a couple of sights by mistake, we realised that it was actually quite compact. We started by walking around the castle, which had been built to withstand the Ottomans and was surrounded by big embankments which we were able to stroll around.

We then made our way into the main town where we saw some colourful churches and some really beautiful buildings.

There was also a slightly scary statue of Grgor of Nin, a bishop who incurred the wrath of the Vatican by holding church services in the local language rather than in Latin during the tenth century. Apparently rubbing his big toe will bring you good luck, but we felt a bit squeamish about toes so didn't try it!

There were also some novel Christmas decorations around the town. I particularly liked these ones

We chanced upon a nice pizza restaurant to have lunch in. The food was amazing and the bill was even more amazing; for two pizzas, a schnitzel and chips, two apple juices and a beer we were charged a mere 140 kuna, which equates to about £15. Varaždin is definitely the cheapest Croatian town which we have ever been to.

It was soon time to embark on the long train journey back to Zagreb. The train was surprisingly full this time, with lots of schoolchildren from the surrounding villages travelling home, but once again few people were making the entire journey between the two cities so for at least an hour we managed to get a compartment to ourselves.

In the evening we headed out into Zagreb for a final walk around the Christmas markets and enjoyed some more Gluehwein in Zrinjevac. There wasn't a lot of food on offer at the market, so when we started to feel peckish again we ended up in a grill restaurant where we had some nice wine and some even nice flatbread called lepinja