Congratulations for anyone who’s made it with me all the way to the end. It was fun when it started but now we’re at Z, I can admit there have been times when this has felt like a hard slog.
Zadar and Zagreb, Croatia: Yes I’m going to combine two cities from the one country in one entry.
Zadar is a quiet coastal town with an abundance of middle ages history while Zagreb is the nation’s capital with a fancier Austro-Hungarian architectural style.
From Zadar you can take a boat trip out to visit the Kornati Islands National Park.
In Zagreb you can take a funicular and visit the Museum of Broken Relationships.
In Zadar you can admire the sun and the sea captured through art installations, such as the Sea Organ and the Sun Salutation.
In Zagreb you can admire a giant hand painted egg.
In both cities you can probably get burek at any good bakery – and you should. This local speciality of flaky pastry filled variously with cheese, meat, or fruit (separately, not all together) is available all across this part of the world. Cherry flavour in particular comes highly recommended.
Zurich, Switzerland: We were having lunch at a traditional pub type establishment (not sure what they call them in Switzerland – weinstube? estaminet? pub?) and looking out the window at the shop across the street which had a queue outside. What kind of shop has a queue? we wondered. Louis Vuitton, that’s who. There were several people in this queue and they waited outside until a bulky man in a black suit with a clipboard (shop security? I suppose the goods are priced at a level that warrants store security) came and opened the door to let the next people in. This kind of thing puzzles me. For one, I hate queuing for anything – especially for toilets and service in a pub – but also for shops. If I can’t walk in and look around when I want to look around, then sorry, see you later, I’ll go elsewhere. But then again I am not the kind of person who is a target for Louis Vuitton merchandise because brand names really do not excite me. Show me a market where there’s someone selling handbags made in their own backyard workshop and I’m interested. But something like LV I don’t see the value in. It’s not even that it’s so exclusive – you can buy knock-offs of LV bags at my local market, and in fact, I’m more likely to think your LV bag is a knock off than an original. But I guess the people who queue for the Louis Vuitton shop in Zurich are not the kind of people who are worried about impressing me.
I did notice that not many of the people leaving the shop had purchased anything, so all that queuing was a waste of time.
On my places to visit, I’m putting Zanzibar, Tanzania. Beaches and blue sea are appealing enough on their own, but it’s also known as the spice island, so I’m picturing a fragrant market and wonderfully flavoured food.
And that’s it, we’ve reached the end! Thank you for staying with me the whole way through the alphabet as I wandered through time and around the world.
Tales from Tobhamhor 