Day 1 Zagreb, Croatia's capital

With much excitement, for our 40th Anniversary, we boarded Lufthansa's red-eye flight for Croatia. We flew to Munich and then on to Zagreb. We got there in time for a good night's sleep.
Our first Airbnb was walking distance to downtown on 20 Ribnjak Street. The building looked shockingly old, but inside, though small, we enjoyed a cozy night's sleep.
We walked the next morning to the old town of Zagreb. Zagreb began as two walled medieval towns, Gradec and Kaptol, separated by a river. When Croatia gained independence in 1991 after the break-up of Yugoslavia, Zagreb became the capitol. We meandered down the cobbled streets enjoying every sight.
We found a small organic health food store called BioBio and enjoyed some great lattes, a chia seed and fruit pudding, and a humus sandwich. We were ready for the day!
We walked to Lower Town (Donji Grad) that once held the townspeople's farm fields! The main statue is a national hero, Josip Jelacic (YEH-lah-cheech), a 19th century governor.
Then up the hill to Upper Town (Gradic) There is a grand view of the town and the Church of St. Mark. Only a few fragments of the original 13th century church remain. The rebuilt colorful tile roof has two coats of arms - left for North-Central Croatia and right for the Dalmatian coast.
From there we wandered to the farmers market (Dolac) which is held every day!
Time for lunch and we found a great place to eat... Zrno Vegan Restaurant! We needed to get our rental car which required a tram ride. The Lord provided

a kind lady in the BioBio who gave us her extra tram ticket and we jumped on and headed to the car rental place. We drove back to our Airbnb with a bright red Volkswagen Golf. . As we entered, again the Lord provided. The owner just 'happened' to be arriving to clean our room and she graciously helped us with our luggage down a very old and tiny elevator.
Off we headed to Rastovica - a fantastic rural setting for our second Airbnb. Rastovica is a small village close to our early morning destination - Plitvice (Plit-vicha) National Park. We loved the setting and the accommodations of our house called Olga. What a wonderful evening complete with a walk about the village viewing beautiful, well-tended family gardens. A thunderstorm was brewing and the skies were so dramatic. It was warm and really a wonderful evening. We thought we would drive to Plitvice and tour part of the falls, but when we got there the rain had begun and it was too late. More for tomorrow!