Well, I was out of form yesterday, because I think the solitude of an empty tourist area is getting on my nerves. But everything is changing today, because I am going into the country to the capital, Zagreb. I would imagine folks there live their normal lives 365 days a year, so it is sure to be lively. But first we need to get over the coast ranges, which from the coast look tall and forbidding. The highest peaks are snow-clad and as jagged as the Alps. As we drove through them the temperature plummeted to -5 degrees C and a thin dusting of snow covered the forest. Oh dear, I hope I am not going to freeze myself.
The mountains are all one could have expected from fairy tales about the impenetrable Bohemian forests, including wolves and bears, but I am sure that in the spring they become glorious. Yesterday I finally found the poorly preserved outline of an ammonite, so I am now pretty confident that all the rocks exposed around me are Mesozoic.
The bus made a short stop at a town called Gospić ... now, where have I heard that name ... Gospić ... aha! I have it, this is where Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor and electrical engineer was born! A quick Google search confirmed that he was born in Simijan, municipality of Gospić, but they call him Serbian, whereas we are in Croatia (maybe his parents were from Serbia), although at the time all Croatia was part of the Austrian empire. I further learnt that there is a Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb, so now I know how I am going to spend the afternoon.
Zagreb is a grand capital city, with many public buildings in the best Vienna style, and quite a few Vienna-style gardens and private residences. Then again, there is also a great number of buildings done in the 1940's style, not quite Soviet in severity, but one big box after another. As it turns out, my B&B is in one of these buildings, and to my great surprise I found that the façade "hides" an inner courtyard, where a veritable pueblito exists, with small houses, gardens, and shacks. Pretty cool place to spend a couple of nights.
I had walked from the bus station to my lodgings, about half an hour, all the time studying the public tram system. Seems very efficient, so I am going to try it to get to the Tesla Museum. As easy as "kiss my hand"! You can buy the ticket from the conductor (80 cents of an euro) and, like the metro, the tram has fixed stops so you can wait until your stop comes and there you are. My tram was the number 4, which is also the tram I will take to get back to the bus station.
The museum was fine, but there was only a small section devoted to Tesla and his work (a lot of which happened in the United States). The rest of the museum emphasized the development of technology, from the plow to the space age. Nice collections of old cars, motorcycles, and small airplanes, as well as behemoth steam engines and water turbines. From the slide rule to mechanical calculators to computers of all vintages. The only thing is that this is a strict see-but-don't-touch museum, and thus not much fun to kids. There was a section on geology (I was right about the Mesozoic age of the rocks) and mining (lots of mineral resources in the inaccessible mountains), and they have a replica of a lead-zinc mine in the basement (reminded me of the mine in the Bochum museum). They did a good job at reproducing different types of tunneling and shoring techniques, but our guide herded us through at a clip that didn't allow for careful inspection.
From there we were invited to go to the Tesla exhibit, where they re-enacted some of Tesla's high-voltage demonstrations. They were "thunderous" if you will excuse the pun. It put a smile to my lips!
No comments:
Post a Comment