Zagreb was two hostile settlements — free royal Gradec and the bishop's Kaptol — separated by a stream where they fought with knives. Three days trace that split from Vučedol pottery and medieval gates to Mirogoj's arcades and a demolished synagogue.
Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog 19. Holds the Vučedol Dove of c. 2800 BC and the Zagreb Mummy, whose linen wrappings carry the Liber Linteus — the longest surviving text in the Etruscan language. Tue–Fri 10:00–18:00.
A bishopric was founded on this hill in 1094; the cathedral was burned by Mongols in 1242 and ringed with Renaissance walls against the Ottomans. The 1880 quake toppled its towers, the 2020 quake did it again, and the interior stays shut.
The last of four medieval gates in Gradec's town wall, first recorded in 1266. After the fire of 1731 only a painting of the Virgin survived the flames; locals still light candles here and screw stone plaques reading 'Hvala' onto the walls.
Built by the Jesuits between 1620 and 1632 and regarded as the finest Baroque interior in Croatia. Antonio Quadrio's white stucco ceiling of 1732 and Krištof Andrej Jelovšek's 1762 trompe-l'œil altar fresco both survive.
Hermann Bollé began these arcades in 1876 on land bought from the linguist Ljudevit Gaj. Nearly 500 m of ivy-clad cupolas shelter Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim plots side by side, with Tuđman and Stjepan Radić among the graves.
Anton Dominik Fernkorn cast this equestrian statue of Ban Josip Jelačić in 1866. Communist authorities dismantled it in 1947 and stored the pieces in a cellar; it returned in 1990, but the sabre now points south instead of north toward Hungary.
Opatička 20, inside the Convent of the Poor Clares of 1650, built over excavated 11th-century foundations. Some 5,000 objects run from the 1242 Golden Bull granting Gradec free royal status to the 1880 earthquake and the 1991 shelling.
Laid out in 1873 on a former cattle-market field, this is the first link in Milan Lenuci's U-shaped chain of parks modelled on Vienna's Ringstrasse. The meteorological pillar of 1884 still reports temperature and air pressure.
A royal fortress raised between 1249 and 1254 on a spur of Medvednica after the Mongol invasion exposed how defenceless the region was. Restored walls, the chapel of St. Philip and the Altar of the Homeland look out over the Sava plain.
A square laid out in the 1920s at the far western end of Ilica, the old road out of Gradec. Every Sunday morning the antiques fair fills it with Austro-Hungarian silver, Yugoslav-era radios and postcards of streets that were renamed twice over.
Marulićev trg 21, in Rudolf Lubynski's Secession palace of 1913. Owl sculptures by Rudolf Valdec guard the roof, Ivan Tišov painted the stained glass, and the reading room sits beneath a glass dome above charters dating to the 12th century.
A Moorish-revival synagogue stood here from 1867 until the Ustaša authorities demolished it in 1941–42 on the orders of mayor Ivan Werner. A car park and a modest plaque now mark the plot; arguments over rebuilding have run since 1999.