Upon checking in, we discovered that they'd given us a crappy room. When we opened the window, our view was of a wall that was under construction, instead of looking out on the square as we had requested. We'd booked the room 3 weeks before, so were naturally not happy with being screwed. So, we walked to another nearby hotel and booked a much nicer room and checked out of the crap hotel, not paying them.
Trg Kralja Tomislava, King Tomislav Square.
Our hotel is the middle yellow building on the right. We had a room upstairs with one of those sky lights. You can see Stari Grad in the background here, up on the hill.
Our new hotel room was very nice. It was kind of large and more like a flat than a hotel room, except with no kitchen. It was located directly on the main square of Samobor, so was close to absolutely everything. And we also had satellite TV, so we spent some time channel surfing, watching Al Jazeera and various French, German, Russian and other channels. The Russian channel was particularly funny as they did voice dubbing into Russian, but had the same guy literally just reading the lines for each character without intonation or acting. The German and French channels were very good and had interesting documentaries.
Look! Chuck E. Cheese!!!
The local cemetery overlooking town.
Stari Grad is in the background here, up on the hill.
Stari Grad.
We basically just had a relaxing weekend. We slept in late, then had free breakfast in the restaurant downstairs, eating pancakes, sausages, muesli, fruit, etc. We walked a lot, really getting some distance under our feet. There was an old ruined castle on the hill overlooking town, called Stari Grad ("Old Town"). We walked up there, then down and around the entire area. Nice walk.
Nara in our hotel room.
A really old building of some sort.
On the way to Stari Grad.
Stari Grad.
The view from Stari Grad.
Some areas down in the valley, when we were wandering around.
We ate at some great restaurants, Gabreku being our favorite. Local, fresh trout was fantastic, as was wild boar with gnocchi. The gnocchi soaked up the juices from the boar and was really excellent. At night, we hung out at a local pub and drank some Hoegaarden, watching local bands and karaoke.
Heading back into the centar.
Trg Kralja Tomislava, King Tomislav Square.
Because Fašnik, or "Carnival" was the following week, there were decorations everywhere of various sorts. Here we have fish in the creek.
Nara and me.
It was a truly great weekend. We walked enough that we got a lot of exercise, but we also relaxed a lot. We had fantastic food too. We may go back to Samobor tomorrow. A local band called Hladno Pivo, "Cold Beer", who Esad is friends with, are having a show there, as Fašnik is still going on.
As a side note, I had originally thought that Samobor's name was based on "only pine", as it's in nature and there are loads of trees there and such, and "samo" means "only" and "bor" means "pine". But we found out the town was originally called "Sanobor", so this theory was out the window and the locals had no idea what the name meant.
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By the charter of King Bela IV of 1242, Samobor was granted the privileges of a free market town. Above the town are the ruins of the large burg Stari Grad, built in the period from the 13th to the 18th century; the burg was abandoned in the 19th century. Its remains include architectural details from the Romanesque period onward. The burg was owned by a number of eminent families and persons (the Babonics, Counts Celjski, the Frankopans, the Ungnads, the Erdodys, the Kulmers, the Kiepachs, the Allnochs).
The locals tell me that once it was deserted, the local people tore it apart stealing the stones to build their own houses. It is not preserved much at all and it's kind of a shame, as you can see it's still crumbling. It's cool in one way, as nature overtakes it, but sad that it will undoubtedly not last that long if they don't do something to preserve it.
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