Spending 48 hours in Zagreb, Croatia

Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, has been high on my list of cities I wanted to visit since 2019. I had a trip planned for 2020 that took in the city, but didn’t go due to Covid, and then in May 2022 I had the city on the end of a long trip (Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Helsinki, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Zagreb was the plan!) that ended up being cut short due to a fibromyalgia flare up. I then moved the city to my September 2022 trip, which got slightly derailed as J came to meet me for our first date so I only managed Bratislava and Budapest (cos y’know falling in love takes time!) and finally I made it to Zagreb in June 2024. Is Zagreb worth visiting? I think so-read this post to find out why!

J and I spent 72 hours in Zagreb overall, but needed to do some work, some washing etc so really, it was more like 48 hours to explore the city. This post, spending 48 hours in Zagreb, will give you the information you need to plan a short trip to the Croatian city.

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Why should I visit Zagreb?

Zagreb is known for it’s historic and beautiful Upper Town, St Marks Church, a lot of museums (among the most per square foot in the world) and being the birthplace of the necktie, which was derived from Croatian soldiers’ 17th century scarves.

Cafe culture is a big deal here so it’s a great city for just hanging out with a coffee, a sweet treat and someone you want to talk to, or a good book. AND they’ve got one of the shortest funiculars in the world. Add the fact that there’s loads to do (thanks to their many museums, a really good zoo, so many cafes, lots of statues to discover and a fair bit of street art) and Zagreb being easy to get to and from, and you’ve found yourself an amazing city break.

What do I need to know if I’m visiting Zagreb?

Croatia uses the euro, and we needed cash in quite a few places. Cash machines in Zagreb charge fees to withdraw cash, so you’ll want to make sure you don’t do that too often, or you’ll be spending the equivalent of a meal on atm fees. No one wants that!

I always travel with my Monzo card which is fee free abroad, and you can sign up to Monzo here. If you use my link, we each get a mystery reward of £10, £20 or £50 once you’ve completed a transaction. Alternatively if you’d prefer to use your normal bank account, consider Currensea, which links to your usual account. You use your Currensea card to pay with, it’s fee free, and it takes the money straight out of your normal account, no need to move funds, which my partner finds easier. You can sign up for a Currensea card here and if you use my link, once you’ve spent £100 abroad we each get £10. (I am only recommending accounts I use myself. Referral rewards are correct at the time of writing. If you choose to sign up with my link for either of these, thank you!)

Public transport in Zagreb is easy and reliable. If you have a Zagreb Card it’s included, or you can buy a 30 minute single journey ticket for 53 cents, a 60 minute for 93 cents or a 90 minute for 1 euro 33 cents. If you’re needing a few journeys, a day ticket is 4 euros. It’s a bit more expensive to buy the single tickets from the driver, but only by a few cents each time, and it saves trying to find paper tickets (which can be bought at Tisak and iNovine kiosks) I failed at buying paper tickets during my time in the city. A day ticket is so cheap and much easier that I’d advise that if you’re doing more than one bus or tram. Learn from my mistake and keep a close eye on your phone-I left mine on a bus and despite going to the lost property, emailing the bus company and ringing the phone multiple times, I never got it back. It was an old one and all my trip photos had not been backed up, and I’m still sad about that.

How much will I spend each day visiting Zagreb?

We stayed in an air b n b, so we cooked some of our own food in the city. During our three days we spent £58.67 in the supermarket, £38.82 on coffee/non alcoholic drinks, £66.09 on two teas and one lunch, and £27.54 on alcoholic drinks. We also spent £13.76 on snacks, £9.82 on taxis, £17.94 on activities, £15.85 on souvenirs and £20 on cash machine fees. Finally, we paid for a Zagreb card for 24 hours, at £44.32 for both of us. This was 2023, so prices may have changed, and I talk more about the Zagreb card later in this post.

How expensive are flights and accommodation?

We didn’t actually fly in to Zagreb, we took a coach from Ljubljana instead, costing £12 each. We also paid to reserve seats because it’s so cheap on Flixbus, less than £5 each, I always do it for ease. Our flight back to Manchester cost us £55 each plus a checked bag-for this trip, we decided we needed one as we were doing so many countries in one go. Our air b n b cost £60 for 3 nights, an absolute bargain, and we were able to cook, do some washing and get some work done. Booking.com has different hotel and apartment options, and Hotels.com has a good selection too.

How easy is it to plan a trip to Zagreb?

I found planning Zagreb pretty easy, as unlike some cities I found a lot of blog posts about spending 48 hours in Zagreb. I’m hoping this one ranks high so that you’ve found it as you’re researching! The posts I found were pretty reliable at the time but I can’t speak for their reliability now-I know how often I check my own content but also know some bloggers don’t ever do that, so tread carefully and double check that things are open, the costs etc etc.

Air b n b experiences has a few different options for Zagreb which isn’t the case for every city, Getyourguide has loads of Zagreb activities, Klook also has a variety of things to do in Zagreb, and the Zagreb card is useful for planning too.

What should I do when spending 48 hours in Zagreb?

If you only have 48 hours in Zagreb, you’ll want to be strategic. I’d highly recommend buying a Zagreb Card (currently priced at 31 euros for a 24 hour card, or 37 for a 72 hour card-pay the extra even if you only need 48 hours is my advice!) and planning to get as much use as you can from it. Public transport is free on the card, so you’ll have no issues getting around the city. You can buy your card online using the above link.

Day One-Morning and lunch

This morning doesn’t need any transport, unless you need to get into the city itself, and the total walking is around 30 minutes as everything is pretty close.

Start your first day with Zagreb’s iconic church, St Mark’s Church. Admire the magnificent mosaic roof, take plenty of photos and then head to the nearby Gric Tunnel for a walk through.

Your next stop should be the Museum of Broken Relationships, a short walk from the tunnel and one of the museums Zagreb is best known for. This is included in your Zagreb pass and would cost 7 euros without the card. The museum is small, so should take less than an hour even if you grab a coffee in their cafe, but it’s really interesting and worth the trip.

Next head to the Chocolate Museum, a 15 minute walk from the Museum of Broken Relationships. This will take an hour or so to go around, it’s also included in the Zagreb Card, or 12 euros if you need to pay. You can chose to pay an extra 1 euros 50 for an audioguide in your own language if you need it, we didn’t. The museum covers the history of chocolate and how it’s made, and you can try as much as you fancy at their chocolate fountains partway through. It’s delicious.

Art Park should be your next stop, for some really good street art. Nearby, you can get Zagreb’s funicular up the hill (search Funicular Downtown on google maps) this is included in your Zagreb card or costs 66 cents, and is worth doing just so you can say you’ve been on the worlds smallest funicular! The funicular brings you out near Strossmayer Promenade, which has gorgeous views over the city. If you like street art as much as I do, Sunken Mural Park is near Strossmayer Promenade, and you should end your morning with Zakmardi Street, which is also full of colour.

For lunch, Korica is a well reviewed bakery that does both savory and sweet things as well as decent coffee, and it’s a 15 minute walk away.

Day One-Afternoon and tea

Take a 20 minute bus to Zagreb’s Museum of Contemporary Art to start your afternoon. Included in the Zagreb Card or 11 euros, the museum is full of my kind of art-modern art! We were there about an hour and there’s a very cool slide from both the first and second floor to the bottom, but it was closed when we were there. I’m still sad. You’ll want up to two hours at the museum to see it properly.

Using public transport again, either two buses, two short walks and one bus or one bus and one tram, head to the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum. You guessed it, this is on the Zagreb Card! It’s 6 euros if you’re paying yourself. The museum is full of different transport, a planetarium and an interactive Tesla exhibit, and we found it really interesting.

Day Two-Morning and breakfast

Head into the city to find some (or all, if you have the energy!) of Zagreb’s planets. Called Nine Views, it’s a public art installation featuring a 1:680,000,000 scale model of the solar system. It’s spread across the city, with Pluto being 7km out of the centre, so you may not see all of it, but you should really see some. You can find out more about nine views, and all of the different locations, in this article.

Make sure you also check out the painted cat floor on Masarykova Street, which is not too far from some of the planets.

Central Zagreb has plenty of breakfast options, Tkalčićeva is a pedestrianised area with lots of coffee shops, it’s great for people watching and it’s tripadvisor’s number one thing to do in Zagreb (not in my opinion, but it is a nice part of the city!) A walk including three or four planets, the painted cats and Tkalčićeva will take about 45 minutes.

Day Two-Afternoon and tea

After your morning in the city, you’ll want to get some more use out of the Zagreb Card if you took the 72 hour option. My recommendation would be Zagreb Zoo, as it’s a good one (and we’ve been to a lot of zoos!) but other options are the Croatian Natural History Museum, Cravaticum Boutique Museum or Zagreb City Museum.

Zagreb Zoo is open until 5pm and you’ll get around it in an afternoon, but if you’re a bit pushed for time, check their website and prioritise the animals you really want to see.

For tea, Mali Medo is a beer hall with good food. There’s a set of four by the same company, and all of them are highly recommended, and pretty central. A beer hall is a great way to end your second day visiting Zagreb.

If you want dessert, head to well reviewed Vincek (there’s a few in the city) for ice cream.

If you have more time in Zagreb

If you’ve got more time in Zagreb, there are lots of options for day trips. Active people may enjoy Kayaking and a day trip to Rastoke village, Lake Bled and Ljubljana day trips are plentiful or there’s a Medvednica Mountain hiking half day trip too. Check out all of the day trips from Zagreb on GetYourGuide.

Where should I go after visiting Zagreb?

If you want to add further travel on to Zagreb, consider more of Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Hungary. There are cities in each country within 100km of Zagreb.