Whenever we go to Zagreb, there are a set of places we always visit. The lions at the Zoo are a perennial favourite.

Then there are numerous places that we have not been to before (or if we have been there, it has changed since). This year we had a good choice of new things.

Museum of Illusions was fun. We got caught on camera and were on the evening news.

We also checked out the Car Museum. I have actually been to that building, back when it was a bottle cap factory! I remember taking a few photos of kids squished together in BMW Isetta, but I can’t find them on my phone now.

My dad tried to capture a good picture of all three boys at the model railway exhibit. As if they could pose for a split second!

We checked out Da Vinci exhibit at the Velesajam (Fairgrounds). I have been to Velesajam many times over the years but it is the kind of place where you can’t see the forest for the trees. During the fair the place is teeming with people and goods and balloon stands and kitsch and pretty much anything that is flashy and loud.

This time the Velesajam was almost abandoned. There is only one obvious entrance and the Chinese Pavilion with the Da Vinci exhibition is almost on the other side of the complex. We wondered through the empty streets littered with fine attempts at large scale architecture from the second part of the 20th Century. And no, despite whimsical, or even stylish designs, concrete does not age well.

After seeing the exhibit, we decided to look for another entrance and effectively got lost in this proto big box mall. Here is a photo of my grandmother and my dad at the beginning of Velesajam some sixty years ago. Obviously, my kids did not invent utter indifference to looking at the camera while being photographed.

Eventually we ran into what looked like a Goth paintball field but turned out to be a movie set about war-torn Sarajevo (as we concluded when we saw a battered road sign pointing to Sljeme but calling it Jahorina). At this point I had to explain to Trevor why they are building a movie set instead of using computer graphics. Sigh.

Finally, another place we got to check out this year is the administrative side of the Zoo when we would drop off Trevor for his summer camp.

The Zoo has been well taken care of and the new additions are quite effective.