Zagreb Travel Guide

St Mark's Church (Crkva sv. Marka) stands in St Mark's Square in Zagreb's Upper Town (Gornji Grad) and is the old city's most recognisable face. Documented since the 13th century and rebuilt as a late-Gothic three-nave church in the second half of the 14th, its stout columns carry stone ribbed vaults in a plain, solemn interior. Its most arresting feature is the polychrome tiled roof laid during an 1880 restoration - over two thousand red, white and blue glazed tiles forming the arms of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia on one side and Zagreb's own emblem, a white castle on red, on the other, the only church in Europe roofed with heraldry. The south portal is reckoned the richest Gothic portal in south-central Europe: fifteen statues in eleven niches, Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus at the top, St Mark and the lion below, the Twelve Apostles to either side, from the Parler workshop of Prague. The oldest coat of arms of Zagreb, dated 1499, is set into the northwest wall. The exterior is free at any hour; the interior, with frescoes by Jozo Kljakovic and altarpiece sculpture by Ivan Mestrovic, is generally open at mass times only for conservation. Around the square stand the Croatian Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the old town hall - together with the church, the centre of Croatian public life.

Ban Jelacic Square is the heart of Zagreb, directly south of the twin old town cores of Gradec and Kaptol and the centre of the Lower Town pedestrian zone. Laid out as a market in 1641, it was first called Mandusevec and later Harmica, from the Hungarian for a one-thirtieth tax on goods sold there, before taking its present name in 1848 for Josip Jelacic, the ban (viceroy) of Croatia. The equestrian statue at its centre, by the Austrian sculptor Anton Dominik Fernkorn and erected in 1866, shows Jelacic on the white horse Emir, a gift from Mahmud-beg Basic of Bihac that served as Fernkorn's model, his right arm extended with a drawn sabre; the pedestal carries a 'Ban Jelacic 1848' plaque at the front and the Croatian coat of arms at the back. Removed in 1947 by Yugoslavia's communist authorities, who called him a 'servant of foreign interests', the statue spent decades hidden in a gallery cellar by its curator, and returned on 16 October 1990, Jelacic's birthday, reoriented from its original northward facing to the south - away from Hungary and toward his own people. A car-free zone since 1975, the square is crossed by day by tram lines 1, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 17. At its eastern end the Mandusevac fountain sits over an underground spring that supplied Zagreb's drinking water until the mid-19th century; the city's very name is traced to a cry of 'Mando, duso, zagrabi!' - Manda, my dear, scoop! This is the city's standing appointment point - 'under the clock', 'under the horse's tail' and beside the fountain - and its Advent Christmas market was voted Europe's best three years running from 2016, drawing more than a million visitors.

The statue of Josip Jelacic stands at the centre of Zagreb's Ban Jelacic Square, sculpted by the Austrian Anton Dominik Fernkorn and unveiled on 19 October 1866 - installed by the Austrian authorities over the protests of the Zagreb city council. The bronze shows the ban (viceroy) on the white horse Emir, a warhorse given to Jelacic by Mahmud-beg Basic of Bihac that served as Fernkorn's model, his right arm extended holding a drawn sabre; the pedestal carries a 'Ban Jelacic 1848' plaque at the front and the Croatian coat of arms at the back. Originally facing north toward Hungary, the statue was removed in 1947 by Yugoslavia's communist authorities, who called Jelacic a 'servant of foreign interests', and spent decades hidden in a gallery cellar by its curator; it returned to the square on 16 October 1990, Jelacic's birthday, turned to face south. The statue gives Zagreb its most common meeting code - 'under the horse's tail' - and is the usual foreground for photographs of the square.