Zagreb

From the square it is a short climb to Kaptol, the old ecclesiastical town. Its centrepiece is the Cathedral of Zagreb, the tallest building in the city, whose neo-Gothic twin spires rose after an 1880 earthquake wrecked much of the medieval structure. Just below it, the red umbrellas of Dolac Market have earned it the nickname "the belly of Zagreb": a multi-level market where farmers from across Croatia sell produce, cheese and honey, with a flower section at the edge. Officially it runs until mid-afternoon, but most stalls have sold out by noon, so come early.

The other hill is Upper Town proper — Gradec, the walled civic town. Enter through the Stone Gate, the only surviving medieval gate, where a shrine to the Virgin draws people who stop to light a candle. A few streets on is St. Mark's Church, instantly recognisable by its colourful tiled roof bearing the coats of arms of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia on one side and Zagreb on the other; it fronts the square where the Croatian parliament and government sit. At the southern edge stands Lotrščak Tower, completed in 1266 to guard the town gate. Its name comes from the Latin for "thieves' bell", rung from 1646 to signal that the gates were closing. Today the Grič cannon fires from its fourth-floor window every day at noon, a ritual kept since New Year's Day 1877 — set your watch by it. Beside the tower, the Uspinjača funicular, one of the world's shortest, shuttles between the two towns, and the tree-lined Strossmayer Promenade runs along the old southern wall with the best view over the Lower Town's roofs. Nearby, the Museum of Broken Relationships turns donated everyday objects into surprisingly moving stories about love and loss. Linger into evening: the Upper Town is still lit by gas lamps.

Between the two hills ran the Medveščak creek, where tanners and millers once worked. The creek is gone, and Tkalčićeva Street now follows its course as Zagreb's great café street, its low workshop houses converted into bars, cake shops and boutiques. The little bridge-street that crosses it, Krvavi Most — "Bloody Bridge" — remembers the brawls between Kaptol and Gradec that gave the spot its name.

Below the hills, the Lower Town was laid out in the decades after 1880, when Zagreb adopted the grid of boulevards and squares it has today. Its spine is a chain of parks that begins with Zrinjevac Park, with its plane trees, fountains, wrought-iron bandstand and an old weather station, and continues south past the yellow Art Pavilion in Zagreb to the railway station. To the west, the Croatian National Theatre holds court on its own square in Habsburg yellow, and the Mimara Museum nearby houses one of the region's largest private art collections. This is Zagreb at its most Viennese — all grand façades, galleries and coffee-house pace.

Three places outside the centre are worth the tram ride. Mirogoj cemetery, designed by Hermann Bollé, is reckoned among Europe's most beautiful burial grounds for its ivy-covered arcades, domes and finely sculpted tombs. Park Maksimir, opened in 1794, is the oldest public park in southeastern Europe, an English-style landscape of lakes, meadows and 19th-century pavilions. And rising behind the whole city is Nature Park Medvednica, whose summit, Sljeme, gives Zagrebians their weekend hikes and winter skiing, with the medieval fortress of Medvedgrad on its slopes.

Zagreb's centre is flat except for the Upper Town, and almost everything in this guide is within a half-hour walk of Ban Jelačić Square. Blue trams cover the Lower Town and reach Mirogoj, Maksimir and Jarun lake; the funicular saves the climb to Gradec. December brings the Advent market to Zrinjevac, and in summer the city empties toward the coast — which is exactly when its cafés and terraces are at their most relaxed.