Zagreb Time Machine

An apt title for a season of events that almost literally sends you spinning back through the centuries, Zagreb Time Machine is the umbrella term covering a series of happenings that take place every weekend from late-April until the first week in October. Period costumes and traditional music are the main ingredients in a sequence of street performances that take over various parts of the city. Key invents include the Upper Town in History (Saturdays 5-8pm) when actors dressed in 19th-century garb will act out scenes from the daily life of the capital in times of yore; the Upper Town Musical Panorama (Saturday and Sunday 10am-noon), when similarly clad musicians well belt out traditional tunes; Promenade Concerts in Zrinjevac park (Saturdays 11am-1pm, Sundays 11am-noon), when walzes and polkas will waft down from the old-school bandstand; and a Folklore Stage at various locations in the city centre (Saturdays 10am-noon, Sundays 11am-1pm) when singers in authentic folk costume will treat you to a performance of traditional songs. Also included under the Time Machine banner is the impressive pageantry of the Changing of the Guard of the Cravat Regiment (Saturdays and Sundays just before noon). The cravat was invented in Croatia and popularized by Croatian soldiers during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century. It is still a symbol of national pride, hence the modern-day recreation of a ceremonial regiment complete with appropriately seventeenth-century uniform. The impressive Changing of the Guards ceremony begins at around 11.40am with the regiment forming up on St Mark’s Square in the Upper Town. They then parade down the hill towards the main square.