Croatia: Part 16 - Day 14: Nikola Tesla Technical Museum

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 14

14/8 Day 14: Visited Nikola Tesla Technical Museum. Had local food - strukli. Found the best kremsnite, according to us. 

Cost
(1) Entrance ticket to Nikola Tesla Technical Museum EUR6

(2) 2 tram tickets EUR0,53 (30 minutes duration) each - EUR1,06

Food
(1) Breakfast at Desiree Cafe EUR5,80 - Breakfast set: Toast with ham and cheese, cappucino and fresh orange juice

(2) Lunch at La Struk EUR17,17 - Strukli with truffel pasta EUR9,50, shared strukli with walnuts and honey EUR9,50, summer seasona drink with mint and lemon 500ml EUR4,50

(3) Ice-cram at Hotel Dubrovnik - EUR2,50 per scoop

(4) Drink pause - Radler 500ml EUR3,30

(5) Coffee pause at Zagreb Cafe EUR5,40 - Kremsnite EUR3,20, cappucino EUR2,20

(6) Dinner at Torikaya Ramen Bar EUR20 - Tan-tanmen (ramen) EUR16, kombucha lemon ginger EUR4

The Story

14082025: My legs were so tired today after yesterday's long walk to the beach. Eyes were tired too which could be from sleeping directly under the airconditioning. We searched on Google Map for a breakfast place and found Breadclub which unfortunately don't offer breakfast. As per its name, it sells bread only. The bread looks very tasty! We walked to a few cafes and found out they sell coffee only. The 'drink-coffee' culture is strong in Croatia. There don't seem to be a demand for food together with coffee. Very different from in Sweden where coffee is usually accompanied by something sweet - the fika culture. 

Finally, we found a cafe that serves breakfast! So happy that we don't need to walk further under the heat. Thank you for existing, Desiree Cafe! 

I did not have any plans for today. I researched on Zagreb and we were not keen on museums and churches unless they are free and different. We did the walking tour yesterday and have seen town and got a good description of history. I gave my travel companions the freedom to choose the activity for today. Google Map was referred to again and we saw a museum in the neighbourhood - Nikola Tesla Technical Museum. Now, the exhibition on Nikola Testa is very small and I think the name of the musuem is misleading. It should just be Technical Museum because that is what it really is - the museum exhbits the evolution of technology for vehicles, ships, household appliances and tools for gardening.

We walked to the museum. The first thing that the staff said to us was that there is no air-conditioning and fan in the museum. Only the exhbition room of Nikola Tesla has an air-cond. I can gather many visitors have complained and asked the question. The museum staff is gathered at the entrance and they share a standing fan. It was very warm and stuffy in the museum. 

The exhibition room of Nikola Tesla. He was born in Croatia and died in USA.

There is an upper floor in the museum. It was even warmer on the upper floor. 

A replica of the space vehicle that was sent to the moon.

Dubrovnik had a tram system for 60 years but an accident occurred in 1970 which killed a passenger. The tram system ended after that. This was the tram used during those days. 

There were also exhbitions that are not related to technology - an exhbition on bees and its community. I learnt a bit on bees. If an adult bee is developed by summer, it will not survive past winter (2 - 6 weeks), but if an adult bee develops during winter, it gets to live longer past the summer but not until the next winter (20 weeks).

Some of the exhbitions were in Croatian and no English text so I could not appreciate the exhibits. There is a mining cave which has a guided tour at 3pm but we were not going to stay for the guided tour. According to the staff, a visitor is allowed to come in again with the same ticket that is valid for the day to join the guided tour. 

We spent 2 hours in the museum. Then, we took tram 14 into town (Stop: Studenski Central to Stop: Trg. Zagreb) to have lunch as it was too warm to walk into town. 32 degrees. It would have taken about 20 minutes for a walk. For lunch, we had a very warm meal - strukli at a recommended restaurant (by our walking tour guide). There was a queue in the restaurant and we got a table 10 minutes later. There were pamphlets from the Tie Museum which we did not take. The Tie Museum sure knows where to find their customers. Entrance fee to the museum is EUR9. We were not keen. 

Lucky for us that we got a table in a shaded spot despite being outdoors. I could lean myself against the cooling wall.

I am happy that it is a short menu so I know that I am not missing out on much dishes. We chose a savory each and shared a sweet dish of walnut and honey. My travel companions took a traditional with salty cheese and roasted pepper. We asked the waitress what were the favourites and she shared with us and that is how we chose our options.

Gosh, can you see the sweat imprinted on my top. I chose the summer seasonal drink and it came with mint and lemon.

I love the patterns on the table. Our very hot dishes came out 25 minutes later. They were steaming hot as they are baked upon order. I remarked to the waitress that the dish is really hot. She agreed and she said that they sell it during summer as there is a demand to try it. We sweated so much eating the dish. Strukli's fillings is made from three basic ingredients that are cheese, sour cream and egg and wrapped with dough. 

It took me 30 minutes to finish my dish. I had to continuously blow each scoop.

We came out of the restaurant sweating even more. So, we cooled ourselves down with ice-cream.

Then, we looked for postcards so that a travel companion can send to a family member. We followed Google Map to search for a post-office and the post-office turned out to have moved. Another travel companion was too tired to continue looking and I decided to walk into a library look-alike to ask where the nearest post-office is. It was quite. Just two blocks away. I saw the main train station next to the post office. We treated ourselves to radler and tasting of another kremsnite which we judged to be the best! Hence, my thumbs up by the cafe sign in the next photo. This is our third tasting. The first one was near our accommodation EUR3 and the second one had a chocolate layer top EUR2,70 which tasted a lot of whipped cream. 

We walked around town. Took a picture next to Nikola Tesla statue.

There is an entrance to Gric Tunnel here so we went inside the tunnel and took another exit. 

For dinner, we found a Japanese restaurant. I had ramen. I thought it was homemade kombucha but it turned out to be from a can. I like to take a front view of noodles in a bowl to show how deep and curved the bowl is. It could be wide rim but very narrow after that, almost a shallow bowl.

We took the tram 12 back from Stop: Trg. J. Jelacica to Stop: Badaliceva.