Bots & Pots

Posted on by Scott

Zagreb is a city that just keeps giving. A 20-minute cable car ride to a mountain peak and ski slope opened up since Colleen and I were here earlier this year. And a robot restaurant has opened as well. Of course I sampled both, and then I also took my first Airbnb “Experiences” experience – a guided walking tour of the central part of the city. All were excellent!

Our tour guide told us his personal story of the earthquake of March 2020. He said that he and his wife were at home in their apartment building when the shaking started. They grabbed all their valuables and ran out of the building. They stood in the street in between buildings, but debris was breaking off and falling down on them. Luckily they were not injured. The police later came by and told everyone to go back inside because of Covid (it had just started), but on the radio the government was recommending staying outside in case of aftershocks! He said the earthquake was scarier than Covid.

The shiny new base station for the cable cars
Heading up and up and up – it’s a long way! I hiked back down – it was about 6 miles (10 km)
And the top, about 750 meters (2475 feet) higher than the cable car starting elevation
The giant TV tower up top
Have you ever seen scripting code for your cooking recipe?
Over each robot was a monitor describing what step was being taken
This green robot was making some pasta. Honestly though, it seemed like a human was doing much of the work. Maybe some of the robots were on strike that day, or perhaps taking sick stay (since they don’t leave).
I’ve always thought highly of this 3D rendering of Zagreb’s center. I wish every city had one.
The main market. Also, you can see the cracks in the steeple in the background – these come from the earthquake of March 2020.
The tower’s cannon shoots every day at noon. Our tour guide is facing us in the foreground. The cannon stopped shooting after the 2020 earthquake, and it still was not firing when Colleen and I visited in March 2022.

Today’s dad joke: Why should the oarsmen fear for their jobs?

Because the “row-bots” are taking over!

Today’s limerick:

Cable cars rise to the TV tower
The ascent takes a third of an hour
The climb is worth the price
The views are very nice
And riding, it spares one's walking power.

Today’s travel quote:

Once a year, go somewhere you’ve never been before.

The Dalai Lama

4 thoughts on “Bots & Pots”

  1. I remember being kind of glad that a loud cannon boom wasn’t happening every day! But maybe helpful to know when it’s noon? Seems so old school, but then again that’s Zagreb perhaps. That walking tour seemed very worthwhile too.

    1. The cannon was very loud – the tour guide took a video of us and shared it to show us flinching or jumping in reaction. 🙂 By the way, the guide did his master’s thesis on comparing the concentration camps of the Nazis and then the Communists in Croatia. He said he interviewed a Jewish guy who said the communist work details were worse because they had you do meaningless repetitive work all day, whereas at least with the Nazis you were building things that maybe one day would be used by regular people.

      1. Might as well, right? Wow. German efficiency? You can’t be in Europe without hearing something about WWII so frequently –

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Published by Scott

Mangling foreign languages and generally looking lost and out of place.