Day 12 of our trip was the big day- our festival performance in Zagreb! For Day 13 of our Croatia trip, we spent the morning visiting the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum and then in the afternoon we watched the kids in our group as part of the tamburica festival combined performance and some of the other groups perform. We even ended up sitting just a few rows behind the Prime Minister!
Croatian Fraternal Union’s Tambura Across Generations Festival
If you missed it, I explained more about tamburica and the festival we performed in in the first post of this series. This was a historic festival because it was the first time the CFU combined the junior and adult festivals, and the first time the adult festival was held in Croatia. There was lots of extra media attention, and the concert hall was filled with TV, radio, and newspaper representatives.
In the morning, we had rehearsal for mass performance (when all the groups play together on stage). Because there were so many performers this year, only the juniors were required to be part of mass performance. One of our kids was sick, though, so I ended up filling in on stage for rehearsal. After that, I didn’t really want to do much since our performance was in the evening. We had lunch at a local cafe and otherwise just hung out and chilled in the room until dinner.
After dinner we all got dressed and headed over to Lisinski Hall. We had our own dressing room backstage to hang out in, and once Nino fixed the AC for us, it was boring but fine waiting there. The opening speeches at these festivals always go long, especially since most are given in both English and Croatian. Since this was the first combined festival with adults & juniors, there were more officials there than normal so it went extra long. But, finally it was our turn to line up backstage.
Enjoy this video of our full performance!
Nikola Tesla Technical Museum
We walked from our hotel downtown to the museum. Tesla’s work is actually just a small part of the museum, and it has exhibits on all kinds of different technology. This is a great museum, we were really impressed by some of the exhibit design and how comprehensive it was.
How to Visit the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb
Technical Museum Nikola Tesla / Tehnički muzej Nikola Tesla
Savska cesta 18
10000 Zagreb, Croatia
www.tmnt.hr
Open hours: Tues-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat-Sun 9am-1pm
Admission: Adults €4, Students & Seniors €3, Kids under 7 Free
Firefighting Exhibit
The first exhibit we saw was about the history of fire science. I actually have a college certificate in fire science, and some of my coursework included the history of fire science technology, so this was especially of interest to me! Josh and I also both used to be on a prescribed burn crew, so of course we enjoyed the wildland firefighting parts of this exhibit.
1931 Chevrolet fire truck. This truck was designed to transport the whole fire crew, donated by the Volunteer Fire Company Maksimir, Zagreb
Mining, Geology, Oil
At 11:00 we joined the English-speaking tour of the mine exhibit. I absolutely geeked out over this exhibit from a museum-design perspective. You head downstairs to the replica mine, and as you walk through the mine, it changes with different improvements in mine building and technology. It is such an innovative way to show the changes in mining techniques and the immersiveness was outstanding. Besides the main mine shaft, there are cut-outs on the sides throughout with different scenes and displays set up. It was fascinating to not just see the difference in how mines were built over time, but to actually experience it first-hand.
Guided Mine Tours
The mine is only accessible as part of a guided tours. Tours are free with admission and they offered them in both English and Croatian when we were there.
Tuesday-Friday tours are at 3:00pm
Saturday & Sunday tours are at 11:00am
Besides the mine itself, there are also displays about different types of mining and mining technology, oil drilling, and geology.
The Nikola Tesla Demonstration Laboratory
After the mine, we headed over to the Nikola Tesla Demonstration Laboratory for the 11:30 demonstration. This was a great demonstration! The guide giving the demonstration was super engaging (in both Croatian and English) and the demos themselves were really fun to watch. We also really liked the tables with the different experiments, they were controlled with a remote to roll on tracks to the center of the floor. The demo was saw included a number of different inventions and types of Tesla coils.
Nikola Tesla Demonstrations
There is a daily demonstration of Tesla inventions, which is free with your admission.
Tuesday-Friday demonstrations are at 3:30pm
Saturday & Sunday demonstrations are at 11:30am
Croatians love Nikola Tesla, I think every town we went to had a street named after him. So of course the museum is both named after Tesla and has an area dedicated to him. Besides the demonstration area, there are wall displays about Tesla’s life and work.
Transportation Department
Another exhibit that really matched my personal interests was the vehicles area- especially the cars! The transportation department covers all kinds of different transportation- road, rail, water, and air. There is a great variety and some very unique pieces.
1974 Volkswagon, type 1200 J Beetle, Bosnia and Hercegovina
Transformation of Energy
The Transformation of Energy exhibit shows how water, wind, steam, internal combustion, electricity, and nuclear power are used to satisfy energy needs. There’s a whole section with large steam engines, a section on nuclear energy, displays about hydroelectric plants in Croatia, and much more.
We enjoyed the area with models of mills, because some of them were similar to the real-life ones we had seen in Konavle and Krka Falls.
Upper Floor Exhibits
Upstairs there are a few more regular exhibits, as well as a temporary exhibit space.
First we went through the temporary exhibit From Tabula to Tablet, a Historical Survey of Telecommunication Techniques.
Next, we headed into the other temporary exhibit, Elementally AI. This was a series of generative AI artworks creating portraits for each element on the periodic table.
On the balcony sides of the upper floor are two exhibits- Astronautics & Planetarium and Renewable Energy Sources and Energy Efficiency. The planetarium does a daily show at 4pm Tuesday-Friday and 12:00pm Saturdays & Sundays.
In the back of the upper floor, there’s the Foundations of Agriculture and Apiary exhibits.
The Rest of the Trip
This post is already quite long, so we’ll add in the last of Day 13 with the rest of the trip- the final festival events, traveling home, and a wrap-up on the series!
In case you missed the earlier posts in this series…
- Croatia Trip Days 1 & 2: Planes, Busses, and Sleep Deprivation
- Croatia Trip Day 3: Old Town Dubrovnik, Cavtat, Wine Tasting, Mills, and More!
- Croatia Trip Day 4: Lokrum Island
- Croatia Trip Day 5: A Long Bus Ride, a Visit to Split, and History was Made
- Croatia Trip Day 6: Krka Falls, Zadar, and our First Concert
- Croatia Trip Days 7 & 8: Pools, Wine, Salt, and Football
- Croatia Trip Days 9 & 10: Pula, Rovinj, and Zagreb
- Croatia Trip Day 11: Zagreb Botanical Garden
- Croatia Trip Days 12 & 13: Tamburica Festival & Nikola Tesla Technical Museum
- Croatia Trip Days 13 cont., 14, & 15- The Finale
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