Since the pandemic, life has gotten smaller. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and in many ways it is not. These days, more thought needs to be invested in the planning of outings. Spontaneous nights out to concerts or plays are less frequent, and less certain. If you are single then your circle of friends may have contracted. It has in my case. When the two kilometre lockdown was imposed, followed by the five kilometre restriction then people were excluded from my life, by virtue of physical location. With worry over transmission, that distance seemed to continue after the lockdown lifted. Self-reliance became more essential. Being happy in your own company took on added importance. Being willing to travel abroad alone, comfortable in your own skin, is one of the skills that Covid has bestowed on me. I was accustomed to solo travel before the pandemic but it was the exception rather than the rule. I preferred back then to travel with company. I still do in fact, but in a situation where it’s a choice between yet another canal walk alone in Dublin or a little foreign jaunt alone – I choose the latter.

So it was last weekend I booked a trip to the capital of Croatia, the city of Zagreb. This was my first trip to Croatia and my second trip to a country from the former Yugoslavia, having visited Belgrade in Serbia in 2009. Croatia is now a popular seaside destination on the Mediterranean. Direct flights from Dublin to Dubrovnik; Split and Zadar are increasingly popular. Zagreb is about 150 kilometres inland. It’s a city of almost a million people so a decent yet manageable size.
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