Feb
26
Mmm ?… Zagreb
February 26, 2008 |
Well a set of meetings in a ski lodge high in the mountain above Zagreb in high ski season sounded like it would be temptation too far (for some but not for me - a non-skier type) but as it was nothing but green grass and swooshing through leaves many were disappointed. The only snow was the artificial stuff laid down at obvious expense for the World Cup ladies thingy…
Well I did learn a couple of quite interesting things - firstly we have the Croatians to blame for ties. After beating the Turks in 1660 or somesuch the Croatian army marched off to be presented to the French Court for some reason. Louis liked the ruffle of silk around their necks and started a French Fancy. So to be ‘a la Croate’ soon became ‘cravate’ and so on to the whole tie thing
The other bizarre thing is that cars carry a country plate on their cars, like the GB sticker, but its not CA or CR but strangely HR which stands for Croatia in Croatian - or Hrvatska as we all surely knew. So why is it called Croatia and not something more like the Croatian version? Well apparently it goes back to when it was part of the Roman empire and was something like ‘la patria Ch
rawati’
Comments
1 Comment so far
Bizzare! I’ve probably been seeing “HR” stickers for years and mistaking them for Hungarian drivers or somesuch…
It’s always confused me, this whole changing the name of a country thing: England-Angleterre, Deutschland-Germany-Allemande. Why people don’t just name/call the country what the natives call it is beyond me…