Zagreb - worth a visit?

I was last in Budapest in 1972, so you won't be getting a city-to-city comparison from me. I do plan to revisit Budapest in 2018 or 2019.

I enjoyed Zagreb a lot when I visited it last summer. It has a picturesque (and hilly) old town, a lively market, active café culture/street life and a lot of worthwhile museums. You just have to get to the older part of town (many of the museums are just a few blocks from the historic core) and ignore the surrounding sprawl, which I confess seemed pretty characterless to me.

Ask the tourist office for its museum brochure, which may not be on display or handed out automatically.

I enjoyed my two nights in Zagreb for many of the reasons above^. Great cafe culture, enormous public square. Interesting city that's not really touristy...but in a good way. There's endless public markets and tables for coffee and hundreds of cafes that line the streets. Museum of Broken Relationships was worth a visit. I liked that you could see the remnants of communist-type architecture right outside the main core - it made the semi-recent political history of the city quite evident. I can't comment on comparison to Budapest as I haven't been there but I assume Budapest to be in a different category of city - much larger, much more touristed etc.

To me, Zagreb is a small, provincial Budapest . . . you walk and see that it is definitely a Habsburg town.

To me, it is not enough different from Budapest to take time away from the Croatian coast, which is fabulous. In addition, Zagreb is quite far from the coast, so you'd take time getting there and back.

Not that Zagreb isn't a nice place, but with your experience of Budapest, I think you would be right to focus on Budapest and the coast.

Coast is better. Spend as much time there as you possibly can.

Thank you so much for the information!