There is something about Zagreb in late summer that makes you want to experience the city slowly.
Morning coffee that turns into brunch, shady parks when the afternoon gets too warm, a favourite terrace for an early evening drink – and no particular reason to rush anywhere.
From 20 to 30 August, add art to that itinerary. The Okolo Festival (Around Festival) returns to Zagreb, bringing contemporary art out of traditional exhibition spaces and into the streets, squares and parks of the city centre.
And that sounds like a pretty good excuse for a city break.
Art Is Your Guide Through Zagreb
Forget the usual checklist of sights for a moment. During Okolo, the best way to experience Zagreb is simply to start walking.
Seven artistic interventions will appear at different locations across the centre, creating a loose trail that takes you through some of the city’s most recognisable public spaces.
This year’s works explore our relationship with the places around us: how cities collect memories, how certain corners become emotionally important and how the same street can mean something completely different depending on who is walking through it.
It is less about seeing Zagreb’s “must-sees” and more about noticing Zagreb itself.
Old Zagreb Meets the City of Today
There is also a photographic side to this year’s festival, looking at Zagreb through different periods and perspectives.
Historic photography meets contemporary interpretations of the city, creating a visual conversation between the Zagreb that once was and the one we experience today.
And that is particularly interesting in a city like Zagreb, where traces of different eras constantly overlap. Elegant Austro-Hungarian façades, modern architecture, old courtyards, neighbourhood cafés and newly reinvented spaces all exist within a few streets of one another.
The festival gives you another reason to notice those contrasts.
Follow the Art, Discover the City
One of the best things about the Okolo Festival is that you don’t need a strict itinerary. The festival becomes your guide through Zagreb, leaving plenty of room for spontaneous discoveries between artworks.
This year’s installations can be found at various locations across the city centre – from the corner of Gajeva Street and Ban Jelačić Square to the Gradec Plateau and Strossmayer Promenade. The route continues through Varšavska Street, where three installations await, then through the Oktogon and Neboder passages and towards the green spaces of Zrinjevac and King Tomislav Square. One of the festival locations takes you slightly beyond the historic centre, to the corner of Savska and Koturaška streets.
But there is no need to rush from one artwork to the next. Make everything in between part of the experience. Stop for coffee, take the long way through Zrinjevac, ride the funicular up to the Upper Town, discover a new spot for lunch or simply find a terrace for an aperitivo.
Rather than treating Okolo as an exhibition you need to “complete”, think of it as an invitation to wander, explore and enjoy Zagreb at your own pace.
Make a Weekend of It
If you are visiting Zagreb, Okolo is an easy starting point for a late-summer weekend in the city. Art gives you the route, but what you do around it is entirely up to you.
And if you live here? Even better. Play tourist in your own city for a day. Take a different street, look up at the buildings you normally hurry past and finally stop at that place you have been meaning to try.
Because sometimes a great city break does not require going very far. It just requires seeing a familiar place a little differently.
Staying for the weekend? Find your Zagreb hotel HERE, follow the art, wander the city – and most importantly, have fun along the way.
