ja_mageia

Occupying a large terrace overlooking Trg bana jelačica to the north is Dolac, the city's main market. This feast of fruit, vegetables and meat is held every morning, but is at its liveliest on Friday mornings, when fresh fish arrives from the coast.

Curving uphill immediately to the left of Dolac is Tkalčićva, formerly known as Potok ("Stream") due to its position on the dried-up watercourse that once separated Kaptol from Gradec. Probably the prettiest single street in the city, Tkalčićeva preserves a neat ensemble of the one- and two-storey, steep-roofed nineteenth-century houses that have largely disappeared elsewhere. There's a smattering of boutiques and art galleries tucked into the street's low-ceilinged mansions, although most of these are now occupied by the youthful cafe-bars which have transformed Tkačiceva into the city's prime area for drinking on warm summer evenings. The whole area used to have a somewhat darker reputation in the years before World War I, when Kožarska, the alleyway which runs parallel to Tkalčićeva to the west, served as the city's red-light district, "reeking of debauchery, adultery, crime, drunkenness, and promiscuity", in the words of diarist and novelist Miroslav Krleža. Also leading off to the west of Tkalčićeva is Krvavi most ("Bloody Bridge" - a reminder of the often violent disputes between Gradec and Kaptol), a street which links up with Radičeva, offering a short cut up to Gradec.