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Zagreb
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 South of Gradec, the modern Donji grad ("Lower Town") sprawls out in all its grey, grid-patterned glory. Breaking the urban uniformity is the series of interconnected garden squares,
laid out from the 1870s onwards, which give the downtown area an unbroken, U-shaped succession of promenading areas and parks. Known as Lenuci's Horseshoe (Lenucijeva podkova) after Milan Lenuci, the city engineer responsible for its layout, this was a deliberate attempt to give Zagreb a distinctive urban identity, providing it with public spaces bordered by the set-piece institutions — galleries, museums, academies and theatres — that it was thought every modern city should have.The horseshoe was never entirely finished, though, and it's unlikely you'll walk round the full U-shaped itinerary intended by Lenuci. The first of the horseshoe's two main series of squares starts with Trg Nikole Subiča Zrinskog — usually referred to as Zrinjevac — which begins a block south of Trg bana Jelačoća; to the west of Zrinjevac is the second line of squares, culminating with Trg maršala Tita. To the south are the Botanical Gardens, which were intended to provide the final green link between the two arms of the horseshoe, but don't quite manage it: several characterless downtown blocks stand in the way. The set-piece buildings on and around both Zrinjevac and Trg maršalaTita wouldn't look out of place in such bastions of Mitteleuropa as Graz or Linz, giving this part of Zagreb a prosperous, dignified air, although Donji grad's other buildings are mostly offices, ministry buildings or apartments, and there's not much in the way of shopping or cafe life in this part of town.
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