Croatian pizzerias are like nowhere you have ever eaten before in your life. Nothing on the menu is recognisable to the English eye.

Smoke from 50 tar-heavy eastern European cigarettes hangs in the air like industrial smog, while glamorous residents of Zagreb sit chatting through the fumes, immune to it all and dressed in leopard print and leather jackets. And that’s just the men...

Picking a pizza felt rather like playing Russian Roulette, but without the risk of blowing one’s brains across the restaurant.

I could have been ordering the ‘horse special’ for all I knew, but in a perverse way this only added to the fun.

Actually, I tell a lie. There was one pizza title written in English. It was called the Sexy Pizza.

I knew right then and there that this was the one for me, so I placed my order with the waitress and sat back to await my culinary surprise.

It had been a memorable few days in the Croatian capital and I was sad to be leaving. It had been raining hard when I arrived a few days earlier and got soaked on my three-kilometre walk from the bus station to the hostel.

It was quite appropriate then that my hostel was called the Hobo Bear.

This is where you must stay if you come to Zagreb. Not only is it less than a 10 minute walk from Trg Bana Jelacica (the main square), but it’s also stunning, with vaulted cellar ceilings, a resident golden retriever named Max, who is always eager to make new acquaintances and an atmosphere that relaxes you as soon as you walk through the door.

Perfect in fact for getting yourself into the gregarious make-new-friends state of mind necessary for successful hostel dwelling.

A few hours later and I was on my way to meet Maris and Fran, the Croatians who had been kind enough to invite me on their big Saturday night out without ever having met me before (we got in touch on www.couchsurfing.com – a spectacular cultural-exchange website).

I met them south of the city centre, outside Club Boogaloo, a large venue famous for its live music. That Saturday night it was a posthumous birthday party for Bob Marley and Club Boogaloo had booked “the best Bob Marley tribute band in the Balkans”.

That was quite a statement, but after hearing them I could hardly contest it. Maris and Fran decided they loved me enough to introduce me to the Croatian tradition of doing shots of the local firewater.

The black liquid that they placed before me was quickly imbibed (it tasted like a teabag left to infuse in a pond for a decade with the stagnant liquid squeezed into a cup). I had about seven.

The conversation was varied and rich, and after many beers and shots, Maris declared me to be just like her best friends and that she really wanted to bake me a cake, which I could pick up the next day when I was now invited for dinner. It all made perfect sense at the time.

Goodbyes were said, promises to keep in touch were made and I somehow found my way back to the hostel – but I still don’t remember the journey.

I woke up the next morning and couldn’t remember my name or where I was.

A walk was just what I needed to shake off the hangover, so I picked up a free tour map of the city from the reception desk and set out.

I found a characterful little pub called Meli Medo and ordered three different cuts of pork goulash on an enormous pizza base. Heavenly. Back outside, I looked up and noticed that Zagreb had incredible architecture.

The whole of Zagreb’s city centre, comprising two hills in the north (Kaptol and Gradec) and the lower town to the south (Donji Grad) is beautiful.

It’s a good job that I enjoy walking, taking photos, going to markets and eating, because there’s not much else to do in Zagreb on Sundays.

Dolac (the covered market) was a treat for the senses. There was a butcher’s counter with everything for sale from brains to testicles.

Later, I entered Zagreb Cathedral and found it to be one of the most serene places of worship I have visited.

I’m an atheist, but took great pleasure from sitting down in one of the pews amongst the frail old Catholic grandmothers. This shrine of silence restored me and cured the hangover better than any plate of meat ever could.

Later that night, I found a restaurant opposite the cathedral, called Kaptolska Klet (recommended in my Lonely Planet guide).

I ordered the speciality of the house and felt a tad guilty because it was veal, but once it was on the table my morals evaporated and I tucked into one of the tastiest meals of my life.

I had arranged to meet a Croatian girl named Kristina at 8pm in front of the statue in the main square.

She had been working all day and her relief was palpable when I told her I didn’t want her to take me on a guided tour of the city, I had already done it myself, and should we just get a beer?

We enjoyed a good long chinwag over some proper Croatian dark beer, before saying goodbye.

This meeting further confirmed to me that I’m a fan of Croatians, and that they love meeting us.

If you like delicious meat-centric dishes, strong beer, museums and world-class art galleries, scenic walks, countless photo ops and warm hospitality then I urge you to include a two-day excursion to Zagreb when you go to Croatia, instead of just hitting the coast.

The following day the weather had become utterly gorgeous, but I felt that it was time to move on to my next destination: Ljubljana, the capital of Croatia’s neighbour Slovenia.

On my way to the railway station I dived down a side street and found Pizzeria Lira, which brings us up to the point where I’m waiting to see what a Sexy Pizza consists of.

At this point I’m suitably nervous, and rightly so. For when it comes, I am presented with a gargantuan pizza with toppings that include two baked runny eggs, a frankfurter and at the tip of the frankfurter a solitary green olive.

True, a little bit naughty, but very tasty.

Now then, Slovenia here I come!