Zadar – Coast Worth Doing

“Magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”

― Terry Pratchett, Mort

Lesson Learned: If your travel budget has been taking a beating Croatia is where you need to go for a while. We’ve found it very affordable while not scrimping on the things we want to do, places we want to stay, eating and drinking the way we feel comfortable, and seeing great things along the way. It’s all been perfect.

We have a rental car, just like we did in Greece, and again on Crete and it’s allowed us the flexibility to move about the country as we want at a reasonable cost. We highly recommend Croatia to anyone that wants to visit Europe, but is afraid of the high costs in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the Scandinavian countries. Also, Croatia is not a Schengen country, so you don’t need to worry about how long you stay there.

We would like to visit more of Eastern Europe, but since we are committed to going to France in June, we must budget our time in the EU because of these silly Schengen constraints. Honestly, we aren’t going to emigrate illegally to these countries, and the Schengen rules mean we’ll spend our money in Croatia, England, and Ireland instead of Spain, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. I’m sure that’s a crushing blow to their economies. Schengen, Schengen, Schengen. Say that fast 3 times.

Lesson Learned 2: If you park in the city (any city in Croatia), you can feed a parking machine, or take a selfie of your car’s license plate, walk to the closest Tisak (which is a 7-11-type kiosk found all over the place) and you can pay the clerk for your parking (4 kunas an hour, or about $0.61 cents). Metered parking fees end at 4 PM on week days, 2 PM on Saturdays, Sundays are free, and the neat thing is if you overpay on an afternoon, it rolls over to the next morning automatically. Also, once you pay for parking at the Tisak you don’t have to go back to the car, the info is entered into the parking system. You can enroll in the parking system and use your cell phone to pay for it, but I had trouble setting this up with my American T-Mobile phone.

Regrets: I wish we would have been in country while they were filming Game of Thrones. Not that we would have seen anything, or met any of the cast, but it would be cool to tell people we were there!

Go-Date: Day 95 – 97, Saturday to Tuesday, April 27 to 30

Sites covered in this post:

• Road to Zadar
• Old Town – Zadar
• Paklenica National Park

Game of Thrones Dead Pool

OK, so this is the final season for Game of Thrones, and portions of it were filmed here in Croatia (Dubrovnik – Kings Landing). I watched seasons 1 and 2, but never could keep up my interest enough to watch it every Sunday night. So, in honor of being here in Croatia, Ellen and I binge-watched Seasons 1 through 7 over the past 3 weeks. Now, as we move down the coast towards Dubrovnik we are current.

Last night was the big Battle Royal between Jon Snow and friends against the White Walkers. We have been discussing this event with family trying to pick out who would live or die. I should have done this post last week, but you gotta pick who’s going to survive. I made my pick publicly (to friends), and am on the record. To play the game, you can’t just pick who’s going to die, because you must figure that with George RR Martin the body count of known cast will be pretty high, and its more fun to try to figure out the plot twists (not just whether Jamie Lannister will live or die). So, it’s more important to guess who will live and what will happen. I’ll go public here on this blog. Let’s see how much I know about Fantasy stories.

• Jaime Lannister – stuff to do yet, but will not make it
• Cersei Lannister – she’s toast, too mean to live
• Sansa Stark – She will be queen. Sort of like Queen Elizabeth (note the red hair)
• Arya Stark -tough call, I think she will live and then disappear, or get killed…..kind of mysterious
• Bran Stark / Three-Eyed Raven – he will live, but in the roots of the tree
• Sandor “The Hound” Clegane – he will die in a battle with his brother (the Mountain will die as well)
• Tyrion Lannister – dead, but nobly
• Davos Seaworth – he won’t make it
• Samwell Tarly – he will live and become the head Maester
• Varys – he’ll live and become advisor to the queen (or die horribly)
• Gendry – he’ll die
• Brienne of Tarth – she’s accomplished her goals, she’ll die
• Gilly – noble heart, good mother, loyal to Sam, curious to learn, she’ll live
• Daario Naharis – he’ll reappear just to die
• Missandei – nope
• Jon Snow- not going to live through the last episode
• Daenerys Targaryen – her and her dragons will die

OK, there are my picks. I wonder how close I’ll get to being correct?

Road To Zadar

We turned a 3 hour drive from Krk to Zadar into 4 ½. That wasn’t the plan, it just worked out that way. We skipped off the mainland, even though we didn’t need to , over to the island of Pag via the ferry. Short ride, and the water was as smooth as the Duck Pond in Trinity Park (that’s in Fort Worth for those who don’t know). We wandered down Pag and then took a bridge back to the mainland. That’s about it, beautiful day, great scenery and beats the hell out of driving from Lincoln, Nebraska to Columbus, Ohio.

Sea Organs, Forts, and Churchs

Zadar is the oldest continuously-inhabited Croatian city. They’ve found bones and pottery in caves around the city to about the time of Fred Flintstone. So, it’s a pretty cool place to live. Now, keeping straight who was running this joint was another deal. I won’t drag it out, the list goes like this:

• Rome – 59 BCE
• Byzantine Dalmatia – 614 CE  
• Franks – 9^th century CE
• Byzantines – 812 CE
• Croatia – 10th century
• Republic of Venice – 998
• King of Hungary – 1186  
• Republic of Venice – 1202
• Hungary – 1358
• Republic of Venice – 1409
• Ottoman Turks – beginning of the 16th century (briefly)
• Republic of Venice – 16^th century
• Austria – 1797
• France – 1805–1813
• Kingdom of Italy – 1920
• Germany – 1942 – 1944
• Allied Partisans – 1944
• Socialist Republic of Croatia – 1947
• Republic of Yugoslavia -1948
• Serbia – 1992
• Croatia – 1995

That is a lot of change. The most traumatic periods were probably during the Venetian occupation periods and during WWII when bombing by theAllies practically leveled the old town city center. The scuffle between Croatia and Bosnia/Serbia when Yugoslavia imploded in the 90s was pretty bad as well. Many Croatians talk about the Serbs like the Greeks talk about the Turks. I’m sure its just the opposite if you cross over the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia.

We like Zadar, a lot. It’s a pretty city, there is a young vibe to it because of all the kids attending the University of Zadar which is on the south end of the old city. Zadar is a city monument, surrounded by historical sites all over the old city. It’s old Venetian fortress has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. You can find many medieval remains and artifacts from the Renaissance in the museums. It’s a very walkable city, with a lot of the old Venetian streets closed to traffic.

We were fortunate to find a place with parking available right in the center of old town. I mean, down the stairs, out the door, turn left and in 800 feet you are at the old Roman Forum and the church of Saint Donatus. We were close to the Acropolis in Athens, but not this close. Its not a large city center, but it has plenty to see, places to eat and drink, and for us, easy access into and out of town for taking day trips. We dig it.

Here are some things to see:

• Venetian Works of Defense (VWD) – fortifications built by the Venetians for protection from the Ottoman Turks between the 16th and 17th Centuries. This property (UNESCO site) consists of 6 components of defense works in Italy, Croatia and Montenegro protected the sea routes and ports in the Adriatic Sea to the Levant. They were necessary to support the expansion and authority of Venice. These changes in fortifications were significant due to the introduction of gunpowder which led to significant shifts in military techniques and architecture that are reflected in the design of bastioned, star-configuration fortifications, which were to spread throughout Europe. Well, one is here in Zadar.
• The Forum – Located in front of the church of Saint Donatus and the Archbishop´s Palace the Forum is a municipal square from the Roman era, built from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD. About all that is left from the Allied bombing during WWII are some foundations, a few columns, and chunks of marble from old temples and public buildings. It lies on the northern edge of many of the old town streets. The forum is the name given to all main squares in the cities of the ancient Roman Empire, where the public life of the city unfolded. This area later became a large episcopal complex with the basilica, annexes, and a large rotunda. You can walk up to the top of the bell tower for a great view of Zadar.
• The Foša – Part of the VWD. The Land Gate was erected in the Renaissance style in 1543, according to the designs of Venetian architect Michele Sanmicheli, in the shape of a triumphal arch with three entrances. At the time they were the main entrance to the city.
• The Kalelarga – This is the main drag in the old city. Definitely Venetian, with no motor vehicles, laid with old worn, limestone blocks, this is where you’ll find a great many of the stores and cafés in the old city. Kalelarga is also known as the Wide Street, is the main and most famous street in the city of Zadar. Some people say it is even older than the city itself, spreading in the direction west – east from People´s Square to the city’s famous Forum.
• Narodni trg (People´s Square) – this square served as the center of public life in Zadar from the Renaissance until today (maybe last year, it wasn’t the center when we visited). On the site of the Large Square, many of the foundations of municipal institutions were laid in the early Middle Ages. Many of the old medieval public structures were demolished during the Venetian reign in the 15th century (which is just another reason why the Zadar people hated the Venetians). Now a large central clock tower, from the beginning of the 19th century, stands in the square.
• Sea Organs – This is one of the quirky things about Zadar that everyone needs to check out. A part of the sea wall on the Riva (strand around the city) is set up to allow the wave action make music that echos throughout the streets of the city on still days. The site is a blend of human ideas and skills and the energy of the sea, waves and tide. It is a place for relaxation, contemplation and conversation while listening to an endless concert of mystic harmonies of the “Orchestra of Nature”.

The Sea Organs is situated on the western end of Zadar´s Riva, and simply looks like a set of stairs that descend into the sea. There´s actually hidden engineering buried within these steps as the lower steps allow water and air to flow into resonant chambers pushing out an undulating, chime-like notes that sound a lot like whale songs. Because the sea is always shifting and changing, the sea organ never sounds exactly the same twice. Each sound you hear is completely unique.

• The Greeting to the Sun – Immediately adjacent to the Sea Organs is the Greeting to the Sun. I think is really should be called The Disco Floor on the Sea Shore. The show doesn’t begin until the sun goes down.

The display is a series of circles that contain solar panels and embedded lights. The Greeting to the Sun consists of three hundred multi-layered glass plates in the shape of a 22-meter diameter circle. Under the glass conduction plates there are photo-voltage solar modules. The light show is coordinated with the sunset. The lighting elements installed in a circle turn on, and off, following a particularly programmed scenario. They produce an impressive show of light in rhythm with the waves and the sounds of the Sea organs.

The photo-voltage solar modules absorb the sun energy during the day and then transform it into an electrical light show at night.

Zadar is a city where huge spaces are left for pedestrians. Unlike other cities like Cairo, all the sights in Zadar are close and walkable, even if you aren’t a spring chicken. Its all pretty flat, except all the stairs up and down to the battlement walls around the old town. Parking is tough though. We were fortunate to have a large parking lot next to our apartment.

The city has a high-energy vibe to go along with all the old left over from the Romans, and the middle ages. We happened to be on the Riva while a wedding party paraded through and people were flying drones. It was lively entertainment to go along with all the other sights.

Paklenica Day Trip

Paklenica National Park is a little inland from Zadar about 47 km northeast. It’s a very easy day trip out of the city. The Park is part of the Velebit Mountains which are visible on the eastern horizon when you are on a high vantage point in Zadar and covers an area of just under 100 square km (it’s not a large park, but I assure you it won’t matter to you). It has a mixture of high peaks with stunning views, deep gorges and beech and pine forests and makes for some difficult trekking, but nothing extreme, unless you want it to be.

The Park is an ideal place to visit if you really want a workout– there are several challenging hiking trails, and climbing is also popular here. I mean, really, really popular. The Park is very suitable for hiking, and a number of trails of different difficulty and length exist. Hiking is probably the best way to explore and really get a feel for the Park. You had better bring a good pair of hiking shoes, this is not a good place to hope out on the first trail you find in a pair of jogging shoes you’ve had for 6 years. There are also places in the park you can rent a bike for some of the numerous cycling trails, or just on the roadways in the park.

Roadways may be a generous description for the auto paths inside the park. Our driveway in Fort Worth was about twice as wide as these roads. This wouldn’t be a problem, except there are no shoulders, one side is a gouged out mountain that goats would find challenging to climb, and the other side is a sheer drop off from between 6 feet to 50. Either one of these falls would be sure to scratch the finish on the rental car. Oh, and did I mention that this was the only road in the park, in and out? Driving is a challenge, get used to backing up to a wide spot so the other guy can pass. Also be aware that the bikers and hikers seem to be oblivious to the fact that you are inclined to run them over after the fifth time you have to dodge another car heading the other way. Oh, and there are busses on this road as well. Happy Motoring.

For the more adventurous, climbing is a very popular activity in the Park, which draws climbers from all over Croatia and further away (lots of Germans). Again, there are a number of climbing areas for varying levels of difficulty. Climbing in the Park is really only recommended if you’re an experienced climber, however. There are numerous outfitters that can teach the novice, train the inexperienced, challenge the journeyman, and guide the expert 800 feet up a sheer rock face wall if you have the balls. Personally, I can think of better ways to die and I’m not afraid of heights. After all, I used to make my living climbing up telephone poles for Ma Bell.

All in all, it’s a pretty park, I’ve never seen so many rock climbers in one place in my life, it has challenging trails up these cliffs, and everyone is having a good time (except when driving). We did about 4 hours in the park gawking and hiking. It was an outstanding half day get-away from the city for us. We thought it was going to rain, but it held off and got warm enough we had to peel outer layers to remain comfortable. As you’ll see in the pictures, there were some dare devils out this day.