Old School Zadar

We are very, very bad bloggers... We've been in Zadar for more than a month and still haven't shown you any pictures of Old Town! It's one of our favorite places to visit. Best of all, it's only a 30 minute walk from our apartment in Borik.

Zadar's city center is over 2,700 years old. These days it is a walled, pedestrian-only zone:

The walls of Old Town.

There are four main gates. The most impressive is the Land Gate, constructed by the Venetians in 1543:

Can you see the winged lion of Venice over the main opening?

Here's an inner view of the Harbor Gate:

Notice the cars on the walls? Traffic is allowed up there!

Old Town's stone-lined streets are great for wandering:

Bird's eye view of Old Town Zadar.

Inside the Bridge Gate.

There's many great cafes and restaurants, too:

Dining al fresco at Stomorica restaurant.

Grabbing a gelato to go in Old Town.

Like any proper historical center, Zadar has several notable churches and towers. My favorite is the rotund Church of St. Donat, which I've affectionately dubbed St. Doughnut's Church. It was constructed in the 9th century by a Zadar bishop. Nowadays, it's used for musical performances.

St. Doughnut's Church and the Bell Tower of St. Anastasia.

St. Doughnut's and ruins of the Roman forum (1st to 3rd century).

Church of St. Mary (11th century).

Church spire at the Franciscan monastery.

Inside the Franciscan monastery.

Another sight is the Square of Five Wells (Trg Pet Bunara). The wells were Zadar's only water source until the late 19th century:

Square of the Five Wells

There's also a daily fruit and veggie market. While we've never seen it in action (it takes place during the early morning while we're still asleep!), we have seen the stands:

The daily farmers market.

Along the western side of Old Town there's a beautiful seaside promenade called the Riva. We love chilaxing on the waterfront. It's a great place for people watching:

The locals, sunning and swimming off a pier at the Riva.

And for happy-houring:

You don't need to work a 9-to-5 to appreciate a good happy hour.

And watching the sunset:

Another Hitchcock sunset in Zadar

One of the newest and coolest attractions along the Riva is the Sea Organ. It's a set of stairs along the waterfront that plays musical notes based on the waves. In my humble opinion, this is pure magic and completely fascinating to listen to. (If you would like a more technical description of how it works, please ask Jim.)

Listening to the Sea Organ.

The other "new" addition to the Riva is called Salutation to the Sun. It's a solar-powered LED display that puts on a dazzling light show at night. The display consists of a series of circular solar panels, representing the sun and planets, sized and spaced to scale. We borrowed a fellow tourist's video so that you can see it in action:

Mesmerizing, me thinks.

Wouldn't this be a great place for a Saturday Night Fever dance party?

If you're in Zadar after dark, a great place for a night cap is Garden. It's an open-air bar on top of the city walls. Word on the street is that this place is owned by the drummer from the band UB40 (remember them?) It was really challenging to get a good picture of this place at night since it only has ambient lighting. But, we did capture its best feature:

A bar with beds! Brilliant!

The Road Less Traveled in Paklenica

From the day we landed in Croatia, I've been itching to get up into the mountains inland from Zadar. Natalie was slightly less enthused about hiking mountains, so we decided I should make this journey on my own. Paklenica National Park is about an hour bus ride north of Zadar and offers easy access into the mountains. I checked the park website for maps, but found them insufficient for a serious hiker such as myself. I instead turned to the internet and downloaded some GPS files for trails that the park had carelessly omitted. My time was limited by the bus schedule, so I laid out a 10 mile loop that would take me to the old settlement of Tomići and to one of the park's main attractions, the Manita Peć cave.

The game plan courtesy of Google Earth and the internet.

Now, using GPS routes has always been a double edged sword. On the upside, they keep you from getting lost when the trail is hard to find. On the downside, they lead you down trails that are hard to find. The hard-to-find trail tends to be so for a reason -- nobody wants to walk the route because it's lousy and there are much better ways to spend your time. Despite the many ill-advised hikes I've taken on trails that existed only in my GPS, I never seem to remember this lesson.

The next day started with a successful navigation of the bus system to arrive at the park entrance in Starigrad; an auspicious start to my adventure. The entrance fee was 50 kune ($8.28), which I'm sure will be used to maintain the trails throughout the park. I ventured forth into the park until the GPS indicated that I had arrived at the trail head. Here's what I found:

Is that the trail?

Yup.

Most sensible people would have looked at this (Natalie included) and decided that perhaps another trail would be a better choice. I am not one of those people. After about an hour of bush whacking, I was reasonably certain the "trail" had been established by drunken billy-goats and subsequently marked with paint blazes by the park service to make it "official." I was starting to understand why this route wasn't on the park maps.

Can you find the paint mark?

After scaling a few rock walls I began to wonder if I missed the notice that ropes were required to complete the journey.

Note the cable anchored to the rocks for assistance up the "trail!"

The "trail" climbed from sea level to 2,900' in very rapid fashion. It hadn't looked all that strenuous on the computer the day before, but in light of the strict eating regimen of beer and pasta I had been following for the past several weeks, I was finding this to be a rather formidable challenge. The upside to such a rapid ascent was I wasted no time in getting spectacular views of the surroundings.

The big-boy mountains were too far away from the bus stop.

Starigrad and an inlet of the Adriatic Sea.

Eventually, I reached the remains of Tomići. The old "streets" were flanked with stone walls for a considerable distance. A few buildings remained -- some even had house numbers! I quite enjoyed strolling through this forgotten town in the mountains.

Walking the "streets" of Tomići.

These houses had postal addresses. Are you listening Costa Rica?

After several hours of hiking, I finally reached Manita Peć cave. This is one of the "must-see" attractions in the park, and I had planned my route to go right to it. Here's what it looked like:

Beautiful, isn't it?

Apparently, the cave had operating hours and I had just missed them...by 2 days and 4 hours. I can't say that I was all that disappointed since 5 hours on the "trail" had me thinking more about the beach and a beer than looking at a hole in the ground. Of course, that doesn't mean I didn't verify the gate was actually locked.

I ended my hike with a stroll down Paklenica Canyon and a dip in the river to wash away the magnificent odor that had accumulated on my person. I'm not entirely sure I was allowed to do that, but of all the pictographs depicting what stick figures shouldn't do, swimming wasn't one of them.

In the end, it was a bit more of a hike than I had bargained for, but a great day nonetheless. If you're in the area, and looking to take a hike in the non-pejorative sense, then I definitely recommend Paklenica. And don't worry, there are much more enjoyable trails that won't leave you bleeding and broken at the end of the day. You can find those trails on the park maps. They're on the website.

Darko's Plates of Love

Have we told you how much we love Darko, our awesome landlord? He's been a gracious and helpful host ever since we arrived in Zadar.

Meeting Darko and his family has really added to our trip. Every few days they stop by with a plateful of homemade food for us to try. We've sampled many traditional Croatian foods, such as wild asparagus (šparoga) salad:

Asparagus salad with hard-boiled eggs. From the New York Times.

Another day, we received a plate of grilled sardines (srdele), fresh from the morning's catch. According to Darko, local fish swim three times: "First in the water, then in oil, and finally in wine!" (We didn't have the heart to tell him that our fish only swam twice; since Jim and I don't eat fish, they never made it to our wine-filled bellies!)

From boat to grill under 20 minutes. Too bad we don't eat fish.

My favorite plate was filled with home-made desserts for Darko's birthday celebration:

Cake rolls and flaky chocolate pastries.

We also had some delicious Nutella-filled pancakes (palačinke), a great late-night snack!

From FoodBuzz.

But all of these wonderful dishes pale in comaprison to our bountiful, week-long cherry harvest, courtesy of one very prolific tree in our backyard. Each day, Jim and I collected about a kilo of shiny, red beauties. (I have a newfound appreciation for "grabbing the low-hanging fruit," an expression that's painfully overused in the corporate world.)

But the cherrypalooza didn't end there. The tree produced more cherries than we could eat! Despite our best efforts to eat them by the handful, there were still plenty left at the end of the day. So we started to get creative:

Good: French toast with cherry and bananas

Better: French toast with cherry and Nutella

Best: Jim's homemade cherry turnovers!

Much to our relief, cherry season was short and sweet. We were quickly running out of recipe ideas for fresh cherries ("Can we put them in tomato sauce? No? Well, how about some more French toast?") When we told Darko about our adventures in cherryland, he looked at us blankly and said, "Why didn't you just freeze them?" Duh...

Salted and On the Rocks in Pag Town

As we head into our final week in Croatia, we've been scrambling to hit all of the remaining “must-see” items on our list (yes, we are still making lists!) We recently took a bus trip to Pag, an island known for its salt fields, moon-like landscapes, and cheese. It’s about 30 miles north of Zadar, where the mountains meet the sea.

Serious commitment to salt.

My eyes were glued to the windows during the entire bus ride. In less than an hour, we transitioned from fertile coastal valleys, to scrub brush and pine trees, to a desolate, rocky coastline with mountain views. Amazing! Here are some photos of the scenery as we crossed the bridge onto Pag island:

The "moon-like" landscape of Pag Island.

Pag itself was a pretty sleepy town, with a small harbor and pebbly beaches:

At times, the strong sunshine and rocky hills reminded us of a day at the lake in Arizona (minus the brown water, inflatable rafts, and Bud Light.)

Watching the clouds roll in over the harbor

Which brings me to the final noteworthy event of the day -- I discovered my “Favorit” beverage!

At 0.2L and 50 cents, this is the perfect Natalie-sized drink!

Road Trip, Part II: A Fortress & Flaming Duct Tape

Day 2 of our road trip started at the crack of dawn (8am!) We were highly motivated to hit the road as we only had the rental car til 5pm. Since we'd toured a large portion of the coastal road on the way to Šibenik, we decided to save some time by jumping on the A1 motorway,  an inland toll road.

Scenery along the A1 motorway at 120 kph.

Our first stop was the small town of Trogir. It's about 75 miles south of Zadar. Trogir's historic center is located on a small island, just off the coast, and is yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Everyone knows that you can't spell FUNESCO without UNESCO!) With such accolades, we knew that Trogir would be a fine destination for our road trip.

Trogir was hopping with tourists, ourselves included. We spent about 40 minutes searching for parking, driving down many narrow, dead-end streets with no luck finding a parking spot and no way to turn around! After one such occasion, I came a wee too close to a building while backing up and lightly brushed the driver side mirror...off the car. Mind you, the mirror would have rotated harmlessly out of the way, but it was attached to the car with duct tape after a previous renter had lightly brushed it off the car.

Look honey, it still works! It's even more adjustable than before.

After securing the mirror back in place with my shoe lace, we finally parked the car and made our way into the Old Town.  Trogir had some great sights and was definitely worth the visit. For example, it had a medieval fortress:

Fortress Kamerlengo built in the 15th century. Looks like a Lego castle, doesn't it?

It also had some great winding alleyways, which Natalie is quite fond of:

Natalie posing for a photo-op on the streets of Trogir.

Jim not posing for a photo-op on the streets of Trogir.

And, there was even a fruit and vegetable market with real babushkas!

Selling local produce outside Torgir's city walls.

After all of this excitement, we had built up an appetite. Shamefully, we did not purchase any local produce from the babushkas, but instead opted for our standard lunch of kobasica and cheese sandwiches. We enjoyed a lovely picnic on the beach, just outside of town:

I have kindly cropped out images of the indigenous Speedo-clad sunbathers. You're welcome.

Before heading back to Zadar, we decided to do a quick drive-by of Split, Croatia's 2nd largest city. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to really explore the city and seek out its historic center. But, from what we saw (a thriving, busy, concrete-jungle metropolis), we were glad to have picked Zadar as our home base.

On the outskirts of Split.

So how did things shake out, economically speaking? We paid a pricey $65 for a one-day economy car rental, but that was less than the $75 in gas and $17 in highway tolls. Welcome to driving in Europe! We wouldn't do it everyday, but it was worth the splurge to see so many places in a short period of time.

And in case you were wondering, they never charged us for the driver's side mirror. It must have been my excellent repair work. Clearly, the damage was unnoticeable once I replaced the shoe lace with a permanent fix:

Good as new with some 200 kph rated duct tape!

Road Trip, Part I: Sheba & the Russian Sailors

At the end of the week, I started going stir crazy here in Zadar. This led to a minor meltdown, followed by an impromptu road trip down the Dalmatian coast. A little spontaneity is good for the soul, right?

We picked up our rental on Thursday evening and immediately hit the road. We had no particular place in mind (ha!), but knew that it would be challenging to head west (due to the Adriatic) or east (Dinaric Alps), so flipped a kuna and went south.

Instead of taking the interstate, we opted for the scenic route along the coast, cruising through towns and villages along the way.

The coastal road, somewhere south of Zadar

Approaching the city of Šibenik

About 50 miles south of Zadar, we hit a city named Šibenik (she-ben-eek). While the outskirts of town were , shall we say, communist chic, we were pleasantly surprised by the lovely waterfront promenade. We arrived just in time to catch another beautiful sunset:

Sunset in Šibenik

As we walked along the promenade, I spotted an old church in the distance and exclaimed, "That dome over there, that must be Old Town!" We weren't really sure what to expect, but being a sucker for really old buildings and pedestrianized zones, I insisted that we must check it out.

 Šibenik promenade with the domed church in the distance

As we got closer to the church, we came upon a large group of Russian sailors (the sailboat type, not the Red October type). They looked like they were going somewhere interesting, so we followed them up a set of stairs, where we found this:

What a beautiful little square! (And what a sweet party spot for those Russian sailors!) We were thrilled to discover this hidden gem. Go team!

St Jakov's Church at sunset

The most magnificent sight was St Jakov's Church, constructed in the 15th century. It's made entirely of stone, with no wooden supports. We later learned that the cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As I criss-crossed the square snapping photos, I made a new friend:

My new friend, Sheba of Šibenik

While I am admittedly more of a dog person, this little kitty was undeniably cute. Her big green eyes watched with great curiosity as I fiddled with the settings on my digital camera.

As nightfall set in, Jim and I wandered around the narrow, winding streets of Old Town:

Street in Old Town Šibenik

We were as giddy as school kids, gleefully exploring the maze of nooks, crannies, and alleyways. Since there were very few people in the streets, it felt like we had an entire section of Disneyland ("Old World Town"?) all to ourselves.

I'm going to leave you with my favorite photo from Šibenik, taken in the garden of the St. Lovre monastery:

Garden at the St Lovre monastery

The beauty of the manicured gardens, historic buildings, and twilight moon took my breath away. What a magical moment!

Escape from Zadar!

We've spent the past 3 weeks exploring the ins and outs of Zadar. These adventures have been entirely on foot, save for our excursion to Plitvice Lakes and bus trip to Nin. We now know the area well enough to give directions. Want to know how to get to the post office? bus stop? beach? German mega-resort? No problem! We can help! (Just don't ask us how to pronounce the street names, ok?)

Old Town Zadar is a pedestrian-only zone. Nice!

We've also settled into a daily routine. Our typical schedule goes something like this:

12 pm: Wake up.
12-2 pm: Have some coffee, eat some French toast, check email and catch up on Facebook.
2-2:05 pm: Have a discussion about sleeping in too late and missing out on life.
2:05-2:15 pm: Conclude that we must do something awesome today. Discuss various activities. Settle on walking around Zadar because it's too late to catch a ferry or a bus. Natalie says, "ok, but I'm in the middle of reading this really funny blog post about falling off a scooter in Thailand. Gimme 5 minutes."
2:45 pm [30 minutes later]: Natalie announces, "I'm done! I'll just take a quick shower and throw on a little makeup. I'll be ready in 20 minutes."
3:30 pm [45 minutes later]: Leave the apartment.
3:30-9 pm: Start walking. Realize it's happy hour, have a beer. Walk some more. Catch the sunset.
9 pm: Return home, make dinner, review the day's photos, do some work, watch a documentary on Netflix.
3:00 am: Go to bed.

No maple syrup here, so we had to use fruit.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that we've gotten acclimated to our new surroundings so quickly. We're also entirely happy with our decision to overhaul our lifestyle. The lesson here, my friends, is that Groundhog Day can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. We've found it here in Croatia!

On Thursday afternoon, the walls of the world were closing in on me. I could not stand another day walking laps around Zadar. I was also tired of starting at my computer screen. I had a bit of a meltdown.

While Jim was diligently working away on his latest pet project, I burst into the room and desperately pleaded, "I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!! We didn't turn our lives upside down to get stuck in a meaningless pattern of repetition! We're in Croatia, for goodness sake!"

"Ok... so what do you want to do?" Jim replied calmly.

I triumphantly proclaimed, "Let's rent a car and go on a ROAD TRIP! We'll hit the road tonight!"

Here is my best attempt to re-create Jim's reaction:

Jim didn't quite know what hit him, as this entire scenario appeared to come completely out of left field. Judging by my persistence, he quickly realized that we weren't going to spend the evening sitting around, carefully planning out a trip. We took 20 minutes to do a quick reality check (looking up rental prices, scouting out Google maps). Within the hour, we had keys to a Mazda 2. That's how I spell S-U-C-C-E-S-S!

The rest was easy. We picked a direction, and off we went.

We ended up making two trips, one on Thursday night and another today. Posts about our road trips are coming soon, I promise. For now, I'll leave you with a little foreshadowing. See that duct tape? It's on our rental car...

Custom detailing, courtesy of Jim and Natalie.