Tag Archive: Zadar

  1. Zagreb, Croatia

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    We woke in Zadar early enough that we could grab the car, roll the bags out of the walled city, and hit the road for Plitvice. Today would be a long one:  four hours in the car, enough time to explore Plitvice National Park, and checking in to our hotel and exploring Zagreb before dark. Breakfast at the hotel was nice, though I was seated near the kitchen and could hear a baby crying the whole time–seemed odd to have a baby in the kitchen. John asked for “Orange Juice” and the gal brought him “Olive Oil.” She was so embarrassed until we managed to communicate how impressed we were with the English she had.

    The road to Plitvice was beautiful. It reminded me a bit of the Mogollon Rim. I was reading from the guide book about the best way to tour the falls, and we quickly parked the car and ran down to catch a shuttle to the top. We arrived just as a tram was leaving, so we ended up wasting 20 minutes waiting for the next one to leave. Once we were dropped off, we followed the raised wooden pathways. The park includes a series of 16 lakes that cascade down an area of 8 km and are separated by natural dams of travertine (the same material that gives Havasupai Falls its brilliant shade). The stunning pools looked so inviting that we would have loved to take a dip, but this is a UNESCO World Heritage site so no swimming allowed.

    We spent about 3 hours touring the falls then found out we were hungry! So we stopped at a roadside hotel/restaurant called Restoran Degenija where we had a filling meal and prepared for our drive into Zagreb.

    Once in Zagreb, we found our hotel, Hotel President Pantovcak, which I had really been looking forward to since it looked so pretty online and was highly rated on TripAdvisor. The staff was so friendly and our room was super nice. We enjoyed a welcome drink on the house, then walked down into Zagreb old town to see what was going on. It is really a beautiful city. It reminded me of Prague with its narrow curving streets and street car tracks. One thing I noticed was that all of the women were so smartly dressed with great shoes, purses, and “outfits.” But the men. Oh boy. Let’s just say they clearly are not trying. Lots of T-shirts and cargo shorts and flip flops. John and I had so much fun at a cafe watching the couples go by.

    For dinner, we wanted to try Trilogija but we didn’t have reservations. Lucky for us we were early enough to get a table. What a fun dinner! We were feeling indecisive so we let the waiter bring us whatever he liked. It was a yummy meal.

    We were tired, but made sure to stop at the Museum of Broken Relationships. We weren’t exactly sure what to expect, and were pleasantly surprised by the exhibits: art and narratives describing how relationships ended. I was especially moved by the “Parents” room, where people described losing their parents to suicide or death.

    Okay. That’s about a day. We were done. Se we wandered back up the hill to the hotel and fell fast asleep.

  2. Zadar, Croatia

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    We started our morning with a light breakfast at the hotel–it was perhaps the most difficult one we had of the stay so I won’t name the hotel. But there was only a small amount and variety of food tucked into a corner and we had to beg a grumpy person to make us a spot of coffee (no I don’t mean pot I mean spot). Anyway, we were ready to get on the road.

    And I’m so happy we did, because our visit to Krka National Park was truly amazing. What a beautiful location and a very special natural wonder. We got there around 10 am and I’m glad we weren’t any later because soon after we hiked down the steep path to the viewing area, the tour buses started coming. We did have to do some serious elbowing to get our best pics.

    When I posted a few pictures to social media, Facebook told me that my former student Sydni had just been at Krka the day before! She was studying in Florence and was in Croatia for the weekend. I was sorry to miss her, but we typed back and forth a bit about the falls before both moving on with our travels.

    From Krka we took a very scenic drive to the town of Zadar, another coastal walled city. I was kind of getting walled citied out, since this was our fourth on the trip. But Zadar was really spectacular and had some features I adored. First, we checked into our hotel which was BANGING. Art Hotel Kalelarga was one of our most expensive on the trip so I had high expectations, and they were met. What a beautiful room with muted and high design touches. Comfortable bed, lots of space, and a huge fruit bowl greeting us.

    From there we went to lunch at Pet Bunara–it was a really lovely and delicious meal and that’s good because we worked up an appetite hiking those falls. After lunch we took a well-needed nap, then we toured around Zadar. My favorite spot was right along the coast–we enjoyed a lovely stroll along the Paseo Maritimo, and the best part was listening to the Sea Organ singing. What a fanciful design–a series of steps down to the water. I’ll let Wikipedia say it for me because it’s hard to describe: “Concealed under these steps, which both protect and invite, is a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that turns the site into a large musical instrument, played by the wind and the sea.” It was so relaxing and refreshing to sit and listen to the music. Brilliant idea and I’m so glad I saw it. There is also a display that uses solar panels to collect sunlight during the day, that then turns into kind of a disco ball at night. We didn’t figure out what it was until later, and we didn’t get to see the disco ball effect.

    We continued our stroll towards the restaurant when we passed a really cute bar that stretched out across the front of the harbor. It turned out to be The Garden Zadar, and we decided to enter to have a sundowner. The garden was full of lounger beds and chairs and we enjoyed watching the sun go down while enjoying a drink.

    Then we moved on to the restaurant we had chosen Restaurant Kastel. We had a delicious dinner then headed back to get another good sleep.