Trip dates: March 2, 2017 - March 5, 2017

After our day checking out the waterfalls in Plitvice, we headed further south to the small seaside town of Zadar. Zadar isn’t really a big stop on many Croatian tourist itineraries, but it still gets its fair share of tourists in the summer, mainly as a stopover point for the cruise ships. We were staying at a lovely Airbnb right next to the Old Town with convenient street parking. This was our first taste of tiny Croatian streets, of which we’d see a lot more in Croatia and elsewhere in Europe when driving.

We also got a good look into local life as a Croatian since our Airbnb was in a more local neighborhood. Zadar is a smaller city in general and there weren’t many tourists there in March, so we were able to interact more with the locals and observe the Croatian culture. They are very friendly and welcoming!

Our first night in Zadar, we got in just at sunset so we managed to catch the Sun Salutation, a set of LEDs in the ground that is powered by the sun during the day and synced up with the waves beneath the stones of the walkway. We also got to hear the Sea Organ, which are a set of pipes that make sounds based off of wind and waves. Because it's dependent on the waves, the Sea Organ plays something different everyday and is best experienced on a windy day when there are lots of waves; on quiet days, you might not even notice it! It was really eerie but quite soothing - check out this video to hear it when it was super windy. Both are artist installations that rely on natural power, and pretty cool to experience.

That night, we met up with my friend Matt for dinner. As extra background - I met Matt at Illinois when he taught a class I took on Asian American studies. We had become Facebook friends and kept in touch periodically over the years. I also noticed that he traveled a lot to Europe, and Croatia in particular. I had reached out to him with some questions when we were planning our trip and found out that he’d be in Zadar while we were there, so we coordinated to meet up while we were in town.

We ended up having dinner with Matt every night in Zadar. We checked out two well-rated restaurants with Matt: Bruschetta and Restaurant Pjat. Bruschetta was one of the better meals we had in Croatia - we had black ink risotto (one of many times) and seafood spaghetti. Matt gave us a great primer to Croatian language, moreso than we got with Google translate, and local traditions such as the drinking of the often homemade and always very strong liquers. At Bruschetta, we drank one made with pear and honey that was quite good but also very strong! Restaurant Pjat saw us eating local Croatian prosciutto and having another strong drink that was more walnut based. 

Side note: we realized very quickly that food in Croatia is not cheap. We thought Croatian food was supposed to be on the cheaper side, but pretty much all sit-down meals were in the $30+ for two (usually 200-250 kuna for us). Which granted, isn’t super expensive, but not what we thought of for a ‘cheaper’ travel destination, especially compared to other costs in the country.

On our third night, Matt’s friends Ana and Marin had us over for some homecooked food that was delicious and something we had sorely missed after so much time on the road eating restaurant food. They prepared stuffed peppers with meat and rice that was made with some help from Ana’s grandma and you could really taste the history and love in the dish. We also had a helping of their homemade rakija, because that’s what you do! We had a lovely evening getting to know Ana and Marin, learning about their lives and talking about Croatian and American culture, music (especially shared love of taytay), and just about everything possible. It's really quite amazing how easily people from completely different cultures and backgrounds can connect on so many levels; we are all more alike than we make ourselves out to be.

Funny story - on the way out from Ana and Marin's place, we passed a girl who was completely drunk, passed out on the floor at the apartment entrance. Nobody else was phased by this - “welcome to Croatia, this is normal”. Her friends were nearby keeping an eye on her and they took her home as we left, but still, it was pretty ridiculous to see.

Besides eating a ton in Zadar and making new friends, we did some sightseeing too. We went to Krka National Park for a day trip, which we cover in a separate post here. There aren't too many sights in Zadar but one that we really wanted to do was go up St. Anastasia Cathedral's bell tower. We thought it should’ve been open, but turns out it was only open in the summer. Bummer, so we just wandered the small streets of Zadar and got some cheap street food instead. 

We also visited the Museum of Illusion as something to do, which was kind of silly but had some fun exhibits. In particular, they had a vortex where you try to walk through a straight walkway while a tunnel whirls around you. Your brain made it almost impossible to walk in a straight line! Here’s my silly video going through the tunnel as well as some pictures from the museum.

 

Overall, we quite enjoyed the small town feel of Zadar and how friendly the local Croatians were. Meeting up with friends and making new friends probably also helped influence our thinking, but that’s one of the cool things about traveling!

From Zadar, we continued our trip further south to Split, with a brief stop in Trogir which Lishan will cover in another post.