Zadar, Croatia.

The rain continued, unabated as I journeyed south along the Adriatic coast. In Zadar, it was really quite miserable, grey and very soggy. I began having serious second thoughts about being anywhere in Europe in late fall and winter. And this was just the beginning!

The hostel where I stayed was quite a long way from the old town, where the interesting places are, but my first morning there I decided to walk rather than take the bus. I find that if I walk about when I first arrive in a new location, I am able to get my bearings a lot better, than if I take a bus, and risk getting the wrong one, and/or getting off at the wrong stop.

The route that I chose took me along the coastline to the old city, and like the rest of the Adriatic coast, it is extremely convoluted and indented. So what looked like it should have taken about a half hour or so, ended up taking well over that, but past some beautiful old villas (almost all in states of neglect) and a couple of marinas, one of which was home to many, many unbelievably large pleasure craft, mostly flying the Union Jack. Some people just have too much money… One of the villas even had a replica of an Egyptian Sphynx in the front yard, which someone saw fit to “jazz-up” a bit with spray paint.



By the time I arrived in the old city, my feet were completely soaked (again), but I soldiered on in search of the tourist info office. This is one of the few cities where the tourist info office is actually situated where tourists go AND was really easy to find. Not only that, but the young woman who worked there was both helpful and friendly! Bonus!

She pointed out the “important monuments” and gave me good directions, and thus I was armed with information and enthusiasm for two days of exploring.

Within the walls of these cities is always fascinating, just poking around and checking out the side streets and nooks and crannies. A couple of extra interesting things I found in Zadar were the Glass Museum and the Sea Organ.

The Glass Museum is a new permanent exhibit in Zadar, housed in a beautifully renovated old building. But not nearly as old as the glass on display. The pieces were from the very earliest days of glass making and up through to post Roman times. A lot of the pieces came from an excavation site on a nearby island and were so delicate and fragile that it is completely remarkable, how beautiful they were. I was really moved by what I saw, in the beauty and the practicality, and the technology of glass making. Nothing was as elaborate as what is found on Murano Island, off Venice, but in fact some of the pieces did come from there, and the raw material for glass making, which was made in the area of Zadar, and shipped as a trading commodity to Murano, among other glass centres in the Roman Empire.

The other very interesting feature in Zadar is the Sea Organ. The one and only sea organ in existence so far, it works like a pipe organ, but the air is pushed through the pipes by the movement of the sea water. It is situated on the beautiful promenade, where everyone can enjoy the mellow sounds and watch the sunset. Well, when I was there it was raining and the sea was very calm, but there was just enough wave action to create some very ambient sounds, that would have been very restful if not for the lack of sun and abundance of rain! Anyway it’s pretty cool. Check it out on You Tube, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P0xxMOkmqA&feature=related