While we would have loved to sleep in for our first morning in Zadar, we had a 7am wake up as we had to move the trusty VW Golf. It had been a holiday the day before (Feast of Corpus Christi) and so parking hadn’t been enforced, which meant we had to be up and out by 7am the next day to move the car. In a mini-adventure, we got to take an early AM ride on the city walls to our new (safe!) parking spot!
From there, we wandered by to our apartment, stopping along the way to pick up some perfectly ripe cherries from the farmer’s market just below our apartment, as well as a few fresh pastries and coffee from the amazing little bakery that ended up being ~10 steps from our house.
From there, our only plan was to spend the day exploring Zadar. We started at the end of town nearest to the mainland at the Plaza of the Five Wells, and the Captain’s Tower. Now, if you know any of Grant or my previous adventures, you’ll know we love to get the bird’s eye view of places, even if it means hundreds of stairs, so of course we climbed right up! Along the climb, there were interesting paintings that looked like it explained the love story of a girl and sailor (explanations were all in Croatian, so we could only guess).
Cute, but oh-so-confusing!
The view from the top was amazing – blue seas, green trees and speckles of red roofs in between – definitely worth the climb! It also gave us a new target for wandering as in the distance we saw the bell tower of the Cathedral of Anastasia and remembered we could climb that one, too!
Panorama shot – click to see the full!
However, before heading off for another hike, additional sustenance was required (Sweet bread and fruit can only get you so far, people!), so we swung through a cute little café called Pasta Svasta (HA!) and each got the “brunch special” – 2 pieces of bruschetta and a bowl of homemade soup – both were excellent and left us 100% ready for more stairs!
Then finally our destination: The bell tower! We were delighted to discover that the bells were still present and active (and equally delighted that they didn’t go off while we were so close!) and got to hear them sound later in the evening. As the tower was built in stages, we also could see the difference in quality of the stairs, the one right near the top feeling a little less than stable, which is a little nerve-racking that high up! But the views – so worth it! This time we were looking back down the Peninsula, with a great view of the mountains in the distance.
Grant’s “heck yeah I’m climbing that!” face
From there, we headed back to the Riva, a wide, tree-lined walkway right next to the water that all seaside Croatian towns seem to have. At the far end was the Sea Organ, and it was so fun to listen to it while watching the boats go past. Some folks were jumping into the deep, clear water, but we’d (foolishly!) neglected to bring out swimsuits out with us, so we were relegated to wading.
As the heat of the day built, we retreated to yet another cute cafe. This one under some of the trees that line the Riva, and indulged in an early afternoon siesta, complete with excellent lime/cilantro/blueberry flavored Radlers (2% alcohol by volume, so let’s not get excited) and a random band that seemed like they only knew what they were doing a quarter of the time. It was weird, wonderful and oh-so-relaxing!
This is how you siesta, Croatian style
From there we hustled home for a quick shower pre-dinner; as we were heading out to a shmancy dinner, we couldn’t go in all our stair climbing grime! But first we caught the sunset at the Salutation to the sun – it’s the western-most point of the city, and the best place to watch the sun dip into the Adriatic!
We then headed off to dinner: again, amazing local wine (this time a Cab so good, our waiter promised it was free if we didn’t like it!), a whole grouper cooked on the grill, truffle and cream monkfish with house made gnocchi, and the spiciest arugula and tomato salad I’ve ever had! Note: it wasn’t the dressing – the arugula tasted like pepper and was almost too much for me!
By then, we were plumb tuckered out by the exhaustingly relaxing day, so headed off to bed (I know – we’re wild and crazy kids!).
– J & G
PS – Zadar has some great graffiti that we both enjoyed and thought we’d share:
