…and decided not to stick to the rivers and lakes that we’re used to.
We woke up early and had a nice simple, yet hearty, breakfast at our inn. The highlight being bread and lots of individually packaged spreads; the surprise being that one looked like a fancy walnut spread, actually turned out to be a some kind of creamy meat spread. We tried, but needless to say, did not finish it… Our host and cook was a lovely Croatian grandma who never failed to surprise us with pockets of perfect English!
From there we walked over to the park (really lucked out on the location!) where we spent the better part of the day exploring. We saw waterfalls both large and small and almost a dozen azure-green lakes which were absolutely stunning.
The brilliant color of the lakes comes from calcium carbonate laden water, which remains dissolved when still (hence the beautiful color) but deposits when moving and aerating, which forms the travertine rock that creates bigger and bigger waterfalls. The phenomenon also makes the water basic (chemistry-wise) so it inhibits algae growth that keeps the water crystal clear — so much so that the fish look like they are floating in mid air!
There’s a no firm “no swimming; stay on the boardwalk” policy at the park, which slowly drove Jess crazy… Fortunately, there was a submerged portion of boardwalk, where this happened…
But while Plitvice was gorgeous, it had it’s challenges… Specifically, the fact that it was the least marked park that we’ve ever been too! They gave us a map at the beginning, but as the trail markers were few and far between (and cryptic even when we found them), every intersection lead to about 6-8 people all discussing where we could possibly be. It was an adventure, to say the least!
In the evening, we drove the couple hours to Zadar, a small sea town on a peninsula.
We were staying in the old town, which still had it’s ancient city walls intact – a fact we didn’t know until we were on top of them with the car! On the plus side, that means that there are no vehicles allowed in the old town and so we were able to park the car easily and hike in.
Then it was dinner time, and we stopped at a restaurant known for local cuisine and had a great meal of stewed lamb in a wine & plumb sauce with homemade gnocchi, and an octopus & chickpea salad. We also washed it all down with an excellent local syrah (which tasted strongly of tobacco and leather, to Grant’s delight!).
Dessert was equally tasty – a fig and white chocolate cake with wine poached fresh figs and a local dessert wine called “prošek”, which tastes a like a cross between vin santo and a muscato; so in a word, delicious!
We then wandered the city to walk off our enormous meal, and enjoyed the sights — including the local architecture, the “Salutation to the Sun”, and the sea organ (literally, a set of concrete tubes built into the sea steps that creates a beautiful organ sound with the rise and fall of the waves)!
Night view of the St. Anastasia Cathedral and baptistry!
This was one of the coolest things we saw in Zadar: called the “Salutation to the Sun”. It’s a series of solar panels and LED lights that charges during the day, and then creates an amazing light show at night!
– J&G