Zadar - A week to stop, take a breath and enjoy Croatia
As much as we keep saying we will slow down from our travels we haven’t quite mastered it yet. So, we decided Zadar seemed like a place we could spend a week to relax. The old town was on the water, close to islands, and had the charm of a beautiful old town with options for sightseeing and restaurants.
We left Split headed for Zadar, but first we wanted to stop at a small seaside town of Trogir which was recommended by a couple we met doing laundry who were sailing through the islands of Croatia.
As it was en-route to Zadar and we had the time we thought this would be a good option for lunch, as the location made sense to spend the afternoon to see this place. There is definitely a theme of towns in Croatia, as this too was a medieval city and like others, it had at one point belonged to Venice.
In this part of Europe, at some point in the past you were either owned by Venetians, Hapsburgs, or Ottoman Empires.
Narrow streets which in this town had seen its share of people walking making the streets extremely slick with buckling stones making one look down more than up.
Of course, with any medieval town there is a fort and if there is something to climb chances are that we are doing it, especially if you want to get an aerial view to see the area. The fort was built in 1280, and although there is nothing to see on the inside, the view like from the top is quite lovely.
We spent the afternoon wandering through the town, checking out the shops, and then selected a place for lunch by the sea. Once we leave Croatia our dining options with sea views will be limited so we were taking advantage of these views while we could. We stopped at a local vegetable market to purchase some vegetables, and then onward to Zadar, our home for one week.
Our place was a quick 10-minute walk to the center of the old town. It was a nice little apartment and I will say, although there was no outdoor area, and the listing stated it had a dryer, (their version of a dryer in Europe is to hang your clothes out on the line) it was an ideal place for us, not only close to town, but also with a big market and beach all within a 5-7 minute walk.
We decided that aside from visiting the old town the only excursion we would take was to Krka National Park, the first set of falls discussed in the last post.
The agenda for the week was for us to relax and get caught up on this blog, laundry, reading and much needed sleep.
The first day we walked into the old town to do some sightseeing and for getting our bearings, and to get some groceries.
We were told from the last hotel to go to the promenade by the sea to listen to the Sea Organ, which is a big attraction in Zadar. It was packed and although it’s always nice to be near the sea after a few minutes of listening to this it becomes a bit annoying. Basically, they have holes in the promenade and the waves of the sea make a sound somewhat like a dying whale. After spending the day checking things out it was back to our home.
The week proved to wonderful. It was a nice reprieve with getting laundry done. Managed to do something like 6 loads over the course of the week. They have small washing machines. We also managed to write some blog posts, organized the next phase of our trip, and slept. We explored ore of Zadar and even took an afternoon to go swimming since we figured it would probably be the last time we would have the opportunity to go swimming in the Adriatic.
Zadar was the perfect place to spend a week, enough to see in the town without the needing to visit each day like a Dubrovnik and beaches to enjoy an afternoon dip and absorb the beauty of the Dalmatian coast.
We decided we would need to slow down and do more of these one week stays moving forward. Let’s see how successful we are with that!