Croatia Travels - Part 1 - Zadar

We knew we weren’t in London any more when our plane landed in a paddock and the police had the traffic stopped as our pilot drove the plane across a road to the terminal! We arrived in Zadar on Monday night the 24th September for the beginning of our two week trip around Croatia.

We headed straight for our hostel to drop off our bags before heading off to try our first local pivo (beer) and check out Borik, the area of Zadar we were staying in. The hostel was right across from a big marina and just near a nice little beach. A nice change from London.

The next morning after our delicious dry bread breakfast (and some weird meat paste….) we headed to the old town of Zadar for a look around. The bus ride was the first chance we’d had to see the place in the day light too.

Ok so I’ll give you a bit of a summarized history of Zadar. It has a long history dating back as early as the 9th century BC. During its history it has been under the rule of the Romans, the Hugarians, the Venetians, Austria, France etc etc. You get the idea. So all these different countries have helped to contribute to some pretty interesting history and buildings, but also meant quite a few wars.

During World War 2 for example Zadar was occupied by Germany. Hence the allies got together and bombed the place to smithereens. And although the town was rebuilt, trouble came knocking once again in 1991 when the Serbs launched a massive attack. So severe that the people were stuck in their houses for months on end without much food or water.

So although much of the town has been rebuilt we were still amazed to see the scars of war around the place. Growing up in Tassie makes things like this seem a world away and the enormity of it all was definitely not lost on me!

Ok so back to our tales…

We spent most of the day rejoicing in sunshine (it’s been so long!) and wandering around the old town which is out on a peninsula surrounded by old town walls. The photos best describe and show the town and the nice bay that surrounds it.

We ended the day at Mama Rina’s - our new favourite place to eat! A whole pizza and a pint for £4 - that had our names written all over it! We ate there every night we were in town to the point that the staff got to know us.

Our days in Zadar was actually broken up into two parts - as we ventured off into the mountains for a few days (look out for Part 2 of our Croatia Travels) - but we returned for another two nights and a full day of sunshine.

We decided on this day that we would find ourselves a boat doing a day trip out to the islands of Zadar to see what they had to offer. We all piled onto this boat with a mix of people for the day trip out around the islands.

Now the trip came inclusive of breakfast and lunch and refreshments. And they definitely know how to start the day - not long after leaving port we were all presented with shots of this nasty white spirit that tasted and went down like metho to be honest. Definitely an interesting way to start the day at 8.30am. They actually continued to serve this throughout the day for anyone who could stomach it. They also added to the drinks list by bringing out a large drink container filled with juice, and then one filled with wine. Very funny sight.

Anyway back to the boat trip - most of the trip saw us cruising around the barren islands off Zadar. Our first destination was to see us head out beyond the bays into the open ocean to view the massive sea cliffs off Kornat island - unfortunately the seas were a bit rough and they decided not to do this part of the trip. I was a happy with this decision as the seas started to pick up and the boat was really going up and down as we attempted to leave the protection of the islands, but Adam thought they were a bit soft as it looked pretty calm to him beside a bit of chop.

So we headed to our next stop which actually took us to the other side of the sea cliffs and into the protected cove and port of Kornat island. Here we could actually hike up onto the top of the sea cliffs and got some really good views of what we would have seen from the water. Also on this island was a salt lake seperated from the ocean and apparently sits at about 30 degrees in the summer months. They said at the time of year we were there it would probably be about 24 degrees - well let me tell you it was a hell of a lot colder than that. Needless to say we decided against a swim and instead lapped up some sun on the rocks.

The island itself is actually home to a whole lot of donkeys and cats. The donkeys come out of the hills when the boats pull up and can be quite cheeky as they try to steal peoples packed lunches etc. I wanted nothing to do with them, but Adam took a liking to them.

Before we headed off again back towards Zadar, we were all provided with a fantastic fish lunch aboard the boat - they really know how to cook their seafood over there. We had this really nice BBQ fish - Adam thinks it was mackrel but wasn't 100% sure - but it sure was tasty.

Well the cruising back to Zadar became rather interesting, and annoying as all the European guys hit the wine and metho which saw them all break into song. Needless to say we wanted to throw them overboard, but I guess in looking back it added to the experience.

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