Suskosan - Fadar

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I am sitting on our balcony at the Villa Anton in Sukosan as I write this. It is a beautiful sunny morning and at 6 am the air actually feels cool! We arrived here yesterday afternoon once we finally got our rental car. For some reason, the agency wasn’t able to get our credit cards to accept a pre-authorization for damages. After an hour or more we were told that we couldn’t have the car if there was no deposit - even though the rental was pre-paid! We eventually got things worked out thankfully!

The major highway from Zagreb to Zadar on the coast is new and very impressive. We went through several tunnels cut through the mountains. I clocked one to be 5 kilometers but there was another that was even longer than that. The scenery on the way was spectacular once we hit the Istria region - mountains and water - unfortunately we weren’t able to stop for pictures.
Our villa stop here is just for one night. The place is very nice and the people extremely friendly - especially the older woman who greeted us. With little or no English she was able to express a lot of kindness. She gave Lenora a beautifully fragrant flower to take up to the room - the name is something like CROWN.
We spent an hour or so on the beach just across the street. It was strange that the water felt cool but it was only because the air temperature was so high. Our car thermometer on the way down read 36 degrees at one point but was just 30 when we got here. After our beach stint we got changed and took a bus into Zadar - just a 10 minute ride. What a wonderful surprise Zadar was. A charming old city - vibrant and lots of cafes and restaurants and a huge marina. The streets of polished stone looked like you could eat off them - we didn’t though, opting for a seafood restaurant instead - grilled tuna for me and grilled beem for Lenora. Very drinkable white Croatian wine as well. A lucky find - we came across four picnic style tables with couples sitting at each eating various kinds of seafood that all looked very tasty. Turns out they were there for a good reason - we thought we would have to eat inside but the waitress took us to a little garden out back - even better than the street!
At 9:15 we headed for the bus station to take us back to our Villa. There was supposed to be a bus at 10:20 according to the schedule we received but after much asking with 1-2 word Croatian we found out that the bus didn’t leave until 10:50. The driver and attendant were very kind and dropped us off on the coastal road right in front of our villa! Our villa lady was waiting for us at the door - I think she was a little worried (with some reason!)
We are heading to breakfast here now and then on the road to Tucepi (just past Makarska) where we will be for 5 days.

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