Going Coastal in Croatia - Split and Zadar


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Europe » Croatia » Dalmatia » Zadar
September 22nd 2016
Published: September 24th 2016
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Dubrovnik to Zadar


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The port from the belltower
Day 241 Thursday 15th September 2016 – Dubrovnik to Split



Are we sad to leave Dubrovnik? Unsure. Amazing place, had a great time and had good accommodation, but not sure we fell in love with the town and it is over hyped and over populated by tourists – perhaps deservedly so. Had to be out of our apartment by 10 so got up at 7 and prepared our breakfast, cleaned the place and packed within the time and waited for the owner to turn up. He never did so we left and walked out of town pushing through the crowd and got a taxi to the bus terminal. Our bus was waiting for us and once on board discovered the couple opposite us were from Newcastle – small world. The bus was good, there were lots and lots of stops for passengers, and the scenery was spectacular as the road wound around the Croatian coast. Our new Aussie friends got off at a small town before ours and we arrived at Split around 3.30. The bus station was pandemonium and a real battle to get through, and we then had to walk another 15 minutes into
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The Belltower of the Cathedral of St Domnius
the old town to our new home. Booked another apartment as they are cheaper than a hotel and again we struck gold with a great place to rest our head.



Dropped off our bags had a quick shower as we were both very sweaty after our hike from the bus station and then headed into town for a drink and a feed. To our great relief the prices of food and drinks were half to a third of the cost of Dubrovnik so we could at least afford to eat out here. First impressions are that the town has a large tourist population but nowhere near the numbers of the last place, and seems to be a lot gentler on the spirit – I think we may be in love again with travelling. Of course that love sick feeling that Shelley was feeling maybe from motion sickness after yesterday’s kayaking and todays windy roads.







Day 242 Friday 16th September 2016 – Split



Slept in till an unheard of 9.30 this morning, Shelley wasn’t feeling well last night and went to bed early and succeeded in
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Old Port
sleeping for nearly 12 hours whilst I stayed up planning and drinking – bad mistake. End result we both woke up late feeling crook. The apartment we are staying in has the best stocked kitchen we have ever stayed in, with just about every type of cooking implement you would ever want and has all sorts of coffees and teas, strangely however it has no toaster or sugar. Cooked up some ham, tomato and cheese toasties for breakfast along with filtered coffee before getting out and seeing the town. As always first job was getting tickets out of the place and picked up bus tickets at the terminal which is adjacent to the train station and port terminal. Lucky us a huge cruise liner was parked at the port and the town was awash with tour groups. We both love the ocean and rivers but have decided that any further travels will be arid landscapes far from those cityscapes that float.



Split is famous for Diocletian’s Palace that was built by the Roman emperor at the turn of the fourth century as his home away from home. The palace was a huge walled city to house him,
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Flower sellers
and his closest 5 thousand friends along with the legions to protect him and the priests and temples to pray in. Today the walls contain a mini ancient city filled to the brim with restaurants, accommodation, restaurants, souvenir shops and restaurants. Just throw in ten thousand tourists on a hot day and you have a perfect cocktail that is called “Scott’s hell”. Walked around for a couple of hours before Shelley was starting to feel a bit poorly again and Scott got sick of shoulder barging people and so we stopped for lunch at a fish and chip place. Got a feed of calamari before returning home for a break.



For dinner we headed back to a café on the boardwalk where we had a couple of beers whilst people watching. When we went to get dinner we discovered that most places had changed their cheap lunchtime menus for expensive dinner menus, so we returned to the pub where we got a cheap tasty burito for dinner.



Day 243 Saturday 17th September 2016 – Split



Up at 7.00am to avoid the crowds and try to get a good look
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St Donatus Church
around, the weather was threatening but we pushed on. The restaurants in front of Diocletian’s Palace have a permanent umbrella structures which unfortunately blocks the lower façade but we enjoyed walking through the streets. We decided to go into the Cathedral of St Domnius and brought a ticket for the full enchilada first looking through the Cathedral then climbing the bell tower. The weather had now change for the worse and the wind had picked up so it was a bit of a challenge for me (Shelley) walking up the open sections in the tower walls being buffeted by the wind. The views from the top are amazing and we stayed for a while watching the storm clouds rolling in before heading down arriving at the bottom as the rain started to pour down. Run around to the crypt section which was not much and then back inside to see the treasury and the cathedral again.



The rain had eased a bit to run across to the Temple of Jupiter which was also included in the ticket, it is a small building but good to stick your head inside. Walked back through the Palace as the tour
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Exterior wall of Diocletian’s Palace with restaurants in front
groups started to flow through, so again we had perfect timing.



Walked back to the apartment for breakfast and a relax before walking up the steps near our apartment to Marjan Hill which is parkland that overlooks the old city. It is a nice quiet place to get away from the hustle and bustle and the old city. I (Shelley) have been a bit off colour the last couple of days and so we took it easy in the afternoon before going for a final walk around town and a feed.







Day 244 Sunday 18th September 2016 – Split to Zadar



Had an early night last night and was up at 7 am for our bus to Zadar. Shelley still wasn’t feeling well and now I am feeling crook, not sure what it is but we just feel nauseous, headaches and really tired, it’s like we have just sat through a long speech by Tony Abbott. Managed to have some breakfast and pack before the owner turned up at 9.30 to collect her keys. Despite not feeling well we still managed the 15 minute walk
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Ancient Egyptian Sphinx
with bags down to the bus station, thankfully most of it was downhill. Our bus arrived and the driver locked it up and went for his break and while we waited for his return it started to rain. Just before us and everyone else got soaked he returned to let us on board. Our tickets did have allocated seat numbers but once onboard it was first in best seated.



Our bus journey today was superfast along a great stretch of freeway and we arrived at Zadar at 12.30. It was a 20 minute walk from the bus station into the old town, and it was a big effort for us as we were both feeling like crap. Once again we are staying in an apartment, which has been working okay for us in Croatia but today was another case of why I don’t like them. Supposedly the check in had to be after 3 (which is a crap check in time), and despite communicating with the owner about our arrival time and enquiring about if we could get in earlier, he just ignored the question. Got to our apartment at 1.00pm and tried to ring him but
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Beneath Diocletian’s Palace
his phone was turned off, so we sat at a nearby café for a bite to eat hoping it might make us feel better, it did briefly. Rang again, got through and the phone cut off, and then got a message that our unit was ready. Walked around to the unit and waited out the front for 40 minutes for someone to turn up. By this time we just wanted to get our bags off our backs and lay down and we were contemplating booking into the hostel up the road when a head popped out of a window 3 floors above us and sang out to us. This was the guy’s wife who had been inside all along and hadn’t thought to look out for us – got to love good communication.



Both were more than a little annoyed that we could have been inside two hours earlier but she was lovely and helped calm our anger and the apartment is good value. We then went for a short walk to pick up some supplies and then crashed into bed for a short snooze. Got up at 5.30 feeling a bit better and went for another
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Stairs in belltower
walk around the town before getting a pizza and a coke. The pizza despite being really cheap was about the size of a lounge room rug and so we now have breakfast and perhaps lunch tomorrow. Zadar has lots of funky little bars but we avoided them as we both needed an early night and hopefully we will feel better tomorrow morning.







Day 245 Monday 19th September 2016 – Zadar



Both had a great night’s sleep and felt better in the morning. Although we were a bit slow getting moving. Around the corner from our apartment was a café that gave us a large toasted sandwich and coffee for $5 each which is good value for coastal Croatia. Went for a walk around town and soon realised how fantastic Zadar is, it has a great casual vibe and lots of historic buildings. There is a lot of tourists as it has been rated as the “number one European destination” by Tripadvisor this year but the swarms are nowhere near as bad as the last two towns. Had a good walk around till the rain returned and it soon
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Old Roman Plaza early morning
got too heavy to persist. We still have tomorrow here and so felt no need to get wet and so headed home for yet more planning, booking and blogging.



At 5.30 the rain had eased to a drizzle so we went for a walk along the foreshore. The “old town” of Zadar is built on a peninsula that sticks out into the Adriatic and still is surrounded on most sides by old defensive walls. During the second World War poor old Zadar got bombed heavily by the allies and over 60 percent of the town was flattened, and it was dubbed the “Dresden of the Adriatic”. After the war they rebuilt the town and the foreshore was built unsympathetically as a large concrete footpath. To soften this in recent years it has been rebuilt a bit nicer and right at the point they have installed a “sea Organ”. Never ever seen or heard of anything like this before and it is very unique, and is basically pipes at water level that make “organ like” noises as the water from waves pass through them. 200 metres away you can hear the weird noise and it is actually really
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Old Roman Plaza with midday crowds
fantastic but would bloody well hate to live anywhere near it and hear it all night long.



From here we wandered down through the town with Michele buying stuff like a drunken sailor till we hit a bar where she could at least fit the bill a bit better. For dinner we had a great round of seafood and salads at an affordable price which has made a nice change for Croatia.







Day 246 Tuesday 20th September 2016 – Zadar



One of the most important things we have learnt about travel photography over the years is that the best time to take photos is bright and early in the morning. Dawn is the best time when the light is at its best but unfortunately we are not that dedicated to rise that early so be content with our 7.30am photos. Not only is the light best early but more importantly to us there is less people, so today we got up at 7 and hit the streets. Zadar is no Dubrovnik or Rome for historic sites but it has a great selection in nice settings.
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Gold Altar inside Cathedral of St Domnius
The premier site is the remains of the Roman forum that were “uncovered” during the allied bombing in 1944. The site laid devastated till the 1960’s when archaeologists moved in and cleared the rubble. Only one column of the extensive forum remains standing and it was used in the mediaeval era as a place to chain sinners and retains the name of “the pillar of shame”. In the corner of the forum is the 8th century St Donatus Church that used the marble columns of the forum as foundation stones.



After a long walk over the town we stopped for breakfast as the tourist crowds started to grow. Returned to our room to do some domestic chores such as clothes washing and hanging them on the clothes line outside the apartment on display for everyone to see just like the locals, before hitting the streets again. Walked down to the other end of town and visited the St Francis’s Church and Franciscan Monastery which is still a working monastery and had a great little museum. There were signs everywhere saying not to photograph but the woman at the front door who sold us the tickets told us
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Brilliant buskers
it was fine to photograph providing we didn’t use the flash. Zadar is also ringed with great defensive walls, perhaps not as spectacular as Dubrovnik but still very impressive and a joy to walk along.



Stopped for a few beers in the late afternoon enjoying a busker who was performing nearby and he went through the whole back catalogue of Pink Floyd including “Echoes” – very ambitious but brilliantly done. At sunset we walked down to the “Greeting of the Sun” which is a huge neon light circle built into the boardwalk near the water’s edge at the point of Zadar. At dark it flashes coloured lights like a manic disco while the nearby sea organ moans in dismay. Tourists and locals congregate here every night to take in the spectacle and it has a great party vibe. On the way to get a feed we passed heaps of buskers and one lot were a group of American blues musicians that were bloody brilliant. Been a while since I have heard a washboard played so well. Further down the boardwalk and another guy was doing some great work with Soundgarden. I think we blew our daily budget
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Greeting of the Sun
giving these guys money, they were all so good.



Both absolutely love this town, Michele was actually in tears about us leaving and wants to come back – maybe next week. I think hearing and seeing so much great music tonight was the cherry on the top. This town doesn’t have big wow factors but is really beautiful and has such a great feel, lots of restaurants, bars, music and the tourist numbers are at an acceptable level it seems to have just the right feel, we have finally found our “goldilocks town”.


Additional photos below
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Cactus on the city walls
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Defensive tower
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Theatre
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Roman Gateway
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Interior of the Cathedral of St Domnius
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Dome of the Cathedral of St Domnius
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Alleyways in Diocletian's Palace


25th September 2016

Goldilocks moment...
So happy to hear you had a Goldilocks moment in Zadar - I love it when that happens! And also so impressed that you both pressed through the fog of feeling sick on a travel day...well done (although when I hear Tony Abbott speak, my blood boils and I usually throw things at the TV!) :)
25th September 2016

Goldilocks moment...
We can now fully appreciate the hype on Croatia, it deserves it and with Turkey falling off the travel agenda it is only going to get more popular. I used to throw things at the TV when Alexander Downer and John Howard were on, but after destroying a lot of TV's my anger now comes out as nausea.
15th October 2016

Croatia
Sorry you weren't feeling well. Zadar sounds like an interesting town. I'll have to do a bit more research. Not a location we know much about. Love hearing about locations that are unfamiliar to us. Love the music scene.
15th October 2016

Croatia
The Croatian coast is full of the most amazing town, and we wished we had a bit more time visit some more. The town of Pula up near the Slovenian border even has a large Roman era Arena - which we heard about the day before we left. There is a lot to see and do.
5th November 2016

Looks nice!
So glad to hear your both feeling much better, awful to feel like shit when your travelling. The basking sounds incredible.....nice to hear familiar tunes played well. Funny, I only stayed for one nite in Split when I visited it in 98....probably didn't give it enough time to impress. x
5th November 2016

Looks nice!
I loved Split but Shelley wasn't as happy, but both really enjoyed Zadar. Croatia just has so many great places.

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