Diary Entry
I resisted going to Croatia for a long time. Not because this country isn’t incredibly beautiful. But for Germans, this country has been one of the most popular holiday destinations for decades and since Game of Thrones at the latest, the rest of mankind has also put the country on their travel destinations list.
After an incredibly great trip through Albania in 2017, the Balkans did not let us go and we want more of it. When I was looking for countries whose proposal as a holiday destination makes most people stunned, “You’re kidding me”, Bosnia-Herzegovina came to mind. The country has no sea, but it has a lot of landmines and is scarred by the civil war. In any case, that sounds like a country with few tourists, and that’s why I’m really interested. I can infect Uwe and Chris with it and we plan.
It is remarkably expensive to rent a car in this country, so the idea matures that we can rent a car cheaply in the neighboring country, which is developed for tourism, and thus simply drive to Bosnia and back. No sooner said than done, and the best offer for travel and the car was in the city of Zadar in northern Croatia.
I wasn’t aware of this city, but that didn’t matter. I urge my friends to spend as little time as possible in Croatia in order to avoid the tourist crowds. But we don’t want to ignore the country either. Uwe and I have a little more time. We arrive on Friday evening and will only collect Chris from the airport on Sunday. So we have two days and nights in the Croatian city.
Visually, Zadar is similar to the pictures of the other cities Split and Dubrovnik. However, Zadar is much smaller and apart from the clear old town right by the sea there is nothing interesting. The city is beautiful and as touristic as I feared. We stroll through the alleys and let the souvenir shops convince us to get the souvenirs now and get them out of our heads.
Nice young ladies persuade us to sit down in the restaurant you advertised without much effort.
A small intermediate episode results from my good friend Uwe noticing on the first day that the soles of his shoes are coming off – not a good prerequisite for the coming hikes. So we’re looking for a cobbler to solve the problem. There is also one and the price is Central European but unfortunately it doesn’t manage to get the job done in one day. Uwe has to buy new kicks in the shop.
A special feature in the city is the sea organ. The crazy architect Nikola Bašić made recesses in the quay walls right by the sea and had the entire masonry undercut. The result was a musical instrument played by the movement of the sea. So you can always hear a whistle and hum.
The whole thing is visually complemented by a solar solar system, i.e. a circular area on the floor, which consists of photovoltaic modules and symbolizes the sun. This system collects sunlight during the day and emits it again at night in the form of a spectacular light show.
Da das Meer sehr nahe ist gehen die Menschen direkt aus der Stadt baden. Die See ist immer ruhig und es gibt überall Möglichkeiten, um ins Wasser zu steigen.
Wir nutzen ein ganzes Schwimmbad, das frei zu betreten ist.
In the evening we meet a young French woman whom I met in couch surfing. Like us, she’s only been in town for a short time and was interested in going out. The three of us found an excellent restaurant on the recommendation of a Croatian couchsurfer.
Then we stroll through the old town until we come to an open-air disco that does not require entry. We enjoy the warm summer night dancing between the old walls until early in the morning.
