The last time we did this cruise back in 2015 Zadar wasn’t on the menu and we went to Venice. Now, of course, Venice isn’t as welcoming to tourists and certainly not those arriving by cruise ship so our destination was Zadar in Croatia instead.
Coastal Installations
The only thing I knew about Zadar was the two light and sound installations that it had on the shore. It turned out that the shuttle bus dropped us off right by them. Obviously, there wasn’t much to see of the light installation as that comes into its own at night but the Sea Organ as it is called was great. It seems to work like a traditional organ with the waves washing up against the pipes forcing air through them and making a noise. You can see this in action in the video below.
Old Town
From the shoreline and the installations, we made our way into the old town itself. I had thought that Zadar was going to be a small place in the same way Koper was yesterday but that turned out not to be the case. There was a city wall within which was a mixture of old buildings dating right back to Roman times, much of which was on pedestrian streets with marble pavements. These pavements were made both more attractive and lethal at the same time when it rained and it became more like an ice rink!
We walked along the walls and looked out across a stretch of water spanned by a low, flat, pedestrian bridge which seemed to lead to a more modern part of the city. We then walked back to the shoreline, the installations and the shuttle bus and I left thinking what a lovely place Zadar was and, strangely, how I felt I could live there.
