Our hotel and breakfast on our terrace. We stayed at Villas Diana, which is about 1 km from Old Town. Martina was a gracious host and was ready to help us with any questions we had.
The third photo is of a typical ’60s-era Eastern Bloc apartment building that you’ll see throughout Croatian and Eastern European cities.
It’s a gorgeous day today, and we’ve spent the whole morning getting the blog up and running again. Phew! Should be good from here on.
Headed off today to the city of Zadar on the Dalmatian Coast.
The countryside was lush with rolling hills, and the roads were excellent, something we’ve really noticed when compared to some of our roads in our country.
We connected off of a secondary road to a toll highway, speed limit 130 km/hr—but don’t tell the local drivers, as they flew past us at least 150 km/hr++!
There were several tunnels through the top of the mountains, one of which was at least 5 km long. Pretty amazing engineering.
We made great time getting to Zadar but got lost once we hit the city.
If you’ve watched the Amazing Race, that would be us!
Eventually, and through dumb luck, we practically drove right into the front lobby of our hotel.
Our accommodation is lovely, a one-bedroom apartment for approximately $95.00 CAD per night.
We arrived around 1:00 pm and then set out for the rest of the afternoon and evening exploring the Old Town, which is known for its Roman and Venetian ruins dating back to as early as the 8th century.
Also located in the Old Town is the Sea Organ, built into the seaside promenade.
The Sea Organ is an experimental musical instrument, which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps, creating a beautiful sound.
Also located on the promenade is the monument to the Sun.
It consists of 300 multi-layered glass plates placed at the same level as the stone-paved waterfront in the shape of a 22-metre-diameter circle, with photovoltaic solar modules underneath. Lighting elements installed in a circle turn on at night and produce a show of light. The monument symbolizes communication with nature through light, while the Sea Organ symbolizes communication with nature through sound. Not my words.
Did a 4-hour, 8 km hike today through Plitvice Lakes.
Very worthy of its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.
Two words of advice. DO NOT come here in the summer. It was quite busy when we were here with throngs of selfie-stick-carrying tourists blocking the walking paths. A very big pain in the a..s! We’re told there can be upwards of 13,000 people visiting per day in the summer. Probably not much fun.
Today started in Zagreb with some light rain, but fortunately it stopped just before we checked out of our hotel, as we had to haul our luggage to the tram stop, where we hopped a tram to a stop near our car rental company.
We picked up our car and gave a big sigh of relief that we were able to easily navigate our way out of town.
We took the main A1 toll highway southwest to Karlovac (the toll cost less than $4.00 for 34 km) and then headed onto a secondary road through beautiful countryside to Grabovac.
Luck has been on our side so far, as we were able to book a really nice guest house just outside of town. Our route is shown below. Tomorrow we will spend the day in Plitvice National Park. Pictures to follow.
Our Croatian journey began in Zagreb, continued through Plitvice Lakes and Zadar, then followed the Adriatic coast through Trogir, Split, Hvar and Makarska before ending in Dubrovnik.
