Opatija to Zadar

Monday July 18th, 2011 Opatija
Dinner last night at “Roko” was great. Mussels with gnocchi in white wine and olive oil sauce plus some calamari and grilled veggies, beer, wine and tip for only $29 Cdn. It was so good that we have another reservation for tonight at 19:00 (7pm). After dinner we took a stroll around town. At a hotel right near us there is a big dining patio overlooking the sea. Last night they had a man and woman, accompanied by a keyboard player, singing opera songs. We stopped on the promenade and watched for awhile. The woman especially was great.
Today we started off by trying to do some emailing and banking at 7 am. I thought maybe the internet would be a little quicker with no-one else logged on here. It seemed slightly quicker for awhile but it ended up being so slow I couldn’t even open up our usual hotel booking web sites. We’re okay since we have tonight here, 2 nights reserved in Zadar and 3 nights after that in Split. However, as soon as we can get a reasonable connection I have to see if there’s anything available in Hvar on Hvar Island. That’s where we’d like to go next. If there isn’t, we’ll try Korcula on Korcula Island before we move on to Dubrovnik.
After the internet frustration, we had the buffet breakfast (included) in the big dining room here. It was a good spread with lots of both hot and cold items.
This hotel is very old-fashioned with a big staircase and very high-ceilinged dining room with chandelier. It’s a little past its prime but still pretty nice. There are some oddities like an outer padded door and inner wooden door to each guest room. The ceiling in our room is at least 14 feet high. And as in other places in Croatia, the faucets are sometimes hot to the left and sometimes hot to the right. In fact our shower is hot to the left while the sink 2 feet away is hot to the right. Alertness tests all around us.
It was actually spitting rain a bit this morning so we tried a bit more emailing after breakfast. When the weather cleared we went for a long walk along the “Lungomare” or seaside promenade which goes for 12 km. There are lots of spots to sit on a bench and look down at the sea crashing on the rocks. Right near our hotel is “Slatina” or the main tourist beach area. It’s actually a huge concrete patio with steps down into the rocky sea. They’ve made some pools in it (one with sand) open at one spot to the sea so that kids can play in the water easily. There are people scattered all over sunbathing and swimming. We’re very lucky to be able to easily paddle into completely deserted lakes in Algonquin Park and have sand beaches all to ourselves, as well as all the other beaches we can go to. Here, these concrete patios and concrete steps down off the rocks are all they’ve got so they enjoy them. It actually works just fine and people are having a great time. It’s just not what we’re used to.
After a long walk, we came back and gathered some supplies for lunch. Then we went back up the Lungomare about one km or so and found a nice shaded bench for a picnic. We spent quite a bit of time there and then slowly wandered back. After we’ve showered and mostly packed for tomorrow, we’ll go out for dinner and probably another stroll around. We’ll get the buffet when it opens at 7 and walk the couple of blocks to the bus station for the 8:50 bus to Zadar, arriving about 14:30.
I think we’ve seen Opatija. It’s a nice old-fashioned Riviera type town.
July 20th 2011 Zadar
The night before last we had another great meal at Roko. A kilogram of mussels in wine sauce, bread, scampi with gnocchi, beer, wine, complimentary brandy and tip, all for about $34 Cdn. The kitchen is open to the dining room so you can see the chef at work. There’s a woodburning oven so all the bread is fresh baked. It almost made us want to stay in Opatija just to eat there.
After the hotel buffet yesterday morning we got on the bus at 8:50 to go down the coastal road along the Kvarner Gulf for a little over 5 hours to Zadar. After we passed Rijecka, the road was carved out of the side of the steep hills (mountains?) from about 20 feet occasionally to mostly about 200 feet above the sea. On one side was steep rock and on the other was a steep bank or cliff down to the water. We sat on the right side of the bus to get a better view of the coast but partway along Anita relinquished the window seat to me because it was just too uncomfortable for her to look down into the sea beside the bus. If we ever had an accident, that would be it.
Neither of us have ever seen such a stark landscape. The islands offshore and the Kvarner gulf coast are all steep bare rock covered with layers of jagged rocks from baseball to suitcase size. There’s a bit of brush growing somehow here and there but no trees. There’s no soil for miles and miles. It looks really dry and apparently the winter winds are so fierce that the highway is often closed so high vehicles don’t tip over. There are a few small fishing / tourist villages clinging to the coast here and there. As we drove we could see little old dry stone roads and stone fences but very few people live there. There’s just no way to survive off the land.
Being lost in the bush at home would be a walk in the park compared to being lost in the bush here.
As we got closer to Zadar, the vegetation got more lush and the land got flatter.
We had to wait about ½ an hour at the main bus station to catch our local bus to where we’re staying just out of the city along the coast in Diklo. It took about 15 minutes to get here.
We’re staying in a really nice room with AC, balcony and wireless internet (well it worked yesterday but not this morning yet - when I originally asked the landlady about wireless she said, in broken English, “Of course we have WIFI, this is not Africa“). It’s about a 5 minute walk down the hill to the bus stop and the sea. This area has a lot of new houses and some old tourist cottages along the coast. It’s all pebble beach here, no big rocks. It’s quite busy with tourists staying here and swimming in the sea.
To paraphrase one of our guide books, in Slovenia and Croatia even the homeless go to the coast in the summer. It’s busy but not as totally insane as many famous sites we visited in western Europe last summer. However, it still takes work to find reasonable accommodation. We were going to go to Hvar Island after we went to Split for a few days but we couldn’t find anywhere decent and reasonable to stay. We had almost decided on one place yesterday afternoon but after we looked at the map and our notes for about 20 minutes and then went back online to book it, it was gone. So we’ve decided to go from Zadar to Split for 3 nights and then straight to Dubrovnik for 4 nights. We’ve booked a good room with shared bathroom (the first shared bathroom this trip) just 50 metres outside the old city wall at the Pile Gate. That will be a great location to see old Dubrovnik.
This morning we’ll have breakfast in our room (we have a kitchenette) and then catch the bus into the old town of Zadar to tour around for the day.

July 20th, afternoon

Well, we toured the Zadar old town. It didn't take too long, just a couple of hours. There are a few old churches and cobblestone streets but not too much that was very impressive. There were 2 interesting things. The Sea Organ is a concrete step by the sea that has pipes built into it, each with a little opening up into the step. The waves push air through the pipes and they make a sound. When it's turbulent, as it was today, many pipes will be making sounds - a sea organ.

The other cool thing is the Salute to the Sun which is a 22m in diameter circle of solar panels built into the promenade, that harvest the sun to power the harbour lights and also save energy which is re-emitted from the circle at night for a natural light show. Cool stuff.

We don't like to sound jaded but there really isn't that much to see in Zadar. We finally got back to our room after waiting for the Diklo bus for about an hour but we just looked around at the bus stop at all the action, including all the traffic controlled by whistle blowing cops and cadets. Tourist central. Tomorrow, we'll take the local bus from Diklo to Zadar bus station and then the big bus to Split, about a 3 1/2 hour trip.

There are a couple of pictures from our hotel in Istria, some from Rovinj and some from Opatija. There's a thunderstorm right now. I better send this before we lose power.