Zadar, Croatia

To be honest, it took a lot for me to write this post. Drew says it's because I'm lazy, It's just really hard to remember things from 2 years ago. I wish I started this blog when we first got here. But you live an learnIn October 2013, I planned our first trip on our own down to Croatia! We had a hard time decided where we wanted to go, I knew we were going to Plitvice Lakes National Park, so it was either go to Zadar, or Pula. Since Plitvice was on the way back up from Zadar, we decided to go to Zadar, instead of driving to Pula, then 3 hours out of our way to Pltivice.  Since it was about a 10 hour drive we left early Friday morning, our awesome neighbor watched Seamus & Rylie for us, since at the time we didn't have their pet passports, and we were off to Croatia. We passed through Austria, and Slovenia before finally getting to Croatia. I wasn't feeling well, so Drew drove and had a whole car ride where I slept and he talked to himself (Best Husband ever). Thankfully by the time we arrived I felt 100x better. At the time Croatia had just joined the EU, they still had border control, and I got my Passport Stamped! 

I found a place through Booking.com. We stayed at Apartments Venci, for 70 Euros total for 3 nights! What a steal, since we were going during off season, everything was super cheap! We rented an apartment to save money, we went to the local Lidl grocery store and picked up some groceries for our next few meals. I try to book apartments when we travel so we can do this, some times it's worth it, other times just booking a hotel is cheaper.

We were about a 15 minute walk from the center of town, so the next morning we headed into town to check things out. It was 75 degrees out! It was way better than the 40 degrees when we left Germany.

Zadar is a city with rich history dating from prehistoric times to present days. The district of present day Zadar has been populated since prehistoric times. In the Old town of Zadar, Roman ruins stand alongside Romanesque churches and art installations. The earliest evidence of human life comes from the Late Stone Age, while numerous settlements have been dated as early as the Neolithic. Before the Illyrians, the area was inhabited by an ancient Mediterranean people of a pre-Indo-European culture. They assimilated with the Indo-Europeans who settled between the 4th and 2nd millennium BC into a new ethnical unity, that of the Liburnians. Zadar was a Liburnian settlement, laid out in the 9th century BC, built on a small stone islet and embankments where the old city stands and tied to the mainland by the overflown narrow isthmus, which created a natural port in its northern strait. 

Bridge into the old town is lite up at night

After doing some research on Zadar, the thing I was most excited about seeing was the Sea Organ. The Sea organ is an architectural object located in Zadar, Croatia and an experimental musical instrument, which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. It's not as magical as you would think. When we were looking it up I imaged it playing some sort of melody. But it's just sounds. I equate it to a toddler banging on an organ. But it was still pretty cool. I've still never seen anything like it.

 Sea Organ steps that lead right into the Adriatic Sea

We didn't really have a plan when we went to Croatia, mostly it was walk around and see what we could find. We ended up finding some really cool buildings. We found church, that Drew wanted to climb to the top, so we climbed to the top. We got to see some great views from the top of the Church.

All in all Zadar was a great first trip. Croatia is absolutely beautiful. Everything was cheap, AND the Old town of Zadar, has Free City wide WiFi. Thats what really made me happy. I can honestly say, Croatia was where we were bitten by the travel bug!