Day 7 - Thursday, June 20 - Zadar, Croatia
As we were getting up this morning, the ship pulled into Zadar, Croatia.
Croatia is the only country we are traveling to that doesn't use the Euro so we had to change Euros into Kuna, the local currency. Strangely, we were told that Kunas could not be converted back into Euros. It is so convenient being able to travel from country to country without using different currencies. When I traveled in 1974, I used French Francs, Austrian Shillings, German Marks, Dutch Guilders and Norwegian Kroner.
Zadar is the 5th largest city of Croatia with a population of only 75,000 people. It was originally a Greek city, then Roman, then Venetian, then French (Napoleon), then Austrian, then Italian, then Yugoslavia and finally Croatian. There are no remains of the Greek era but the Roman influence is obvious with the straight main street and orthogonal side streets. It was the largest fortress city in the Venetian Empire.
At the end of the cold-war, Croatia broke off from Yugoslavia in 1991. The Serb population revolted and there were terrible battles that destroyed many historic areas and killed many people. Ultimately, the Croats prevailed and almost the entire Serb population of 250,000 left the country for Serbia. Our tour guide told us that he and his father came back to Zadar in 1991 where they were just building a house and all the windows were blown out. We could see many buildings that still had marks in the walls from shells and shrapnel.
Outside our window we could see two works of modern art that had been commissioned by the city of Zadar. The first is a circular array of solar cells embedded in the sidewalk that generate solar energy during the day and light up with different colors at night - unfortunately, we left before we could see them in the dark. The second is what just looks like a set of steps going down into the sea but underneath are a set of openings that let in sea water which compresses air which then operates a set of 35 organ pipes to make unusual musical arrangements. When we got back from our tour, we sat there and listened to the sound as I dipped my feet in the Adriatic.
We had a bus tour that took most of the day, first going to the historic (aren't they all...) town of Sibenik to visit the Gothic-Renaissance Cathedral of St. James which has a beautiful baptistry. The most enjoyable part of the day was hearing children singing as we exited the cathedral and discovered groups of children rehearsing music and dancing as part of the International Children's Festival. Sat on the bleachers and watched / listened to them for about half an hour before walking through the town and back to the bus.
From there we went to a farm that was raising hogs and prepared foods based on their hogs - as they say, "nothing left but the oink". We had a delicious lunch with ham and bean soup, prosciutto, sausages, roast pork, ham and cheese omelet, washed down with lots of wine. We also had the best focaccia bread ever. We were entertained by guitar and mandolin musicians singing traditional and non-traditional songs. After lunch we dozed off on the bus ride back to the ship.
Croatia is the only country we are traveling to that doesn't use the Euro so we had to change Euros into Kuna, the local currency. Strangely, we were told that Kunas could not be converted back into Euros. It is so convenient being able to travel from country to country without using different currencies. When I traveled in 1974, I used French Francs, Austrian Shillings, German Marks, Dutch Guilders and Norwegian Kroner.
Zadar is the 5th largest city of Croatia with a population of only 75,000 people. It was originally a Greek city, then Roman, then Venetian, then French (Napoleon), then Austrian, then Italian, then Yugoslavia and finally Croatian. There are no remains of the Greek era but the Roman influence is obvious with the straight main street and orthogonal side streets. It was the largest fortress city in the Venetian Empire.
At the end of the cold-war, Croatia broke off from Yugoslavia in 1991. The Serb population revolted and there were terrible battles that destroyed many historic areas and killed many people. Ultimately, the Croats prevailed and almost the entire Serb population of 250,000 left the country for Serbia. Our tour guide told us that he and his father came back to Zadar in 1991 where they were just building a house and all the windows were blown out. We could see many buildings that still had marks in the walls from shells and shrapnel.
Outside our window we could see two works of modern art that had been commissioned by the city of Zadar. The first is a circular array of solar cells embedded in the sidewalk that generate solar energy during the day and light up with different colors at night - unfortunately, we left before we could see them in the dark. The second is what just looks like a set of steps going down into the sea but underneath are a set of openings that let in sea water which compresses air which then operates a set of 35 organ pipes to make unusual musical arrangements. When we got back from our tour, we sat there and listened to the sound as I dipped my feet in the Adriatic.
We had a bus tour that took most of the day, first going to the historic (aren't they all...) town of Sibenik to visit the Gothic-Renaissance Cathedral of St. James which has a beautiful baptistry. The most enjoyable part of the day was hearing children singing as we exited the cathedral and discovered groups of children rehearsing music and dancing as part of the International Children's Festival. Sat on the bleachers and watched / listened to them for about half an hour before walking through the town and back to the bus.
From there we went to a farm that was raising hogs and prepared foods based on their hogs - as they say, "nothing left but the oink". We had a delicious lunch with ham and bean soup, prosciutto, sausages, roast pork, ham and cheese omelet, washed down with lots of wine. We also had the best focaccia bread ever. We were entertained by guitar and mandolin musicians singing traditional and non-traditional songs. After lunch we dozed off on the bus ride back to the ship.
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| Solar art and sea organ |
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| Children rehearsing |
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| Traditionally-dressed musicians |
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