More is More is More — Zadar, Croatia

Despite only coming to Croatia for 10 days, we have six towns on the agenda. The less-is-more philosophy is hard to follow when traveling.

The Old Town of Zadar is walled in to keep out marauders of old and cars of new. Pedestrian-only streets of cobblestone are worn to shiny so that they look wet in the evening light. The largest street, Kalelarga, means literally “large street.” It is lined with clothing shops and outdoor restaurants. The parallel streets on either side have the cheaper tourist shops and kiosks.

Walking around the crooked side streets, we stumbled onto cozy restaurants with outside seating, raised patios and courtyards. And tourist prices. But while the servers are few and generally harried, they let you linger at the end of the meal to the point where you forget to pay and get up to leave.

Other than walking the streets, there are 14 churches to see in this small area, the oldest of which dates back to the 9th century. We decided to defer entry until the internal light show started at 8 pm, feeling lucky that we’d timed it right based on the poster proclaiming, “Only two days left.” Turns out 9th century architecture can charitably be described as smooth (simple, bare, unadorned, minimalist, upright) and the light show was similarly unprepossessing, consisting of a multitude of office projectors powered by snaking cords, projecting what looked like Celtic designs on the various blank walls. The most interesting part was an unseen pigeon caught in a projector’s beam and magnified to horror-like proportions.

But what Zadar is known for is the sea organ. Made up of slits in the cement sea wall and strategically placed blow holes, the waves roll in to produce a pan pipe-like music combined with whale sounds that rises dramatically when a boat’s wake sends the sea crashing against the wall.

The 30+ degree heat mocked my assertion that I wasn’t interested in swimming or beaches and had me and my sister jumping into the Adriatic to cool off. Very salty. And almost as buoyant as the Dead Sea, so I was able to float vertically, standing up, without having to tread water, much.

To cap off the moment, we pulled ourselves back out of the water to see the sunset perform a crazy sun salutation light show across what looked like an electrical grid sunk into the ground. The rays heat up metal veins that activate mini lights of blue, green, purple, red, making them dance across the large circle. With the sea organ quiet at first, then loud and insistent as the waves roll in, church bells pealing and the grid’s lights set off by the wonder of physics, Zadar more than surpasses the often lukewarm write-ups as not being a picture-postcard town. And made me eager for the rest of Croatia. More is more is more.

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