Zingy Zadar
Croatia Stage 10 – Thu 28th May 2015 – Biograd na Moru to Zadar (30 Km riding + ferries)
Today was almost the perfect day. Although breakfast is not normally served until 8 am, my good hosts at the fabulous Villa Maimare kindly cooked me a special breakfast at 7:15 am so that I could catch the 8 am ferry from Biograd na Moru to Tkon on the island of Pašman, a short journey taking about 15 minutes. On a glorious late spring day I then rode through 30 Km of the most picturesque countryside I have encountered yet, arriving at Preko on the adjoining island of Ugljan at 10:30 am, an hour before the ferry was due to depart for Zadar. This was riding at its best, with nice smooth roads, gentle climbs, great scenery, and perfect weather. I would have made even better time if I had not made a short detour to see the imposing Benedictine Monastry on top of a hill.
When I said almost the perfect day, it would have been perfect if I hadn’t discovered that the display on my camera had been totally busted while riding back from Biograd na Moru to the villa the previous night. All I could see was a couple of streaky lines across the screen. But the good news was that there was no damage to the lens, so the camera could still take good photos. It meant that I was shooting blind for the whole day today, just pointing the camera in the general direction of the subject and hoping for the best. When I arrived at Zadar and copied the photos from the SD card to my laptop, I was amazed that only about 15 photos needed editing with Ipiccy (cropping, rotating, and zooming). Incidentally, no changes were made to the saturation and hue – the colours you see in the photos are natural.
Arriving at Zadar at around mid-day I was able to check in early at the Guest House Dragić, another fabulous, reasonably priced place that I found through Booking.com. After skyping Melveta I hopped on my bike and spent the afternoon exploring Zadar, the fifth biggest city in Croatia, with a rich history dating from the prehistoric times to the present day. It is also a very beautiful city with a lovely harbour and a delightful “Old Town” full of restaurants, bars, gelaterias, pizzerias, and of course paved with those slippery, marble-like, tiles. But the highlight for me was the sea organ, an architectural object and an experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps. It is truly amazing listening to an organ being played by nature. I know the tune but I can’t think of the words!
To top off a good day I enjoyed a meal of traditional Dalmation food at Restoran Roko, which I would highly recommend.
Tomorrow is a 75 Km ride to Novalja, so I will be setting off early in the morning and had better get some sleep now.
Mate I reckon something along the lines of Tina Turner.. I hear her everywhere too.. sometimes through the trees, on the odd occasion whilst shopping in Woolworths and surprisingly often when I’m sitting in our outdoors dunny (our neighbor loves ‘we don’t need another hero. the Thunderdome’).. or it could just be some weird fishy concatenation of random sounds.
Btw Kevin I’m curious what Dalmatian food consists of? All I remember (in Istria mind) was drinking Grappa.. and even then it’s all quite blurry.
Cheers, Alexander Jurgen Falakiko le Bas
G’day Alex. I think what I had to eat last night was authentic Croatian cuisine … artichoke fritatta followed by lamb livers cooked in a dark richstew, washed down by a glass of H2O.
Mmm-mm.. and with all your exertions you could eat bowl after bowl I bet!
Oh Kevin still great shots even though you have the faulty screen to deal with (shame that..).. I especially love the picture of the sign on the side of the road that has Ugrinic crossed out and above is the Kraj – did the Kraj take over the Ugrinic? Typical Kraj!
Wow, Jonathan would sure wish that he could play that sea organ… Does it do Bach? Must be amazing.