Our Dalmatian Coast of Croatia Adventure - Part I

Annette did our blog entries on Zagreb and our brief visit to cold and snowy Slovenia, so the rest of our grand tour down the coast of Croatia falls to me.  It has taken me a couple weeks to get the courage to look through the 2300+ photos we took on the drive, but here goes . . .

First things first, I've got to include a reference maps -

After the cold of Ukraine, Zagreb and Slovenia we were anxious to get to the coast, where we were hoping to find some warmer weather.  So we left Slovenia and zipped down the freeway toward Rijeka, finally leaving the snow as a white accent on the mountains behind us as we headed down the road toward the Adriatic.

This was our first view of the Adriatic and the island of Krk in the distance.  Annette's cousin Yada has a place on Krk so we hope to spend some time there later in the year after Annette's Kosovo work is over.

We avoided the faster inland freeways and drove along the coast as much as possible.  The views just kept getting better and better as we went south!

This is the town of Senj, one of the oldest towns in the northern Adriatic, which was first mentioned in Greek documents from the 4th Century BC.  The structure on the hilltop is the Nehaj Fortress, built in the mid-1500s to protect the area from the Ottoman invasion.

At Prizna we decided to take a ferry over to the island of Pag.  This is the ferry that took us on our very short Adriatic "cruise".

Annette snapped a photo of me on the ferry.  It was a cold day, however, so we didn't spend a lot of time on the deck.

Looking back on Prizna, with the Croatian flag in the foreground.

When we arrived at the ferry dock on Pag it was like we had taken a short boat ride and somehow ended up in the middle of the Nevada desert.  But a quick drive across the island brought us to the town of Novalja, where we did a little sight-seeing, bought some groceries, and put a few liters of petrol in the car (in case you are wondering, the gas price was 10.65 kunas/liter).

Annette checking out a small church in Navalja, the first of many churches we would visit along the coast.

The small town of Simuni on Pag.  The island of Maun in the distance.  This is a more typical view of Pag than the "desert" scene that greeted us getting off the ferry.  OK, if you are still trying to do the math, I'll help - the gas costs just about $7.00/gallon.

The dry parts of Pag had extensive rock walls which I imagine help conserve any rainfall and also seemed to be used as pens for the many sheep raised on the island.  Later that night we had some excellent cheese made on Pag.  Pag is also well known for the intricate lace work done on the island.  We saw several beautiful examples of Pag lace later on our trip in Dubrovnik gift shops.

Here are some of the sheep on a part of the island that actually has some grass for them to graze on.

The town of Pag, situated on the drier side of the island, has two bays that open up into the Adriatic.  Looks like a fine place to have a sailboat!  After driving across the little isthmus in the town of Pag we continued south, crossing a bridge back to the mainland.  From there  it was a short drive to the outskirts of Zadar, where we found a pleasant place for the night.  Here is the view from the patio of our room  in Hotel Niko looking toward the old walled city of Zadar across the water.

I enjoyed watching 5 small sailboats racing each other while I was waiting for the sunset.  Wish I could have been on one of them!

After a long but fun drive we were tired, so decided to stay at Hotel Niko for dinner.  It was an excellent choice.  Here is the required food shot for this blog entry.  We ordered an appetizer plate with local seafood, cheeses, olives and some good bread and wine.  It was so good that Annette even ate some of the octopus!!!

After the big appetizer we were too full for entrees, but not too full for desert, so one more food shot to end this entry.  Try not to drool on your keyboard!

A Croatian version of flan and a walnut semifreddo.  We went to bed very happy that night.