Our Croatian Adventure - Part III

We left Zadar in the early afternoon and continued down the coast toward Split, driving along the beautiful coastline with many islands off to the right.

This is a shot Annette snapped as we were driving.  With our late start we decided to stop before we got to Split and our guidebook described Sibenik as a good choice.  We parked and roamed around the narrow streets and alleys looking for a place to stay, finally knocking on a door with a sign for an apartment for rent.  A nice lady answered the door, and we walked with her for a few minutes to the room, which was in a very old part of the town in a building that must have been built many hundreds of years ago.  For 40 euros we got a full apartment with a wonderful view of the water and even a nearby place to park.  A good meal of lasagna and risotto, with local wine and a Leonard Cohen CD playing in the background, made for a fine evening.

Our room was next to this old church (according to the lady, built in the 14th century?).  She told Annette that during the communist Yugoslavia years the government converted many churches like this into apartments.

A couple views from our apartment window and the inside of the room.

This is a plaza next to the Cathedral of St. James.  We had dinner at the restaurant in the foreground.  The town is built on steep hills with narrow alleys, stairways and tunnels connecting everything.  It was a great place to explore.  The next morning was Sunday so we stayed for mass at the Cathedral, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is supposedly the Balkan's largest Gothic/Renaissance church built entirely of stone.

The Cathedral of St. James is best known for the sculpted faces of common people along one side of the church.  There are even a few animal mixed in the with human faces.  The masonry and craftsmanship on the church is amazing, and the inside was just as amazing, but as with most of the churches we visited, we were not supposed to take photos inside.

Of course, Annette doesn't always follow the rules.

 

 

Adam & Eve statues on the side of the Cathedral.

After mass we loaded up the car again, but before taking off I took a picture of Annette waving from the window of our room, in the center of the photo above.  Our stop in Sibenik was my favorite part of the trip, it was a very unexpected delight!

 

 An interesting traffic sign and the beautiful island town of Primosten.

 

Just a couple views as we drove down the coast.  We wanted to visit the walled town of Trogir, a World Heritage Site, but we couldn't find a place to park so continued on to Split.  We thought we wanted to stay in Split, but after driving through Croatia's second largest city we decided to bypass it since it seemed like a big industrial town.  I'm sure there are nice things to see in Split, but the weather was cold and windy so we didn't feel like exploring.  We continued driving south, driving through some waterfront towns that seemed mostly deserted since it was the off-season, until we came to Makarska, where we found a nice room and a good seafood restaurant for the night.

The beach near our room in Makarska taken the morning before we left for Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  All in all we had an unexpectedly good time on this stretch of the beautiful Croatian coast.