May 30, 2018
The ship was docked in Gazenica, Croatia, the newer port, located just seven kilometers from Zadar, (pronounced Zah-dahr)our first stop in Croatia. The ship had docked before 6:30 a.m. It was only 172 nautical miles from Koper. The temperature was about 24°C, already a high humidity, a little wind and a thin haze inland as we look toward shore while walking laps on the track. Six times around in equal to one kilometer. Before we went down to the theater to collect our tour stickers we had logged 5,033 steps for 3.74 km, a little more than our morning walk at home.
Zadar is the northern city of the Dalmatian coast stretch of beaches and islands along the Croatian coast to the city of Dubrovnik in the south. The city has a population of 70,000 and is the fifth largest city in Croatia, which had a population of about four million. Across the Zadar Strait are the islands of Ugljan and Pasman.
Our guide today was Ana, a native of Zadar. Audio sets were distributed to the passengers, which makes it much easier to hear the guide and you do not need to crowd closely to hear her.
As we drove toward the town of Petrčane, a former fishing, we travelled a highway with one lane each way, passing heavily wooded areas. A bicycle path ran parallel to the road a few meters away. Our first destination was the former property of Benedictine nuns who were granted the land in 1066 by the king and have been referred to the Royal Lands for centuries. In 2010, the present owners replanted the grape vines in the rocky soil and have the winery in the city of Zadar. The vines are irrigated by a drip system. The vines are south facing, exposed to the sun most of the day and close to the sea. The minerals in the soil give the wine produced from the grapes a distinctive taste. The vineyard is called Karljevski Vingradi (Royal Vineyard). From the building and yard where the wine tasting took place, there was a good view of the vineyards, the town of Petrčane and the bay. When we alighted from the bus along the fence there were plants covered in small snails basking in the sun. We walked to the patio where the tables were already set for the wine tasting, along a crushed rock path lined with purple lavender plants.
The table was set with baskets of soft white crust bread. The first wine sampled was from the Proship grape, a 2016 rosé blend it was served with paper thin slices of smoked tuna on a bed of tiny baby spinach leaves. We sat with two couples from the Sydney, Australia area and a couple from London, England. The second wine was from the plavitz malé or little blue one which is a zinfandel varietal. It was accompanied sheep cheese and a fig marmalade.
Back on the bus the next stop was the town of Nin, just five kilometers further down the road, for a walking tour of the town famous for producing salt from sea water. Nearby is the sandy beach island of Pag, where the sheep graze and from whose milk the cheese at the vineyard was made. Nin was a settled village for over 3,000 years nestled in a lagoon and important to the Romans for the production of salt used to preserve food and made towns where salt was produced rich. We walked across a bridge to the village entering through the Lower City Gate, then saw several 12thcentury building including tiny St. Nicolas Church, the Bell Tower of the Church of St. Auselm, the old Treasury of the parish of Nin where the gold and silver was kept. There were Roman ruins of a Temple to Jupiter and an excavation where more ruins were found and the property owner could not build a house because of the old ruins. We passed a small Benedictine monastery and its tiny Church of the Holy Cross and the ancient North Gate.
Next the bus drove three minutes to take us to the Nin Saltworks. Today the technique is mostly the same as in early times, gradually moving seawater to five shallow pools as the water evaporates until at the final pool, after between 15 to 20 days in the sun and wind, all that is left is salt. It is scraped of the pool bottom using shovels and rakes. The process is repeated from April to September. It is sometimes known as “Solar Salt” The gift shop had bath salts and soap made from the flower of salt, a fine film skimmed off the water surface each morning that also gives a delicate finish to a salad. The salt that is scraped from the final pool in much courser and used for food and preserving. The 12thto 16thcentury was a Golden Age for Nin when the area was rich from its production of salt. In Roman times, soldiers salaries were partly paid in salt, that is how the term salary was derived from the Roman word for salt. Steps so far 8,720 or 6.49 km.
The final destination was the town of Zadar. By 12:30 pm the temperature was 28°C, it felt hot and the gentle sea breeze was welcomed as we walked through the Sea Gate of the 16thcentury Venetian city wall. There had been a 12thcentury wall which the Venetians rebuilt when they ruled the region. The Venetians were defending the town from the Turks. Zadar is another old settlement going back to the Neolithic times. It was Italian until the 1930s. As we drove to the Old Town we passed the old factory where a maraschino cherry liqueur had been produced before moving to a modern facility. The walking tour took us through the main Roman road of the town, some of the stones are still part of the street pavement. We passed the Gold and Silver Museum and saw the ruins of the Roman Forum that was destroyed in a 9thcentury earthquake. We had the last tour of the day of the St. Mary’s Church relics and religious treasures before having an hour of free time to explore Zadar’s old town. We went for a walk and changed some Euros into Croatian money in order to buy gelato cones. The exchange rate was 7.15 Croatian kuna to 1 Euro. We are in Croatia for another two days in Dubrovnik. As the group walked to the bus at Pozdrav Suncu, we walked along the beach to the Sea Organ that was constructed to make sounds like an organ as water passes and changes the air currents within pipes below the boardwalk. Even though it was windy the sounds were not too loud. Nearby was a circle of solar panels under glass. It was about 20 meters in diameter. After sunset it glows until sunrise.
We were back to the ship after 3 pm and headed to the Oceanview café to get glasses of ice water and to watch the sail away from Zadar. There are lovely white buildings lining the starboard shore as we cruised northwest from the port.
We finally met the people missing from our table, Margaret, her son, Mark and their friend, Louise, whose luggage went missing and is expected tomorrow – Day 3 of the cruise! Mike and Lynn did not come to dinner. It was an interesting meal getting to know the other part of the seating assignment.
The show after dinner featured the group “Barricade Boys”. They sang showtunes, pop tunes, rock’n roll tunes and operatic arias. They audience gave the quartet a standing ovation.
Final steps 20,762 for 15.45 km
Internet connections will be sporadic since we will do not have a ship’s Wi-Fi package. The daily descriptions should be published by June 8, earlier if we get internet at the cruise terminals on the route.
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