It's gotten very expensive to travel the normal way of renting a car and staying in hotels so we're trying something new. We're traveling around Eastern Europe by train and staying in apartments. Later we'll join a tour group. It's definately cheaper but does it work? Join us and find out.
St Donats, a pre-Romanesque church from the 9th century
We left Sibenik at 8 a.m. with clouds and a very strong winds accompanying us to Zadar.Zadar is a marvelous city, the ancient capital of the Dalmatia section of Croatia.It carries traces of all the empires that have passed through it and there were many; Romans, Venetians, Austrians, Germans, Serbians.The result is a vibrant city with the remains of a Roman forum, a pre-Romanesque church, a late Romanesque church, Venetian decoration on many buildings and a waterfront that has to be visited to be believed.You can find traces of almost every kind of architecture there.Best of all the city has an exuberance; I loved this place.
Sonia was our guide for Zadar and she was one of the best guides we’ve had for the whole tour.She pointed out that Zadar is on a river delta and is therefore both a farming and a fishing area, unlike most of the rest on the coastline.We saw the Roman forum, the church of St. Donatus, an archaeological museum, a Treasury of Clerical art, and St. Anastais.Then we saw the waterfront and the Sea Organ.The Sea Organ was designed by Croatian architect Nickola Basic to add interest to a monotonous concrete seawall leftover from the 1950’s.Reconstruction after WWII damage had turned the waterfront into a vast concrete wasteland.Nickola Basic’s stroke of genius was to bury 35 pipes, each with a hollow sound chamber, in steps along this seawall.Sounds are made, just like a giant pipe organ, as the waves roll in.The sounds are deep, resonant and ever-changing as the speed and direction of the ocean waves change. It sounds like music from another culture or species and you can almost find a melody, very much like listening to the haunting recording of whales’ songs.The following link gives you an impression of what the sea organ sounds like:
