Croatia: Zadar

Zadar, Croatia: st. donatus church
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First major stop after Plitvice Lakes was Zadar, a beautiful city of 82,000 on the coast.  Zadar was the birthplace of Pope John IV and Ante Gotovina, the notorious war criminal whose portrait is virtually everywhere throughout Croatia.  General Gotovina is considered a hero by many Croatians, and a mass murderer by certain other slavs.  He is currently being held in the Hague on war crimes charges. The city itself has a long history, having changed hands numerous times (as did many on the Croatian coast), from the Franks to the Byzantines, Venetians, and more.

Zadar, Croatia: old town
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Our hostel was outside the old town (which is sort of an island), a fair walk from the center.  We made an afternoon foray into the old town to see the majestic St. Donatus' Church, a 9th Century pre-Romanesque Church.  Next to the church was a lovely tower from which we watched a sensational sunset over the Adriatic Sea.  Zadar glistened, especially with its slippery smooth stone.

Birthplace of a Pope and a War Criminal

Zadar, Croatia: sunset from the old town
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When we got back to the car, parked just outside the gates, it decided not to start.  Could anything else go wrong with this beast?  We walked to a gas station where the owner got his friend to give us a jump (in exchange for beer money).  Thank god it worked.

Not content with staying in for the evening, Rachel and I had a few drinks at a chic open-air bar near our hostel and then walked into the city to find some nightlife.  And walked, walked, walked.  Not a short walk.  After probably an hour or more of searching, we made it to a pounding club.  It was a pretty sweet place, but we were quite tired and didn't stay too long.

Zadar, Croatia: en route to zadar
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So we walked back to the hostel.  And walked, walked, walked, walked some more.  i don't know how long that roundtrip was, but that was my best workout on the trip.  Our hostel was a grim, scary, empty hall.  The bathroom was horrifying.

Overall it reminded me of what a mental institution in a horror movie would look like.  Definitely low on the atmosphere.  Nothing to detract from Zadar, however, which turned out to be an excellent stop.