Dreaming In Shades of Blue

Author’s note:  This post covers the day of July 25^th.  I wrote it that night while in the hotel.

This morning had an early and quick start.  We set an alarm for 7 AM, packed quickly, grabbed our hostel breakfast of a glass of milk, a slice of bread, and a small container of off-brand Nutella, and we were out the door.

We got up early so we could try to make it out to Plitvice Lakes National Park before the crowds got heavy.  The drive took longer than expected, and we got to Plitvice around 10.  Bought tickets and some pastries to tide us over until lunch and headed in.

Plitvice is a series of lakes that are all interconnected by waterfalls or passages that flow either above or below ground.  Thick forests of a variety of trees grow around the lakes, while amongst them sprout a plethora of water loving plants that I wouldn’t begin to be able to name.  Moss and what they call travertine grows everywhere.  Wooden plank walkways are constructed over and around the lakes and waterfalls to allow you to explore them.

We explored the lower lakes first, and the upper lakes second.  The water is so beautiful that it is hard to put into words.  Most of the time the water is a brilliant turqoise, but then at times it’s a deep cerulean blue, while in the shallow parts near the shore the water is so clear that it’s nothing but a viewing pane for the fish that you can see swimming past.  And if you can see the shoreline from up above, you get to see the changing shades of the water as it gets deeper and deeper.

The waterfalls are certainly impressive, some are tall, some are powerful, some are small, some are rocky, some are mossy. 

We continued walking around Plitvice until around 3.  Then, we grabbed some food (sausage, fries, and a porter) and ate it by the water before heading back to our car.  I do want to mention that the sausage was quite good and tasted like it was filled with a corned beef type of meat.

We then drove to Zadar, arriving about 6.  It took us a little while to find our hotel, the Venera Guest House, but we found it.  We then walked back to our car to grab cameras and whatnot, when Smith discovered that we needed to pay for our parking spot (which, if I may say, I absolutely nailed first time parallel parking with the pressure of people backed up behind me).  But the machines only take coins, and nobody in Croatia wants to give you coins.  If you have exact change, they take it, if you don’t, they tend to round to the nearest 10 kuna so they only have to give you bills.  They hoard coins here.  So Smith had to go get change, then the machine we tried to pay at was broken, but finally we paid, and headed to the waterfront at about 7.

We came to Zadar mostly for the waterfront.  To see the Sun Salutation and hear the Sea Organ, two creations of local architect/artist Nikola Basic.  The Sun Salutation has solar panels that store electricity to then produce a light show at night meant to represent the solar system.  I think the Sea Organ is much cooler; it has a series of slits cut into the side of the wall at the waterfront and pipes underneath, such that incoming waves flow into the slits and vibrate the pipes, making music come out of slits in the concrete walkway up above.  It is an incredibly relaxing place to rest.  The water here is also incredibly blue, but a deeper shade than at Plitvice.

We listened to the Sea Organ for a while, then ate an amazing dinner at a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant on the water.  Bottle of white wine from a vineyard near Zadar, black risotto with cuttlefish, gnocchi with shrimp and scallops, tuna steak with green peppercorns and swiss chard, and sea bass filet with truffle sauce and gnocchi, and it all cost $100.  Croatia is awesome!  This was the first meal in several days that we could completely and totally relax.  We had no place to be afterwards, nothing to see until sundown, already had put our stuff in our hotel room.  It felt really nice to sip that last glass of wine and just let the stress (fun stress, but stress nonetheless) of the past few days fall away.

After dinner we checked out the light show from the Sun Salutation and walked along the waterfront to come back to our hotel.  Then I started writing, and writing, and writing to try to catch up on my blog.