There was a brief spot of drama soon after I set off on the slow road south in the direction of Split. The road is quite winding and has many long stretches of continuous white line (i.e. no overtaking). As I drove I was aware of a car behind getting impatient, and in a hamlet, with a continuous white line and a 50 kpm limit into the bargain, I spotted ahead a gravel layby so I started to partially pull into it to let him by. At that moment, I saw hidden in the shadows a Police car. The guy behind hadn’t waited for me do this and was overtaking anyway, but I think he suddenly realised the big mistake he’d made as he seemed to stay hidden in my blind spot to my left much longer than he should, and for a brief moment I thought I might run out of layby and run into the police car, as I couldn’t ease back onto the road for a few seconds, not knowing where the overtaker was. It must have looked quite dramatic, as if I was being run off the road. Sure enough, after about 1 km the Police car caught up with us, lights on, and overtook me (driving dangerously himself I thought) and ahead I saw him pull over the miscreant. I couldn’t help a wry smile.
The road improved as I came down into a plain, very beautiful with wide open spaces, with beech woods, the grass still yellow and dormant and ,on all sides ,mountains with snow on the tops. Before long I joined the main A1 motorway and after disappearing down the longest tunnel yet, through the Velebit range, 6km,I arrived at Zadar. In contrast to yesterday, the sun was out here and it was touching 20 degrees.
The road improved as I came down into a plain, very beautiful with wide open spaces, with beech woods, the grass still yellow and dormant and ,on all sides ,mountains with snow on the tops. Before long I joined the main A1 motorway and after disappearing down the longest tunnel yet, through the Velebit range, 6km,I arrived at Zadar. In contrast to yesterday, the sun was out here and it was touching 20 degrees.
The Venetians woz 'ere....winged lion over the gate Zadar is reportedly an ‘Adriatic success story’, whatever that is. It is a largish city ,with an airport, but has a compact old town on a bent finger of land which partly circles a harbour to the landward side, and the town on the peninsular is enclosed in a rectangle by the 17th century Venetian bastions. I read that Zadar had been bombed more than 60 times by the Allies in WW2,hence some of the buildings are recent, but the old town is pedestrianised, and there are still attractive narrow paved streets.
The Roman forum is an open space overlooking the sea, and to one side is the circular 8th century basilica of St Donatus. I climbed the 15th century campanile, which like all the towers I’ve climbed in Croatia has steel steps of seemingly inadequate strength winding up inside the wall of the fairly open tower. As I climbed, the busker in the forum below was murdering George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the music reverberated strangely up inside the tower. To the seaward side of Zadar is a pleasant lawned boulevard, with great views over to the islands. There is also a modern art installation that has gained much praise, the 'Sea Organ'. Wave action blows pipes under the quay to make ghostly musical sounds which emanate from a series of holes in the quayside.
 Zadar's Roman forum |  The forum from the other side, with the 8th century basilica of St Donatus, and 15th century tower |
Tornado Zadar, the local football team. I'm not sure how good the team are, but their supporters look rather right-wing
Next stop was to be Sibenik (Venetian 'Sebenico') which has a Unesco world heritage site, the Gothic Renaissance cathedral of St James, built by the Italians in the second half of the 14th century. I took the coast road, which was another very scenic 70 km route along the coast. I passed many signs for autocamps, some of them smart, but many seemed to be just in a large garden at the back of someone’s house on the shore. They seemed to vie with one another to have the most tempting names, like Autocamp Oasis, Paradiso, Romantika etc. But to my mind the clear winner in the name stakes was Autocamp Bozo.
Along this road ahead of me I spotted two people in dark clothes holding what I thought might be speed guns, and I checked my speed, thinking of this morning. As I passed, I realised they were each holding a bunch of asparagus out, for sale. I passed several more people doing the same.
Along this road ahead of me I spotted two people in dark clothes holding what I thought might be speed guns, and I checked my speed, thinking of this morning. As I passed, I realised they were each holding a bunch of asparagus out, for sale. I passed several more people doing the same.
Sibenik-castle on the top, cathedral far right Sibenik is, unlike many Croatian sea towns, not built on a promontory, but there is a steep slope behind it crowned by the ruin of the Venetians’ St Michael’s castle. The little cathedral was interesting, but was undergoing heavy restoration inside, no doubt paid for by Unesco. Up to the castle were a maze of alleys and staircases, all very attractive, and there were great views from the castle. Sibenik, though, has quite a large built-up outskirts, with apartment blocks and industrial areas.
 Two views of the cathedral |  |
View from the van tonight My final destination was to camp for the night 7km further down the coast at “Solaris beach resort” which includes a large camper park. All attractions are here, hotels ,beach bungalows,waterpark, beaches,spa,5 restaurants, ‘Dalmatian Ethno Village’(for this imagine a restaurant made up of all the huts in Asterix and Obelix’s village, complete with fire blazing in the middle) ,pirate ship excursions, beach bar with tom-tom drumming and its own volcano, and more: in fact it’s just like Disneyland. Despite sounding horrific it was very pleasant, possibly because it’s virtually empty. And actually none of the stuff shows above the pine woods on the shore, it’s all really unobtrusive and doesn’t detract from the natural beauty of the coast. But the resort is almost empty, and tonight I have a great spot, overlooking the islands, with my van doors open, backed down almost to the shore, with a lovely sunny evening. Black squirrels are in residence in the pine trees: they look small with tufty ears like our red squirrels, the difference being, obviously, that they are black. I was the only diner in one of the restaurants, and had a good chat with the waiter: apparently when full in the summer 8000 people are here. I learned a lot more about the importance to the climate of the Bora wind, which I won’t bore you with. The comment of his that I liked most, when discussing Sibenik’s industrial harbour(very much in decline, they are hoping to turn it into a cruise liner dock)was that a lot of rock is still exported annually to Venice to keep it above the water . “In the past they took: now they buy!”. What I also found interesting was that he referred to the resort being in existence before the war; to my ears that sounded like pre 1939-45, but of course he meant the terrible civil war of 1991-95.
Talking of the 1939-45 war in these parts, I would recommend as a good read Fitzroy Maclean’s fascinating autobiographical account, “Eastern Approaches”-he was Churchill’s personal military envoy to Tito and his partisans.
Talking of the 1939-45 war in these parts, I would recommend as a good read Fitzroy Maclean’s fascinating autobiographical account, “Eastern Approaches”-he was Churchill’s personal military envoy to Tito and his partisans.
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