Zadar, Croatia

Hello all.  Its Michael again, reporting to you from beautiful Zadar, Croatia.  OK, I cannot tell a lie.  I am actually writing this from home.  The last couple of days on the ship were frantic between more sightseeing, packing, going-home parties, and so forth that something had to give.  Beverly stayed on board to rest her knees for our final port of call – Venice.  Anyway, I will do my best to report on the wonderful excursion I had in this most surprising country – Croatia.

Prior to this cruise I knew next to nothing about Croatia, other than it was part of the former Yugoslavian Republic.  I am here to tell you that this is one fabulous place and you should visit if you get the chance.  Here are a couple of facts about Zadar and the country before I get into the excursion specifics. 

Zadar (70,000 people) is located between the much larger cities of Rijeka and Split (200,000 people), not far away from Sibenik.  More on Sibenik later as it is famous for a very interesting and unexpected thing.  Can you guess?   First of all, the whole southern area of Croatia is called Dalmatia (a Greek word meaning sheep), and Zadar was its capital for many centuries.  It still has its old city walls, from the sixteenth century; its network of narrow, winding, but charming streets; and the Roman forum, dating back to the first century AD is still here.  Old Zadar was very advanced, and was responsible for Croatia’s first university, first novel and first newspaper.  Also, and as Beverly mentioned before regarding Dubrovnik, Zadar was targeted and heavily damaged during the 1991 Yugoslav war.  Thank you Mr. Milosevic.

Here are some more interesting facts about Croatia.  It has eight national parks, including the one I visited today.  It is famous for its Maraschino cherries, which incidentally were popularized by Napoleon.  It produces a lot of wine, although its Merlot grapes were wiped out during the 1991 war.  One of Croatia’s most famous expatriates (at least among wine drinkers), is Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, owner of Grgich Hills Estate, who is personally working to reestablish Merlot to the country.  The country also produces a lot of olives.  In fact, one if their treasure is a single olive tree that is 1,500 years old, and produces over 600 pounds of olives annually.

The population of the entire country is only 4.1 million, and 900,000 of them are in the largest city – Zagreb.  It is 75% Roman Catholic, has a very long coastline and includes lots of islands.  And now for my most lasting observation of Croatia – its full of rocks.  Everywhere you look are gigantic piles of rocks that had to be cleared from the land, generations ago, so they could grow anything.  The rocks are still here and will be forever.

Now, back to the little town of Sibenik.  Have you figured out what it is famous for?  NBA players!  That’s right; this single town had produced not one or two, but three great NBA stars:  Dino Rada of the Celtics, Toni Kukoc of the Bulls and (of greatest significance to Beverly and me as former Portland Trailblazer season ticket holders) Drazen Petrovic of the Blazers.  Petrovic, who tragically died in a car accident, is a god over here.

Sibenik

Well, now it is time to get to today’s excursion to the Krka (pronounced Kirka) National Park, the smallest, but perhaps most spectacular of the eight.  We toured its waterfalls today which are driven by the Krka River.  Through a brilliantly designed and built set of walkways and bridges, we were able to circumnavigate the entire falls, and view its multi-level cascade over travertine cliffs.  It is called the Skradinski Buk Falls, and this is no small falls, being home to the second hydroelectric plant ever built in the world (behind only Niagara Falls) both of them designed by Nikola Tesla, a Croatian incidentally.

It took about ninety minutes this morning to drive to Krka following the coastline.  We walked the area for almost two hours, covering about a mile and an unknown number (but lots believe me) of steps both up and down.  It was not an easy trek.  And oh, was it crowded.  Turns out today is May 1, which in this part of the word is May Day, a national holiday.  Everybody and their brother were out here today.  Finally, we re-boarded our bus for the somewhat shorter trip back to the boat on Croatia’s newest motorway.  I had a great time, and Croatia is forever imprinted on my mind.