“Scotland” might have been the right answer but this time it’s “Croatia". We’ve now had two weeks of on-and-off storms, all out of the northeast, which bring cold weather and not the “Croatia-hot” temperatures we had last year. Even Lori has been able to sleep without air-conditioning (by choice) and we have occasionally resorted to wearing long sleeves and pants in the evening!
The strong winds mean that we’ve stayed more nights in harbor than we would typically choose but it has enabled us to complete many of the little jobs we needed to have done on True Colors. We also took some time to visit Zadar.
Zadar could have been a destination like Dubrovnik, Korcula and Hvar but it suffered a lot of damage in the Second World War and was re-built in an uninspired low-budget manner by the Communists. Needless to say much of the “modern” buildings are not looking nearly as good as their neighbors that were built more than 500 years ago. On top of that, the old town has been surrounded on three sides (the water is on the fourth) by a very ugly modern industrial town with no charm whatsoever. Lori says that Croatia, in general, looks a lot better from a distance - the ochre-colored roofs and cheerily-painted buildings are quite attractive. But when you get close you can see how poorly maintained and finished much of the infrastructure is. I think that this is a bit of a generalization, but in this case it’s pretty much spot on.
Zadar dates back to the 1st century BCE and has a Roman forum as well as some later Romanesque churches.
These are quite beautiful and there is evidence of much work being done to ensure that they remain so. Zadar gets its fair share of tourists from ships but not to the same extent as Dubrovnik or Corfu.
The weather is hindering our passage north to Pula to meet up with Pam and Brian but we still have plenty of time to get there and the weather forecast is a lot more promising.
Last night and tonight are the highlights of the Perseid meteor shower but it was so cold yesterday that we did not even attempt to stay up for them. But today we have moved (with 25+ knot winds) to one of our favorites, Luka Telascica, where there is no light pollution whatsoever and the prospect of a clear (and hopefully warmer) night. In the meantime, we are watching a magnificent golden eagle soaring over the pine-covered hill behind our boat - he is huge! When he fully spreads his wings, the sunlight catches the paler feathers beneath them and he seems to glow against the pure blue background like some ancient heraldic design.
As the sun sets we wait for the show to begin.