Zadar
“Excuse me, but can I just burrow yous map for a minute? I just need to get me barings again”, he says. I can hear Scotland in his voice, but I ask anyway, “sure no problem, we are here right now”, I point to a spot on the map. “Where are you from?”
“Scotland, Glasgow” he replies. Michael, as it turns out, is exploring Zadar and didn’t have a map with him so approached us as we were walking along into the walled old centre of the city.
Twenty minutes later, as we are checking out the sea organ and the sun plate by the waterfront, we spot Michael again. Zadar is tiny and it’s easy to run into people in the old centre, with it’s two main streets. Over a break at a juice bar, we find out he’s in the 5th week of a years travel. He had quit his job and is being a nomad for a year, with no particular agenda at all. I need to focus when talking to him, otherwise I get lost with the rolling sounds of his words and all the “wees” and “yous” and lose track of what he’s actually saying. I do surprisingly well, and understand about 90%.
Later, we make rough plans to meet back at the square in the evening to catch the Portugal vs. Spain semi-final. Michael also introduces us to Tim and another friend, both Brits who are saying at the same Air B&B place he is.
“Yous should definitely give Air BnB a go.” he says and promises to give me the name of the place he stayed at in Pompeii where the owners were fabulous.
***
Zadar is on a peninsula, on the coast, with most of the sites within the walls of the old city. The two top attractions are the Sea Organ, a series of steps built on the water piazza that contain tunnels for wind to blow through to create notes and sounds like an organ, and the solar plates, laid out to represent the solar system, starting with the biggest one as the sun, followed by smaller plates for each planet. The plates collect sun energy and light up at night like a disco floor for a trippy effect. All they need is a DJ and they’ve got the the perfect outdoor dance floor.
