A Ticket to Zadar

You may be wondering why I would start a post with a picture of us in our cabin.  Well, I took this one because I needed to send a photo to Lindsay and Ritchie of what we would be wearing today because they had bought "one way tickets to Zadar", something Karl would say to the girls when they were little and naughty.  They were in Europe to listen to Jessie perform with the Waterford orchestra, had a day with not concerts and decided to come to Zadar.  It's pretty special when your kids will take time to fly somewhere just to spend a couple of hours with you, just like with Lisa, Jeff and the kids met us in LA in February.  We were prepared with Plans A, B & C for meeting up with them.  Stay tuned!

As we got off the ship today we were greeted by these young people playing for us.  They were pretty good and when I sent Andrew a photo he was excited that one of them was playing a euphonium like he does.

The trip to Krka was the last major shore excursion that I had planned on the cruise, transportation, guide & park tickets for a group of 23.  I had honestly woken in the middle of the night before the tour panicked that my contact was a fraud and that they were just going to get us on the bus, take us somewhere random and rob us.  Why does my brain work even work that way?  It turned out that a great bus, and our guide, Mila, was there with the bus waiting for us. We paid for the tour in cash we'd collected from everyone and off we went to the lovely little town of Skradin.

The park and town are about a 45 minute drive from Zadar through country that reminded us of the area around Albuquerque, of all places.  Krka is one of eight national parks in Croatia.  About 10% of the country is either a national park or a nature park.

The river here is somewhat brackish at this point as it runs out to the Adriatic Sea not far away.  There are miles of coastline along Croatia with over 1100 islands, islets and rocks along the shores.  Mila told us Croatia is a favorite haunt of celebrities because of all these isolated places to stay, plus there is nobody famous who lives in Croatia so there are no paparazzi about!

We boarded the boat that would take us to the park and headed immediately for the top deck for our short ride.

The hills were all forested and the water clear and this lovely blue green color.

As in Slovenia there is a lot of karst in this area, limestone hills mainly and something in them is what gives the water the glacial color.  There was only a lone swan on the lake as we motored past.

From a distance the falls didn't look very impressive but that opinion changed once we were next to them.

Krka was made a national park in 1985 when these lands were still part of Yugoslavia.  Croatia is a young country, it's only been in existence in this current iteration since 1991 when the former Yugoslavia dissolved.  Unlike Slovenia, which didn't suffer when that happened, but was war weary for four years.  Today it is part of the European Union, has a relatively peaceful existence and is one of the safest countries in Europe to live in.  One more thing to note here, with a history that dates back to the days of Augustus when it was Zader, the city of Zadar is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Croatia.

Here was our first view of the falls themselves.  It's not the height that makes them impressive, I think it's the clarity of the water and the color, along with the length they run on the Krka River.

You cross a bridge over the water to begin a circuit around the waterfalls, gradually moving up higher until you can see exactly where you've been.  You'll get what I mean in a photo a bit later.

Mark and Jane's kids, Emma (32) and Jake (19) have joined us for this piece of the cruise.  This was our first chance to do a day tour with them.

And speaking of Mark, he, LeaAnn and I tried getting photos of the beautiful dragonflies that were flitting among the plants in the streams later one.  He was the only one to successfully capture one with it's wings open.  They were such a beautiful electric peacock blue that sparkled when the sun hit them.  This is an amazing photo.

Off to the left of the falls in the prior pictures were these that wen to the rock hillside.

It's fun to play with waterfall photos , to see what will happen if you change the image to long exposure mode.  I quite like the soft result.

These were an old stairway there, the new one is wider and more graveled.  As we began our walk to the upper levels there were older ladies there with a table set up selling candied almonds, dried figs, and candied orange peel.  Ever since Croatia converted to the Euro as currency two years ago it has been difficult for people to make ends meet.  The minimum wage is low and inflation is high.  Many people only make about 1000 euros a month.  Crazy but weird, it is illegal to have more than one job in Croatia.  That makes it so if someone wants a second job to help care for their family it has to be a black market job.  Like I said, a weird law and people there don't like it.

More falls higher up.

And here we are again.

The higher we went the easier it became to see where the boat had docked and views of the river when the forest opened up.

Here at the Skradinsk Buk the waterfalls move 500,000 liters of water per second, that's over 132,000 gallons per second..  

Every time we came around a bend in the trail there was another gorgeous sight to behold.

Another photo that I played with the long exposure.

The water color at this spot was amazing.

Lots of oleander growing throughout the park.

Also within the park are 19th century water mills and an Ethno Village with exhibits and demos.  This small house would have been the residence of a wealthier family.

They had actual wooden plates that they could eat off of,

as well as cups and bowls.  Everything inside is a re-creation.

We went into a house where weaving was demonstrated on a hand loom.  Different parts of the country, even different villages, would have their own distinct design that their people would wear.  You could tell at a glance where they came from and wether they were married or single and sometimes what their occupation was.

When I saw this huge bower of flowers I just had to take a selfie.  Me and my love of flowers!

The little village of here atop the hill would have been nice to live in we thought, with a plentiful water supply and a water wheel for milling.

Again, the color contrasts were amazing.

It was surprising to get a shot of the walkway empty as there were a lot of people at Krka that day.  I especially loved watching all the young families walking through.  Family and traditions are an important part of Croatian culture.  One thing that is hard here is that with their economy in such difficulties, many of the young people move out of the country to find work abroad.  There are actually more Croatians living outside of Croatia than the 3.7 million who live in the country.  I was really surprised to learn that currently many of them are moving to Cork, Ireland.

Just a laugh for me to put the photo on the left in here.  It's been a running joke that Mark will tell me he's seen a red flower, or a pink one, maybe a yellow, or I will point one out to him and actually give him the name if I know it.  This time is was Chuck, who never pays any attention to flowers,  pointing out this lone white flower.  We got a good laugh out of it.  I also liked the ivy climbing on this fallen tree branch.

The lake at the top of the falls is only about 78 feet at its deepest point.  From here the falls run for above a half a mile with 17 different cascades.

From the top you can see some of the falls and the pool below.  That walkway is the one we were on for the first photo at Krka.

I had to look up what was going on with the crocheted wrapper on this tree after we got back as I had no idea what it could be for.

It turns out that this mulberry tree, called The Green Lady, is Croatia's entry in the European Tree of the Year competition.  Here's what I learned: "The Croatian Tree of the Year competition is intended to highlight the importance of old trees in our natural and cultural heritage, and show that they deserve our care and protection. This is not only a competition of which tree is the most beautiful, largest or oldest, but it includes the story of the tree and its connection with the local community and its people. Therefore, such a competition inspires the local community and general public to get involved in the protection and conservation of natural values. "  It turns out that they didn't win, Poland was the winner, but it was still a fun surprise and I like what they wanted it to stand for.

A few more cascades before we finished our almost two hour walk around the waterfalls.  We had just enough time to get a drink and a snack before heading back to port.  I hustled back up the trail to get some of those almonds and that orange peel from the black market ladies.

After our 20 minute ride by return boat to Skradin, some in the group got souvenirs, or made a last bathroom stop before we all got on the bus to head back to Zadar after a successful tour with Mila, who shared lots of information and yet at the same time let us do our own thing.

So then what happened with Plans A, B, or C?  Well, as it turned out there wasn't time for Lindsay and Ritchie to come out and meet us in the park, which was Plan A, nor did the timing work for them to come out to Krka, to get us at the parking lot and drive back to Zadar together, Plan B.  So you guessed it, by the time they got off their Austrian Air flight we knew it was going to have to be Plan C, which had them meeting us at the cruise terminal.

Oh how good it was to see these two after six and a half months.  Jessie was sad that she couldn't come along too but she was required to stay with the orchestra group.  After they picked us up we drove to Old Town, about 10 minutes away, parked, then walked along the seaside promenade to the Zadar sea organ.  You can see that we lost Karl right away since he isn't in this photo.

But he turned up, as he always does, and wanted a photo next to the sign.  If gave us all a laugh.

Then we took a photo with him near the Sea Organ.  This instrument, is actually underwater tubes beneath marble steps that lead into the sea along the promenade create a musical instrument that is played by wave action.  Located since 2005 on the Riva, or Seafront Promenade, it continually creates strange and eerie music

We spend most of our time together, not quite two hours, enjoying a meal and talking at this restaurant by the sea.  Couldn't have asked for better company or place to eat.

Only one quick shot of the old church in Zadar as we made our way back to the car and then on to the port.  We knew we were going to be cutting it pretty close in our timing but it was so good to be together and so hard to say goodbye again.  After hugs and "see you soon" we hurried back to Serenade and were back on board with a whopping four minutes to spare, the closest we've every gotten to the "all on board" time.  What a marvelous day!