Zadar, Croatia: a beautiful disappointment

As you  may or may not know, last Semana Santa I spent in Slovenia and Croatia. Both countries are really beautiful, and surprisingly (or maybe not), quite different despite their geographic locations and histories*. Croatia has some of the most beautiful coastline I've ever seen (which perhaps isn't saying much), and also some of the most delicious food. Of course, as we were there at the end of March, tourist season hadn't quite started yet, and this was good and bad - good because places were much less crowded than I would imagine they are in the summer, and bad because some things that we really wanted to see weren't open during the winter.

Driving along the coast between the cities of Zadar and Trogir.

Zadar in particular was a city that we really loved - it's small but compact, with lots of churches, ruins, museums, and little pedestrian streets. It's on the coast in north of the Dalmatia region so it has great views of the Adriatic Sea.

Zadar's Sea Organ (at high tide)

And yet, despite Zadar's charm and beauty, it was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the trip (unfortunately, there were a few in total). This isn't to say that I disliked the city - on the contrary, it was actually one of my favorite cities. However, Zadar is known in part for two quirky and really cool things, both designed by the same architect: the Sea Organ and the Greeting to the Sun.

The Sea Organ is a series of 35 pipes that extend 70 meters along the coast. As the waves move and the tides change, the pipes play different chords and tones, creating literally some of the most unique music of mother nature possible. Very cool.

Zadar's Greeting to the Sun: what we hoped to see.

The Greeting to the Sun is an enormous circle of various glass plates set into the sidewalk of the waterfront. Under each of the glass plates are "photo-voltage solar modules through which symbolic communication with nature is made, with the aim to communicate with light" (as the Sea Organ "communicates with nature" through sound). When the sun sets, the circle is lit up in different ways, creating what Zadar's tourism board calls the "most beautiful sunset in the world." As I'm sure it's difficult to imagine what this strange attraction is like, there are a couple photos on the left taken from Google.

The circle is its own little mini solar power plant (producing energy to spare), which I think is pretty unique and cool.

Sadly, we sat on the waterfront long after the sunset, waiting for Zadar's #1 attraction to work its magic. When we were finally about to give up, I head a tourist nearby ask a passing local what time the circle usually starts its light show. The local responded that it was currently broken, with no known date to repair it. So, sadly, the only views we got of the Greeting to the Sun were like this:

Greeting to the Sun: what we actually saw.

Definitely a disappointment. But Zadar still should not be missed - even if you can stop for a few hours to walk around, it's still highly worth it.



*Both countries belonged to the former Yugoslavia, but Slovenia was of the first countries to break off and gain independence, and they became more financially stable long before the other former states - and still is, as it is the only of the former states to be part of the European Union (until Croatia just joined this past July 1st) and the only country to officially use the euro.