Zadar

We couldn't wait to get out of Split, and head to Zadar, a couple of hours north up the coast.  It is a small university town teeming with restaurants, bars and a lively nightlife.  I was really happy we left Split and were able to check out this town.

Pedestrian bridge crossing in to Old Town.

The Sea Organ, designed by Nikola Basic in 2005, was built to improve the boring waterfront of Zadar. It is a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that is played by the wind and the sea.

Nearby is the Greeting to the Sun.

According to the Zadar tourist board, the Greeting to the Sun consists of three hundred multi-layered glass plates placed on the same level with the stone-paved waterfront in the shape of a 22-meter diameter circle. Under the glass conduction plates there are photo-voltage solar modules through which symbolic communication with nature is made, with the aim to communicate with light, just like the Sea Organs do with sound

Simultaneously with the "most beautiful sunset in the world" the lighting elements installed in a circle turn on, and, following a particularly programmed scenario, they produce a marvelous, exceptionally impressive show of light in the rhythm of the waves and the sounds of the Sea organs. 

The photo-voltage solar modules absorb the sun energy and then transform it into electrical energy by releasing it into the distributive voltage power network. It is expected for the entire system to produce around 46.500 kWh yearly, being, actually, a small power plant from which energy will be used not only for the Greeting to the Sun installation, but also for the lighting of the entire waterfront. This energy will be three times cheaper than the actual one, and the project itself is a unique example of connecting the use of renewed energy sources, energy efficiency and city space arrangement. 

The names of the saints after which present and previous churches on the peninsula have been named are carved in the ring surrounding the Greeting to the Sun.  Next to their names and the date of their feast day are the declination and the altitude of the sun, the length of the sunlight on that day and in that place on the waterfront. Thus the connection is emphasized between Zadar and the Saint Grisogonus Calender, who contributed greatly in marking time and astronomic navigation at its very beginnings.

The Greeting to the Sun installation, as a model of the solar system with its appertaining planets, is connected to the Sea Organs whose sound is transposed into a show of light that starts performing on the Zadar waterfront after sunset. In creating the lighting effects, the installation will be able to receive other outer, spontaneous impulses through modem connection, while the lighting pictures will adapt to different occasions.

The pedestrian bridge crossing in to old town.

St Donatus Church: a pre-Romanesque church built in the 9th century.

St Mary's Church which belongs to a Benedictine Convent founded in 1066.

We headed out the next morning to see Plitvice Lakes National Park.  On our way, I noticed some kind of petting zoo by the side of the road.  We stopped to have a look.

An albino peacock.

Silly ostrich.

This little piggy.....

Scarlet Ibis...I think.

The beautiful interior of Croatia.