September 13th: We started by grabbing breakfast at the bakery near the bus station.
A slice of meat pie, and an apple pastry
Bakeries all over Croatia are multi-purpose. They’re breakfast places, and early morning coffee shops, as well as serving desserts and breads. (This was also true in Iceland.) One breakfast staple is a flaky deep pie with either cheese or ground meat inside.
The main task for the day was for me to find a medical clinic and get a blood test that I usually have once a month. My doctor insisted. 🙂 The first clinic I visited could not do the test, but directed me to one that could.
Me at the first clinic, waiting to be told that the test could not be done here.
On the way to the second clinic, we passed a “pyroshop” claiming to sell “pirotehnika”. My head swum with fantasies of hundreds of new ways to make fire. But sadly, it was only selling sporting goods like bicycles and scuba masks.
When we reached the second clinic, I had to show my vaccination certificates again, and wait a bit, but the doctor doing the blood draw was very professional. The charge for the test was 65 kuna (= about $10.72). That’s the full price; I was a foreigner with no applicable health insurance. Results were emailed to me in a little under 2 hours, about the same time as the Express Lab in Fort Collins takes. Makes “socialized medicine” (= “affordable health care”) start to sound reasonable.
The only minor snag was that “prothrombin time” was abbreviated PV, not PT. Because the Croatian word for “time” is “vrijeme”, naturally. So “PT/INR” became “PV/INR”.
Zadar is the oldest continuously-inhabited Croatian city, going back further than just Roman times (when it was called Jadera). The easiest way to get to the Old Town was to walk further out the harbor and cross over on a foot bridge.
Random columns dot the landscape. I just column like I see ’em.The old city gate and walls.I found the local EDM bar, but it was too early for anyone to be dancing.
Finding lunch took a long time. We could have just eaten near where we were – there were at least 2 open restaurants – but Carol was fixated on a particular street-food restaurant, so we walked a kilometer to get there. But it wasn’t open yet, and there was nothing near it, so we ended up walking almost back to where we started, through sights we had already seen. I think we need to start taking that “bird in the hand” idea a bit more seriously.
Carol had some mammal with gnocchi, and I had the seafood pasta.
Our main goal for the afternoon was the Museum Of Ancient Glass.
Bulk glass raw material, from a shipwreck near Mljet, 2nd century ADAn optical illusion mosaic “Old man and young boy”, made from glass tiles. Don’t see the young boy? Try turning it upside down.
The theme of the main exhibit was originals and imitations.
On raised stand, a glass bowl with ribs, 1st century AD. Below, 3 attempts to imitate it.Some ancient tableware sets were all-glass, including plates, bowls, cups, vases, and jugs for wine and oil and vinegar.
Some public benches in Zadar are for sitting, but some are for lying back and resting.
Remains of the Roman forumFor dinner, I had “mixed shells”, mostly clams and mussels but with a few razor shells. Carol went for the seafood risotto.
September 7th: In the morning we headed for the ferry out to the island of Vis.
The plan was to relax and unwind after two busy and physically hard weeks touring Iceland. But when we arrived, we had to drag more weight each than a Marine carries into combat, nearly a mile, slightly uphill, to reach our apartment.
At least parts of the hike were shady.The apartment was spacious and very white.
Vis is probably most famous in America as the filming site of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). I’ll probably have to rewatch it now to see what locations I can recognize.
For dinner we went to Restoran Val on the waterfront. The catch of the day included monkfish, which I had first sampled as sushi in Iceland.
The catch-of-the day selection. The two flat brownish fish in the center with wide gaping mouths are monkfish. I chose the smaller one (underneath on the left).Carol had wild boar stew with gnocchi; we shared a side of roasted vegetables.
Cooked monkfish was nearly as good as the sushi. If you get the chance to try it, you should.
September 8th: A lazy morning. We split a pizza for lunch.
anchovies, capers, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes
September 9th: Another ćevapi for lunch.
In the afternoon we had refresher scuba dives. I hadn’t dived in about 7 years. I didn’t take the GoPro because my instructor didn’t want me distracted, which was probably a good idea, but we did see two octopi that I can’t show you. 😦 On the way back we stopped at a boat bunker from the Tito era. Vis has a lot of military installations from the cold war.
September 10th: Sandwiches at Kavana Riva for lunch. (“kava” means coffee, “kavana” means cafe or coffee shop.)
I had a club sandwich, which came with a balsamic drizzle, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Then two scuba dives. Vis harbor is one of 4 places in the Mediterranean where you can legally dive to see amphorae from old Greek and Roman shipwrecks.
Diving is easy. Dragging all your gear to and from the dive is a pain in the butt.There were lots of small fish.I saw my first polychaete worm, probably a Bearded Fireworm (Hermodice carunculata).Carol sees her first broken amphorae.Me, thinking up some bad pun about “jugs”.Buoyancy control is hard, but I can “handle” it. 🙂Perhaps a crackpot. A mishaps’ cracked pots. Can you tell the difference?Carol sees her last broken amphorae.
At dinner I tried a lemongrass-flavored sparkling mineral water, Römerquelle Emotion Limunska Trava, and really liked it. It became my go-to drink on hot days. Römerquelle is bottled in Austria, sold only in Europe, and part of the Coca Cola family.
The harbor in the evening.
September 11th: Our day to drive around the island (counterclockwise). We rented a tiny car that surprisingly had plenty of legroom on the passenger side.
First stop was the 2nd-largest town on the island, Komiža (population about 1400). We considered staying there.
Komiža has a nice little beach.The rest of the harbor isn’t too bad either.
A bit further around the island, and higher up in the hills, we found the entrance to the “Tito Cave”, where Yugoslav partizans hid out during WWII. It’s actually a series of different caves, with overlook posts guarding the approaches.
It looks innocent enough, but it’s 206 stairs up to the LOWEST cave.The lowest cave isn’t very large, just one room. We didn’t continue on to the others.Probably a Dalmatian Wall Lizard (Podarcis melisellensis). Maybe subtype gigas since that’s native to Vis.
Then we drove as high as we could get by car, without entering the restricted military base on top of the mountain.
From near the summit we could see most of the island. The south side (to the right) has good sun and is mostly agricultural, with many vineyards. There’s a large solar power installation.We had lunch at Aerodrom Gostionica Wine House. I had a tuna-pasta salad, Carol went for the cheese sampler plate.
Then we went looking for the local nude beach. This sign clearly wasn’t for it; FKK = Freikörperkultur (“free body culture”), a prominent German naturism/nudism movement started in the 1800s, which has become shorthand for nudism across much of Europe despite the tendency to use English for everything else.
But we couldn’t see how else to proceed, so we ended up reaching the water in the wrong place, and had to hike over wet uneven rocks.
The actual nude beach was about as far beyond that point as the point is from the camera.
Once we found it, it was rocky with almost no shade, because it’s a south-facing beach and it was early afternoon. We saw a few other couples and singles around, some swimming, some just sunbathing. There was pretty good snorkeling, with some deep pockets just offshore.
On the way back, we tried going higher, and found a better route that included a small bunker.
Carol even hiked out nude until we got close to people.
Naughty bits redacted.
In the evening we saw Shang-Chi in an outdoor theater. Half the movie was in Chinese with Croatian subtitles, which made it challenging.
September 12th: Carol went snorkeling in the morning while I rested and blogged.
This nice beach was walking distance from our apartment
Then it was time to pack up and drag our stuff back to the ferry. But we broke up the slog by having lunch at Bistro Frutarija.
The food is great, but they’re particularly renowned for their smoothies and fresh juices. I got the Avocado Toast, but here am finishing Carol’s Mango & Sea Bass Salad.
After that it was just travel. Hike to ferry, take ferry to Split, hike to bus terminal, take bus to Zadar, hike to our new apartment, eat something, and sleep.
Energy and Time 