Still waiting for my light cycle

Tiny Tiara feet for scale

The second neat installation is the sea organ, which was a set of steps leading into the ocean with embedded pipes. When waves came in, they put pressure on the pipes, and noise comes out.

These steps have pipes hidden in them.

Cool branding too.

The sound was hard to capture on my puny iPhone, but I did my best. I took one of my recordings surreptitiously while Tiara read facts off of wikipedia. I think it has kind of a beat poetry vibe.

The character was different at night. I’m not sure if it was height of the tide, or something more intentional. Definitely more mellow, and with crickets playing accompaniment.

Neither of these really captures the rich harmonics; the effect was much more soothing sounding in person. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

We day tripped from Zadar out to Krka falls; a place with a curious lack of vowels. My photo timestamps tells me this was almost a month ago now, but hey, water under the bridge right?

Krka was like Plitvice-lite, although after the recent rains a few things were really roaring. Water was literally shooting through the fence in places:

Here are some zoomed out views of those rushing falls.

Other parts were more serene. Like Plitvice it featured charming boardwalks over emerald water. (Unlike Plitvice, we weren’t freezing our fingers off in the rain).

The ridges that form the dams creating the pools/waterfalls are a sort of limestone buildup called travertine. In Krka this process is still ongoing; algae grows on the top layer, which makes a substrate for limestone deposits, which further increases the height of the dams. A sign in the park said these formations are growing about .3cm/year, which means by the time I’m dead the waterfalls could be a good 8 inches taller. Guess we’ll have to go back.

As a reward for sitting through the geology lesson, here’s a happy door from outside the park.

Yay geology!

What we found there gave us pause: Gračišće was utterly devoid of all living creatures, while evidence of struggle abounded. Our explorations left us with the grim certainty that some great horror had been unleashed upon this place.

A typical deserted street. The Temple of Belial can be seen rising in the distance.

Anyone who’s ever watched Thriller or played a scary video game will immediately know the score; Gračišće had been overrun by the living dead. Compare these two scenes:

Statue among ruins in Gračišće

Statue among ruins from the zombie survival horror game Silent Hill 2. Coincidence that the characters look like Tiara and Ian? I think not.

Every time the wind stirred or a door creaked we steeled ourselves for the inevitable attack that somehow never came.  Maybe you need more proof that this town is the harbinger of the zombie apocalypse. Let’s review the signs:

Skull and Crossbones Tombstones

Unmarked graves emblazoned with dire warnings. Yep, totally normal.

Abandoned Vehicles

Where is the owner of this car? Why did they leave in such a hurry? Who or what was in the trunk?

Anti-Zombie Fortifications

You put bars on your windows keep out thieves. You put bars plus boards plus a wall of rocks to keep out an undead horde.

Mysterious Door

Gateway to horror.

• Rotting concrete pillars and a broken light fixture? Check.
• Moldy door covered in scars? Check.
• Stained iron-work from 1833 in front of broken glass? Check.
• Rusty lock that is strangely still functional? Check.

You’re looking at the entrance to a secret occult laboratory.

Once we understood what we were seeing, we hurried back to the car. Over the squeal of tires and smell of singed rubber, we could dimly make out the faint but growing sound of shuffling footsteps, thousands strong.  Even now some 2000 kilometers away from Gračišće, we are haunted by what we witnessed.

Pasta tube: When you have leftovers but no tupperware or utensils.

Gotta save dat money, after all.

When you have scrambled eggs with white truffles for a starter you know you’re in for a luxurious meal.  After basically licking the plate clean we mixed things up with black truffles:

Possibly the best dish of our whole trip.

How do you follow two truffle dishes?  With steak, of course.  Stari Podrum cooks meat in the fireplace right in the middle of the dining room, making the whole place extra cozy and delicious-smelling.  We opted for a steak dish that came with grana padano and arugula, so we could have vegetables and call it a balanced meal:

Also, the steak came with this, which I will be making immediately upon returning home:

Skillet-fried mashed potatoes

This meal was beyond words.  It’s not the kind of thing you can eat every day or every week or even every month, but I sure hope I’ll be back.  We were too full for dessert but the owner brought us some local grappa made from mistletoe.  She was good about at deciding for us what we wanted to eat.  The mashed potatoes were her idea, and when she suggested grappa the offer sounded like, “Do you want local grappa?  Of course you do.  I will bring it.”  Croatia…they know good things here.

The landscape is mostly vineyards and winding roads through the forest.  Every so often a hill town emerges and the views are like:

Our activities here mostly involved driving around and snacking.  We visited Agrolaguna, which is one of the largest cheese producers of cheese and wine in the region.  Even though it’s on a corporate scale in Croatia, it wouldn’t be huge by Napa Valley standards.  The day we visited, we were the only guests in the tasting room, and we sat outside and enjoyed the company of the farm animals.

This kitten really wanted our cheese.

Another day we visited a local truffle festival.  More cute hill towns, more delicious treats.

This road trip really made me want to cozy up with a knit blanket and some decorative gourds…and prosciutto.

Istria’s proximity to Italy is reflected in both its food and architecture.  We spent a day in Rovinj, a colorful seaside town that is popular with cruise ships but was pretty empty the day we visited.

In addition to walking around town, we took a hike to a nearby park.  Along the way, we befriended a happy dog who accompanied us for about an hour before disappearing (hopefully to find his owner).  The dog must have known we are ready for our own pet!  Ian threw a stick for him at the beach:

We lucked out and got a same-day reservation at Konoba Batelina, a restaurant about an hour outside of Rovinj that is famous for doing great things with “trash fish.”  We knew we were in the right place when our starter arrived: ten small plates of different fish preparations, each delicious and expertly prepared.  It was like having a whole meal from State Bird’s fish cart – a dream come true.

Add to that some great local wine, grilled scorpionfish with the traditional Croatian kale and boiled potato side dish, hot bread with really good olive oil, and two desserts, and you have two stuffed and very happy travelers.  You order without a menu or price list, so we were excited to find out what a bargain it was when our bill came.  The restaurant delivered on all counts.

Love these little rings left behind on the tablecloth.

If you want to see more of the restaurant, you can watch Bourdain eat there and have some more adventurous things than we did.  No one offered us shark liver – perhaps they sized us up and decided we weren’t ready for it.

After our meal we stopped in the nearby town of Pula on the way home to see its Roman ruins.  This colosseum is from the 1st century AD, and has the distinction of being the sixth largest surviving Roman arena.  There’s a list for everything.

It was a winning day all around!

For city views, we climbed the bell tower of Diocletian’s Palace:

The old town has lots of charming little streets and buildings with colorful shutters.

One of the stranger places we visited in town was Froggyland, which houses an amazing collection of taxidermy frogs in human situations, like performing in a circus or going to school.  We agree with one review we read that called it “ribbiting.”

We also hiked up Marjan hill to see Split from another angle.  The hike through the woods was really pleasant and had some great lookouts.

We found a playground near the trail and had to stop to enjoy it. Gary took this photo of us on a spinning ride. I think this is at about the point when we wished we weren’t spinning anymore.

For a day trip, we rented a car and took the ferry to Brac island.  One of Croatia’s most famous sites is Zlatni Rat beach on Brac.  The beach has a unique shape that changes based on the tides and wind.  It was very windy and cloudy at the top of the lookout point, but the fog cleared enough for us to get a good view of the beach.

Seaplane and seagull

Zlatni Rat beach.  When we got down there, it was so cold!

The island was really quiet during off-season and it had some cute little port towns.

Back in Split, we had a seafood feast at Konoba Marjan and watched the sunset from the harbor.

After our visit to Split, Gary headed back to Dubrovnik to catch his flight home, and we rented a car to continue north.  More updates from northern Croatia to come!

Our first stop was lunch.  We all ordered the special – risotto with wild mushrooms – though we were intrigued by “something of meat.”

We visited Lokrum’s small swimming hole and interesting rock formations.

I took covert photos of Ian and Gary’s matching outfits while they took photos of the island’s rabbits.

There are also peacocks roaming the island and stealing sandwiches from unsuspecting tourists.  As far as pests go, they’re really pretty to look at:

Lokrum is also a filming location for Game of Thrones (the city of Qarth, among other places), and there is a small HBO-sponsored visitor center there.  Of course, this happened:

Gary is ready for the boar hunt.

Back on the mainland, we visited Fort Lovrijenac and toasted the sunset with champagne at Buza Bar.

Thankful for friends, champagne, and the ocean.