I woke up to something I’ve seen little of since getting to Zadar. Sunshine. Blue skies. It was actually supposed to still be rainy today but I guess those winds were indeed strong. Or something because the clouds were blown away. It’s still quite windy but only in the 20-25 mph range. What a difference a day makes.

I’m back at the Sea Organ awaiting the infamous sunset. We’ll see. I spent my final full day fairly relaxed. I made it to the Benedictine nun museum (aka the Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art or the Gold and Silver Museum). Tons of reliquaries in gold and silver as they say, plus a lot of gems. Speaking of, there was a crown and scepter plus chalices out the wazoo. And also parts of altars and churches — cloth with golden embroidery, lace, paintings, sculptures, triptychs, lintels, columns, crosses, etc. And it really is run by the nuns so has limited opening hours. But it was worth it to go. Anyway no photos allowed but I’m sure you can google it.

Then I had a relaxing pedicure. Followed by a long walk by the beach, Kolovare, which is actually only a 9 minute walk from where I’m staying. (If you go the right way. Of course I managed to walk in the wrong direction several times and took 15 mins instead but it’s still close.) There’s a really nice pathway that I walked for almost an hour — beautiful to see the islands across the water (even if they don’t show well in the photos with the bright sun and this camera), plus the water itself. For whatever reason these photos show neither the depth (there are definitely islands behind islands out there but this makes it look like it’s all merged into one huge set) nor the towns… maybe the sun is wiping it out but there are several orange terra-cotta tiles roofs out there showing where towns are. And for the record most of what we’re seeing are Osljak (the tiny island), Ugljan, and possibly Pasman.

Btw I’ve seen that what I’ve been calling a promenade they call The Riva. It was built outside the old city after the city’s walls were destroyed. Sad that the city was destroyed so many times but the Riva is a beautiful walkway.

I realized I could’ve taken a ferry somewhere today but it was very windy at midday and I worried that if the crossing was rough it would exacerbate my headache issues. That said my head feels significantly better today. Still swollen but it’s much less and also less sensitive to the touch — or to being shaken up (yesterday my hood and the wind were hurting it).

The sunset is indeed beautiful but I think I’ll disagree with Mr Hitchcock in that my first one at Rovinj was truly spectacular. But maybe I can blame it on having had the wrong weather here. It’s not bad anyway!!!

I’m currently on the bus for Split where I’ll meet Elaine and Stephanie. I took advantage of a beautiful morning and an easy 5-minute walk to my 1130 bus by taking a last beach and old town saunter this morning before leaving Zadar. I was able to capture shots of the islands that look populated. Also today the wind is down. (I was actually hot walking in the sun with no wind — I know, waaah now it’s too hot!!) There’s definitely work from the windy weekend as I saw a lot of downed tree branches and flood repair type work around town. But today, I saw several sail boats, ferries, and excursion boats on the water. Darn. I just missed my islands tour by a day. But that’s ok. It’ll give me something to return for! Here are a few final shots of the old city. I went to the market yesterday morning and was surprised at all the flowers, particularly mums — there were more flowers than food! But I just remembered that tomorrow is All Saints Day, a national holiday in Croatia (and other Catholic countries —also U.K. I think). And one of their traditions is to leave flowers on their loved ones’ gravesites, in particular chrysanthemums. So there you have it.

Happy Halloween!