Milan to Montenegro Part 2: Croatia
After our morning in Trieste, we headed to Croatia. By the time we got into Zadar, where we booked three nights, Emmeline was very low energy. We walked into the old town for dinner, hoping she was just run down from a couple of long travel days. She woke up the next morning with a fever. While he didn’t have a fever, Jon wasn’t faring much better. It was pouring rain that first full day in Zadar, so we decided to take it easy, spend the day indoors relaxing after a few really long days, and hoping Jon and Emmeline would recover enough to enjoy the rest of our time in Croatia.
Unfortunately, Jon and Emmeline were still in bad shape the next day. Emmeline ended up spending most of the time in Zadar in bed sick, unable to get up and do much. Jon wasn’t faring much better and spent most of his time in Zadar in the apartment lying low.
Our Airbnb was right across the street from the beach. It was a beautiful walk into the old town of Zadar. On our second full day in Zadar, it was bright, sunny, and hot outside. Katia and I got out and went for a nice walk into the old town and explored every area! We had a map of the old town with the key points of interest. Katia held onto the map and practiced her way-finding. I let her plot our course through the old town. We stopped every few blocks so Katia could refer back to the map, see where we were, and where we should go. She did remarkably well!
We managed to see tons of beautiful areas in the old town. There was a little park just inside the entrance to the old town, where we climbed up a small hill and sat and enjoyed the peace. We saw old Roman ruins and several churches, stopping in a few of the churches, including the Church of the Mother of God of Health where Katia and I lit a candle for Emmeline and Jon. We stopped to listen to the sea organ while we watched the water. We went for a mommy-daughter lunch date, enjoying some delicious beef carpaccio bruschetta and ravioli. It was a lovely time together.
We walked back mid-afternoon and got Emmeline outside for a little bit to sit on the beach across the street to get some fresh air. She wasn’t thrilled about needing to leave her bed, but I think it did help revive her a little bit. Meanwhile, Jon walked into the old town to briefly see it for himself and grab a bite to eat. Emmeline went back to bed to relax, while Katia kept her company and Jon did a bit of work. I went out for a coffee at the café across the street, enjoying the beautiful weather and the sight of the water and nearby beach areas for a bit before making my way home again.
That evening, I wanted to go back to the old town to watch the sunset over the water, listen to the sea organ, and watch the Greeting of the Sun. I walked into town, while Jon and the girls drove in as Jon and Emmeline couldn’t manage the walk. The Greeting of the Sun was really cool to see. It absorbs the heat or UV rays of the sun, not sure which, and as the sun sets it turns into a beautiful light show. Jon and the girls didn’t stay long, but I sat and enjoyed the sights and sounds until it was quite dark before walking home again.
It was nice to spend so much time out and about in Zadar. It was a beautiful city and one I’d been really excited to see and spend some time in.
The following day, our original plan was to head further south in Croatia and spend a night down between Split and Dubrovnik, allowing us to spend time in Split the first day as we left Zadar and Dubrovnik the following day. However, we decided that we should just push through and get to Montenegro a day early. While we were on our road trip, we got word from our Airbnb host in Kotor that she was cancelling our booking. We were left scrambling to find somewhere new to stay on our first rainy, indoor day in Zadar. Three days before we were supposed to arrive for our five weeks in Kotor. We found a place for the first two weeks, which had availability to arrive the March 6 rather than our originally intended March 7. Since Emmeline was still too ill to do much, it seemed to us that there wasn’t a point in lingering in Croatia and we pushed through to Kotor instead. Jon was quite the trooper, given he was still sick while doing this trek.
Croatia had been a place we really wanted to spend a month. Due to needing to juggle our Schengen time, it unfortunately got axed for a longer trip. And our shorter trip didn’t end up quite as anticipated due to sickness. One of the main things I had wanted to do in Croatia was hiking at Plitvice, which we unfortunately had to cancel due to Jon and Emmeline’s illness. All in all, I enjoyed the one sunny day we had in Zadar, but Croatia ended up not being quite what we had hoped for. We have all decided that we need to go back to Croatia to explore it for a longer time in the future, making sure to hit up all the places we didn’t get to explore this first time around.