I had planned a trip to the Kryka National Park for today but after the crowds at the Plitvice National Park on Friday, I thought there was a high chance it would be even busier at the weekend so we had a rethink. My turn in the driving seat today and I’m getting used to the car although the gear change is still quite a challenge from 2-3 and block changing back down!
We chose two destinations - Nin and the island of Pag - mainly because I liked the names! Nin was only 40 minutes from Zadar and a pleasant drive. There wasn’t actually that much to see in a very small town with less than 1,500 inhabitants. There were a lot of Roman ruins and an estuary with egrets, cormorants and terns. At the last moment on the way back to the car we turned left back into the town and discovered life with restaurants and a few shops and we were forced to buy an ice cream! I was limited in the choice of photo for today but I came upon these dried starfish on the sea wall in Nin which I liked (sorry they were all dead though).
We then drove onto Pag, an island linked to the mainland by a high bridge. The guidebook said that Pag is known for its strong sheep’s cheese rather like parmesan, lace making and morello cherry liqueur. In the event we did not find any of these things. We did find the salt pans - the fourth specialty of the island but they were not very photogenic. I had set the SatNav for the town of Pag on Pag but when we stopped there seemed to be very little actually there so we reset our destination to Novalja. This was certainly a lot more ‘lively’ - rather too lively with British bars and hoards of youngsters. The area is known for its sandy beach and water activities.
After using all my coins in the parking ticket machine again, we set off exploring and trying to avoid the tackiness. Eventually we came across a little seafood cafe on the front and ordered calamari and ‘small fish’. Nice, although David Attenborough’s appeal to use less plastic seems not to have reached Novalja.
Despite the impressive beach, the banana boats and booze cruises were not of interest so we started driving back towards the salt pans, but kept going all the way back to Zadar.
Later in the evening we smartened up and headed down for our dinner reservation at Fosa restaurant right by the city walls and on a little harbour. We could gauge the type of place with the gold cutlery but we had been reserved the best table outside next to the water. I started with mussels, followed by Dalmatian gratinaté fish and herbs and finished with a hazelnut semi-freddo. Very tasty, not cheap but we’re worth it!!
