Ferry to Zadar

We have a travel day with a ferry from Mali Losinj to Zadar at 9.30am. We dropped our bags down to the Odyssey team at 7am - the boys, Henrick and Dario, are driving the two vans with all our bikes and bags to a car ferry and then driving down to Zadar. The logistics involved are impressive to make our tour work smoothly.

We had the buffet breakfast, which was quite a spread, probably the best of the trip, before getting taxis to the ferry terminal. It was an every man or woman for themselves fight for a seat on the ferry; we just popped our earbuds in, and the 2.5 hours went by quickly.

Collie, one of our lovely guides, left us as she was only on tour for the first week. We had some time before check-in, so we had a wander around the old town, which is very near our hotel.

Zadar is on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast and is known for the Roman and Venetian ruins of its peninsular Old Town. There are several Venetian gates in the city walls. Surrounding the Roman-era Forum is 11th-century St. Mary’s Convent, with religious art dating to the 8th century. There’s also the grand, 12th-century St. Anastasia’s Cathedral and the round, 9th-century pre-Romanesque Church of St. Donatus.

To be honest, we were just trying to avoid the daytrippers from the three cruise ships, so we wandered the back alleys until we found a place to eat. We had fish and chips at Fish House, washed down with a local pilsner. We wandered along the seaside and then to one of the Venetian gates before having a very tasty pistachio gelato.

We rested up in our room in the afternoon. We chatted to the nice hotel reception lady about Croatia, food, wine, and life in general before heading out for apero across the road.

We had our team catch up at the hotel bar - it's a fun group. We even got a flyover from a synchronised flying team.

We went out for dinner at a pizza place about 10 minutes from the hotel, Family Pizza, in the back alleys. We dined with Liz and Russ from Melbourne - they are a lovely couple, both retired from university roles.もっと詳しく