Sunday, April 2, 2017

2nd Day in Croatia, April 1, Zadar

The weather keeps holding. It's true that there are a million shades of blue in this part of the Adriatic. Our next port in Croatia took us further north on the Dalmatian coast. Yes, the dog breed was bred and named here. They were bred to attack Turkish horses for the defense of the area. Dalmatia may come from the Ilyrian word for shepherd. The area has poor soil for cultivation, but raising sheep is good. Zadar is another small port town of Venetian heritage, but also has Roman ties that we were able to see in ruins of a forum in the middle of town.
The town boasts a brand new port for cruise ships. Apparently lots of this part of the world is banking on the tourist industry to help the economy. The waterfront also sports a large art installation consisting of a huge disk of solar cells in the flat deck next to the water, and a "water organ" that plays tones made by the movement of the waves. It is the artistic work of Nicola Basich. Some of us were able to take off our shoes and put our feet in the Adriatic water. Very cold!
This morning we boarded a bus with a guide for a special excursion, to the island of Pag, famous for its cheese making. More about that later.
This part of the Adriatic coast is an archipelago. Croatia has 1,244 island, 68 of which are inhabited. We road the bus inland, through a quite rural area with mountains paralleling the coast, and then north for about 10km then crossing a short bridge to the island of Pag. Pag has a unique micro climate made from the strong winds that occur in the winter time. The winds of up to 90 mph come down from the mainland mountains and scour the vegetation. Nothing can grow very tall, but the dry climate produces aromatic herbs like sage and the wind deposits salt on the leaves. Sheep that eat this vegetation produce a milk that is perfect for a mild cheese, and the lamb meat is also a delicacy.
The island of Pag has 6,000 people and 30,000 sheep. It also has salt flats and a growing tourist trade.
An earthquake destroyed the town of "old Pag" in the 15th century, and a famous city planner "George of Dalmatia" (Juraj Dalmatinac) designed "new Pag" in the style of a Roman city with a nice easy grid plan.
Our bus driver was a wealth of information who talked the whole hour of our bus ride to Pag. She was obviously very proud of her country and noted some world-famous Croatians whenever she could (e.g. Nicola Tesla) She told us much about the origins of the Croatian people. Some think that they originated in Iran and moved with their herds of sheep to the Dalmatian coast before Romans came. Now Croatia is beginning to get a reputation as a "party destination" for tourism. Many young people with money are coming from all over the world to rent flotillas of yachts for ocean parties lasting weeks at a time. Driving onto Pag we saw the bleak landscape hat our tour guide had told us about--like a moonscape on the east side, with the vegetation changing as soon as we crossed the mid-island rise.
During a brief stroll around "new Pag" we noticed that it was a destination for a Saturday morning bicycling group, who stopped for coffee on the waterfront.
Our next destination was a famous cheese factory, a modern family-owned business, the Gligora family. The daughter-in-law of the owner met our bus and had us don hair nets, coats, and shoe covers before taking us into the factory. They run milk collection 6 months out of the year, usually 6 days a week. All of their milk is produced locally and 50% of it goes to producing their signature, small batch brand--Paski Sir--sold in Europe and internationally. The guide was obviously very proud of the high quality of their cheese and told us that it had one awards internationally, even in Wisconsin!
The tour of the factory ended in a beautiful tasting room, with wine, bread, olive oil, prosciutto, and several kinds of their cheese, beautifully displayed on plates for each of us. A lovely repast!
Several of our fellow guests in this group had some mobility problems, but Viking did a great job in caring for their needs in getting on and off the bus, and up and down an elevator.
On the ride back to Zadar, our driver took us by the new basketball stadium in town. Basketball is very popular, drawing as many fans as soccer in this town. A famous son of the city played in the US in Utah. He returned to Zadar as a converted Mormon and popularized basketball starting a Mormon community.
Back in town at Zadar we barely had time to visit the Romanesque round church, see the ruins of the old Roman forum and listen for a while to the sounds of the sea organ before returning to the ship.

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