Meanwhile, Back in Zadar

Entering Zadar today I realized how much I love Zadar and how happy I am to be here again.  I guess after being here for 10 weeks in the past two years, it became more like home than I thought. I automatically started driving to my old haunt, and then realized that, no, I was staying somewhere else this time!

I am staying in Sukosan, a small town about 10 minutes south of Zadar, in yet another situation where the rustic entry and first impression quickly changed to “oh my, this is awesome and you people are wonderful!” We scored an apartment at a super price, but I must have clicked the wrong thing because it was much smaller than I thought.  When I asked about a larger apartment, mother and daughter said the larger one could be ready for us in 30 minutes.

While waiting, we poured ourselves a glass of wine while sitting in the outdoor area.  When we offered the father a glass (because he was nice enough to carry my luggage) he asked me if we wanted to try his own wine.  Don’t ask me how I understood that in Croatian, I just did.  Of course, I said yes, and it was better than the bottle that we had bought at InterSpar, and made from the same grape, too.  He gave us the bottle (reusable plastic) as a gift. I suspect we will buy another from him, and possibly his olive oil, too.

And our new little apartment is adorable, one bedroom, a very comfortable sofa bed and two bathrooms, with the cutest tiniest bathroom condiments printed with Apartment Dana.

For my first evening back, I chose dinner at Skoblar, one of the restaurants on Pet Bunara Square. Again, everything conspired to remind me of how wonderful Zadar is.  As always, the walk along the harbor by Fosa and the seafront bathed in the golden sunset light was shared by many people (but not too many.) The streets are gleaming, and the city exudes a sense of calm and peace.

And the people! they are warm and friendly, from Davor, the street lot parking assistant, who I joked with about having dinner with him when he couldn’t advise me on restaurants because his mother cooks for him, too good to ever go out!, to Martin, our waiter at Skoblar who presented us with the Maraska liqueur, saying “I am sorry I couldn’t give you the cake that you asked about, but I can give you this instead.”  And he proudly told us how it is truly a local product, made in Zadar with the special cherry from Maraska, with a history of over 500 years.

This is one of the things that I like most about Croatia – the purity and history of their products, and the pride that the Croatians rightly have about them.

When I was speaking with Davor, he said that he knew many people who had left Croatia thinking that life would be better elsewhere. And I agreed with him that in fact, it wasn’t. People who left might make more money, sometimes doing things that they wouldn’t even do in Croatia, working harder and longer hours but actually end up with less.  And I have heard others say that after going that route, they realized that their life in Croatia had been better, with the traditional family and community values, clean water and food with pure, intense flavours.

So from the family at the apartment to Davor to Martin, I am once again reminded that people make the place, and in this case, people who are rightly proud of who and where they are.

I am happy to be back in Zadar and Croatia!