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Category: Zadar

  • Balkans Trip Day 16 – Zadar – Pizzeria Tri Bunara

    Balkans Trip Day 16 – Zadar – Pizzeria Tri Bunara

    By now I was back on my own, I thought I’d pop and get a pizza and a beer as that seemed a sensible decision. Pizzeria Tri Bunara was well reviewed and it also had some seats on its terrace and so I opted for that.

    I selected a table for two, while customers who occupied tables substantially larger than their groups required were soon repositioned by the waiter. I approved of this positive intervention and it added some drama to proceedings.

    I was served promptly and the waiter seemed friendly and helpful, so this seemed a pleasant place to spend an hour or so. Some local cats provided additional entertainment by meandering through every now and then, making it feel like a basic cat café without the tiresome requirement to pretend that I had visited primarily for the cats.

    The pizza arrived after around ten minutes and was larger than I had expected, which immediately pleased me. I had ordered the Picante, topped with salami, spicy pepperoni, bacon and whole pickled green chillies. The chillies added some welcome heat and acidity, while a bottle of chilli oil was provided immediately on request. The pizza tasted freshly made, with a generously topped centre and a well-risen crust.

    The beer was Karlovačko Crno, a 6% Croatian dark lager brewed using three varieties of malt. It had a roasted, caramel character and rather more flavour than some of the pale lagers I had encountered during the trip, so it proved a good companion to the pizza.

    I spent a relaxing hour watching the world go by and observing further customers being repositioned by the waiter. The prices were reasonable, the pizza and beer were both enjoyable and it was nearly time to make my way towards the airport. Jonathan had left me unsupervised, but surely nothing could now go wrong.

  • Balkans Trip Day 16 – Coach Journey from Split to Zadar

    Balkans Trip Day 16 – Coach Journey from Split to Zadar

    This was the final day of the Balkans trip, with Jonathan getting a later coach to Zadar and flying out the next day, whilst I had an evening flight to Warsaw. This is the coach station at Split and the ticket office here makes clear that they can’t help with locating the coaches and although it’s fair that it’s not something they can help with, perhaps the coach station management might want to improve matters here.

    Jonathan had come with me to ensure that I got the right coach, or, more precisely, to check that I had gone.

    Although I had booked a FlixBus, it noted that it was operated by a third party and wouldn’t have their branding. It transpired that it did and after checking with the upbeat and helpful driver that I was boarding the right coach, I was ready to board marking the end of another memorable trip.

    Jonathan waved me off, his thoughts presumably already turning towards his return to Norwich the following day. He was perhaps also relieved that responsibility for my geographical whereabouts had finally passed to somebody else. Although I didn’t know this at the time due to my last-minute booking habit, I was still to visit Warsaw, Kutaisi, Katowice and Barcelona before I got back to the UK. No point in keeping things simple and that means my loyal blog readers still have plenty more posts to wade through.

    Although the coach was at capacity, boarding early meant that I got a decent seat on the upper deck. The coach was clean, although the power sockets didn’t work and the air conditioning was struggling to do much useful, but it was a cheap and cheerful way of moving along the Croatian coastline with the ticket costing £11. There are also regular services in case something goes a bit wrong with the whole arrangement.

    Leaving Split I got to see Diocletian’s Aqueduct which was constructed in the early part of the fourth century, at the same time as Diocletian’s Palace that we had looked around the previous evening.

    The countryside near Pristeg, with the Velebit Mountains visible in the distance. After several days beside the Adriatic, the route now felt noticeably drier and more rural, although I felt that I had enough photos of the countryside through the window to last me for a while.

    Safely into Zadar coach station on time and with a thirty-minute walk to the historic heart of the city, slightly longer than I had been hoping for in the hot weather. I’m not sure whether I’ve actually mentioned in recent posts that it was getting a bit hot again on the Croatian coastline.

    Since there was a McDonald’s at the coach station, I used the opportunity to charge my devices and ordered a cooling Fanta and a beer. McDonald’s providing electricity, air conditioning and alcohol (of sorts) immediately made it one of Zadar’s more useful cultural institutions.