Walking Zadar

The signature picture of Zadar: the churches of St. Donatus (L) and St. Anastasia (R)

We left Split and our beautiful big rooms at the Azur Palace in the morning, bound for Zadar. It was a rain day.

It poured hard on the drive to Zadar, but the rains had let up by the time we found the Hotel Bastion in the Old Town section of Zadar. There are not many hotels in the Old Town. But we booked fairly luxurious accommodations right in the Old Town:

Inside Room 303 of the Hotel Bastion

Most Zadar hotels are in the beach area farther north and on the mainland. Like Split, Zadar is a peninsula jutting out into the Adriatic. And the skies were ugly over Zadar's peninsula. But the rain was not falling when we pulled into town, so we took advantage of the break in the rain to walk the Old Town:

Outside the very small Church of Our Lady of Health

Walking down Saluca ulica Kalelarga, the main thoroughfare of downtown Old Town

Doorway behind St. Anastasia's church

Even on this ugly day (weather-wise), the Old Town was packed, most likely with cruise shippers:

The plaza in front of St Donatus

Outside St. Mary's Church, which is just across the pedestrian streets from St. Donatus AND St. Anastasia

Narodni Trg, or People's Square

Doorway into a building

Column at the east end of Saluca ulica Kalelarga

At the east end of the Old Town is the Land Gate, which was historically the way to enter Zadar by land. Clever naming.

Land Gate

Outside the Land Gate is the Foša, which I'm guessing means "quay":

Foša

It soon started to rain very hard, so went to get some lunch.

Rain pouring in from the Sea Gate, which used to be the other entry in Zadar

Petar

After the rain let up, we tried walking around some more.

Ruins

But then the rains got really hard again. So we ducked under a roof and had some beers.