Zadar, Croatia – 2 Day Trip

Zadar was not planned in my summer Europe trip at all, but because I extended my day and ran out of things I wanted to do in Zagreb, it only made sense to take a short bus trip to Zadar. I left my luggage in my hotel in Zagreb and brought just a small day bag with a change of clothes and toiletries. I booked my bus tickets with Flixbus and made my way to the city center’s main terminal station.

At the time of this post HRK 1 = USD 0.16

Day 1 – Traffic Jam 07.16.2018

As I briefly discussed in my Zagreb post the plan was to watch the Croatian Men’s National Team parade after taking second place at the World Cup. We found out it was so far behind that my brother and I decided to go to Zadar for two days to go island hopping and to explore another new city.

The bus left the station at 16:00 and made it seven minutes out of the station before cars and people blocked off the road. My brother had fallen asleep within these seven minutes and had no idea that the bus was going to be parked for 2 hours. Right before the parade bus was arriving a helicopter started swarming the area.

The parade was approaching, slowly and people didn’t want to miss it. After an hour I went back on the bus and woke my brother up only for him to think we had arrived haha. We went back out and got to see the Bus pass by and cheer with all the locals, an unforgettable experience.

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Back on the bus after a two-hour delay and we made the three-hour trip to arrive just shortly before 22:00. With not much to do, we went to bed and hoped for an exciting day tomorrow. Below is a short video of the parade.

Day 2 – Explore & Island Hop 07.17.2018

We checked out of the Airbnb early in the morning and hit the town. You can see the Airbnb I stayed at here, and if you are new to Airbnb be sure to use my $50 off your first stay code. One thing I did not know was that the Romans had expanded to Croatia and there were some ancient ruins around the coastline. We went to the top of the Church of St. Donatus which provides an amazing view of the city. The stairs are very claustrophobic and it is almost impossible for people to pass each other going up or down, so take your time.

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We walked around the city center trying to find someone to take us island hopping for a reasonable price, we came across a tour vendor that was offering us to go for about USD 100 which was way too much, after haggling we got it down to USD 70. Only to find out when we got on the boat ride that the tour vendor pockets 50%. The guy who we went with was Andrej Mahmic, you can email him at andrejmahmic@gmail.com to get a better price. He might also be on Airbnb Experiences. He took us to Preko for lunch at Gajo and then to Osjak for some swimming. He even let us drive the boat in open waters! The swimming by Osjak is very good.

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Time to take the bus back to Zagreb and fly out in the morning to Brussels.

Cheers!