Where Croatians go to vacation

We spent our last night in Croatia in a seaside town called Zadar. Rick Steves has no information about it, but it was a convenient stop as we were driving back north. It was mentioned in Lonely Planet, notable for a few, slightly odd things: shiny marble streets (see above), the world's only working sea organ, and a trippy solar-powered light installation called the Sun Salutation. Hmm.

We drove up from Split, found our little pension, checked in and were oriented by an extremely kind Croatian man whose English was so impressive despite his shyness about using it. We have, to a person, been amazed by the kindness and hospitality of the folks in the small places we've stayed along the way. We would head into town later; in the meantime, it was time for snacks and siesta. Here's Erin I, displaying her afternoon plans:


When we finally roused ourselves, we drove by a (crowded, handicap-accessible) beach on the way back into town and finally dipped our toes into the rocky shores of the Adriatic:

In town, we had some trouble with parking, as we didn't have enough kuna coins for the machine. We wandered into the market, where a few vendors still had stalls out, and tried to buy something small to get enough coins in change to solve our problem. What followed was an extremely confusing interaction with an older woman selling vegetables that resulted in us getting most of the coins we needed and Erin I. with a rock-hard piece of fruit she may or may not have paid too much for that we named The Parking Peach. We still haven't eaten it yet, as it's definitely not ready for consumption:


Dinner was lovely, we tried the local liqueur, made of sour cherries, and appropriately called a maraschino:


Dinner consumed, we wandered down to the shore for the sea organ and Sun Salutation, passing hordes of other tourists out strolling, lots of families with kids toddling about, and a few Croatian break-dancers taking turns doing some pretty impressive moves. The Sun Salutation was just...trippy. It did bring out the John Travolta in Erin I:


And I'll leave you with this quite low-quality video of the eerie sounds of the sea organ, along with dim picture of the moon shimmering over the sea.