WEEK 3

Zadar is a great town - interesting history, numerous good bars and restaurants (we’re impressed at how Croatia seems to be developing a good quality tourist industry and how successfully the country has rebuilt since the war in the early to mid 90’s). Great place too for catching up with jobs - managed to get laundry done, found oil and filter (at another marina) and changed oil, got gas refilled, and good for provisioning. We bought a permit to visit the Kornati national park but on our way decided we couldn’t miss going up the Krka river to see the famous waterfalls. Dramatic river - not often we get 10 miles inland on ALMA! Skardin is as far as we can go as there’s a low bridge immediately upstream but ferry boats go from there to the National Park. The water falls are nice (but for me, once you’ve seen a few waterfalls…..) but we enjoyed even more the beautiful scenery, the peacefulness of the river (we went early morning on the first ferry - as we returned it was not at all peaceful around the entrance to the park and the lower falls - hardly room to pass on the walkways through the forest as thousands of cruise ship passengers were lead along from one photo spot/cafe to another) and the wildlife (have never seen so many fish in a river) and a special treasure at a monastery, an original of Aesop’s fables from 1487. Sadly the monastery also had a display of photographs of the destruction of churches in the 1990’s war. Ironic when the monastery also displayed a 1672 decree of Sultan Mehmet promising the Fransiscan monks safety. Now waiting for a storm to blow through as gusts up to 50 knots forecast - hopefully tomorrow we’ll be able to head out for a week in the Kornati islands. Best wishes Iain and Helen