Camping Kovačine Grill Night

As the summer has progressed the campsites we’ve stayed in have been getting busier. In the spring we often stayed on large lots with only one or two other campers around. Now, in the middle of July, it can be difficult to find a spot to pitch the tent. The largest and most crowded camp we’ve stayed at yet – Autocamp Kovačine, just outside of Cres town on the island of Cres – was more bustling urban center than wooded glen. “Grill party” night, when seemingly the whole population gathered at the shore, felt like a New York street fair set in paradise.
Kovačine has seven hundred fifty pitches, and I would guess that the average lot was home to three (maybe three and a half) people. There were almost no empty spots, even at midweek. There are three restaurants on the premises, a small supermarket and a few bars – many people never leave the campground. The grill party was especially for those people, the ones who are regulars and part of the campsite community. Campers greeted each other excitedly and saved spots at tables for friends. As with a lot of other campsites, much of the conversation was conducted in German.
This man orchestrated most of the grilling. He set up quite early in the day, lighting his coals hours before the first diner was served. Friends gathered around him as he worked, joking and laughing. It seemed that he was a fixture here, and that his jovial and efficient preparations were an important part of the annual scene.
These kids were selling shells and painted stones for a few kuna. We bought a sea urchin and a rock for about a dollar – mostly because we wanted to take their picture.
As the sun set, two men began playing music on a stage and the festivities really got underway. The beer began to flow a little more swiftly from the bar taps and younger children were put to bed.
Along the promenade the mood was quieter. People were strung out along the shore in groups or alone, watching the sky slowly blacken. This is not the culture of the island, or of Croatia, but of the campground – people are there to savor the beauty of a place, and to pickle themselves in the hot, July evenings. It’s detached, of course, but it’s also special in its own way. One of the best things about camping (for us) is that we can feel part of nights like this, where we aren’t outsiders or foreigners, but really part of a crowd.

Hiking on Cres Island

The ferry to Losinj Island was a means to our end destination, Cres Island. Attached to Losinj by a short bridge, it is the largest island in the Adriatic and mostly uninhabited and wild. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to try out our "Walking in Croatia' Cicerone Guide. Don't let the name fool you, "walking" implies fairly level ground and the ability to wear sneakers or other "walking" shoes. This is just the first of many of Cicerone's little jokes. We completed two of the hikes in the guide and found other humorous word choices, like "stroll" and "rating: very easy." Luckily, we were outfitted in hiking shoes and a secret desire for something tougher than 'very easy,' so it didn't put us out too much.
The first hike took us from Cres Town up to the little chapel of Sveti Salvadur, then down to a cove in Sveti Blaž. Once up above the town, we found ourselves surrounded by piles of stone on three sides and a hot sun above. Our feet walked over rocks and pebbles loudly, as if surveying the site of an ancient avalanche or collapse. Stone walls made a sort of maze made navigable by trail markings. Thankfully, Cicerone had hit that nail on the head. Olive trees and Christian altars were the only thing breaking up the ocean of rock around us. It all felt very biblical, like the sun had, in time, stripped everything down to the pallor of purity. Even the wooden crosses nailed here and there were bleached colorless, as were the triangular stone rosaries draped around them. This altar had a battery operated light, which blinked one little red flame every other second. We imagined the pilgrimage someone must take to change the battery. Cicadas chattered loudly and we counted at least five different types of butterflies.
This was all very level and, without the precarious surface underfoot, would most definitely have been a very easy stroll. We soon emerged to more forested terrain and spotted the water below for the first time. This put an extra spring in our step, because we knew that eventually, that's where the trail would lead. An incline began, coupled with shade and we stopped for a moment at the church, where a group of brits were taking pictures and laughing, sweatless and in flip flops. We acknowledged it more as a benchmark than a destination and continued right along, under a cooling ceiling of pine.
Finally, it was time to descend the ridge we'd traversed and approach the cove that had been taunting us from below. Just above it, the trail widened and life abounded, present and past. Distracted by the blue to our left we were startled by a sheep standing right in our path, staring as if waiting for our eyes to meet. It's wool was mangy and long, but had the dyed red streak of ownership. Terracotta tiles were piled high in a mound here and the rest of the ruined stone house stood in its own pile there. An outline of a chapel marked the center of the disappeared little hamlet. Of course, it was simple a ruined wall resembling lego structure just begun. This is when we realized that we'd forgotten a bathing suit. There were a handful of people on our lusted after beach below and we prayed that their bodies wore a "suits optional" sign. As we found them clothed, we moved around to see if the other side was more secluded, desperate for a swim. Nope, a boat was docked with four people- middle-aged Italians - lounging aboard. But then.... they were naked! That evening, we toasted Europe and Croatia, specifically, for being a place where forgetting your bathing suit isn't the end of the world.
The next day, we tried out another trail, our second hike. This one was not as well marked, from the dramatic cliff top hamlet of Lubenice to the peak of Helm, and was tinged with a slight sense of foreboding throughout. Probably because the start was marked by a gravestone. My feet were slightly blistered from the rockwalk the day before and the soft bedding of dried orange pine needles cushioned the first part of the path. Intense plant weaponry lined the perimeter of our trail, thorns like you wouldn't believe. Burrs stuck to my hiking socks, justifying their (very cool) calf-high length. All of a sudden, I started to get nervous about snakes. It's amazing how an emotional mood can be set way faster than it can be shook away.
Soon, it was a rock floor, which made my blisters groan but silenced my newfound fear of snakes. The guide book said we'd go through two gates, but at least ten more seem to have been erected since they last "strolled" through. Each one was fashioned out of twigs and sticks and needed to be lifted and moved out and back again gingerly. Just as often, we had to swat away placemat sized webs with some of the largest spiders we'd ever seen ornamenting the centers. Prey dangled in the middle, mummified into a tiny gauzy teardrop.
The Cicerone guide also said that the views from the top were all blocked by trees, but that seems to have been rectified, as we found a ladder and view platform at Helm's peak. Once again, we looked down at our watery salvation and pushed along back to meet it.
Back we went to Lubenice, where more tourists had arrived and where one of the seventeen permanent residents offered to sell us homemade olive oil with a shout of "Olivo!" out her front door. A gorgeous cove sat at the cliff's bottom and we hoped that the "45 minute hike" would zig and zag us down the steepness. It did, but it also had the thickest coating of stones we've encountered so far. If the route to Sveti Salvadur was a rock sand box, this was quicksand. We heard loud whimpering from the couple below us and were just happy that the path was wide enough to keep us far away from a drop. Each step pushed a wave of scree ahead of us, making for a posture conundrum. Leaning forward while navigating a steep descent seems illogical, but leaning back makes you feel like you'll slide. A swim. A swim. A swim, the though pushed us through. It took much longer than the 45 minutes Lonely Planet said it would.
At the end of the journey was the prettiest beach I think I have ever been on. Impossibly, the water was bluer and clearer. Schools of fish rushed around our ankles, all in plain site through the water. Only ten or so people were there when we arrived, almost all carried to the coast by their boats. But we had really earned it. What looked like white sand from above was actually smooth stone, which massaged the soles of our feet. We lay, our bodies half on the hot stone and half in the lapping water, not needing to worry about the messiness of sand. It was hard to tear ourselves away and we did so only after collecting a few stones as smooth as marbles, one red, one yellow, one black and one white.

P.S. Neither of the two Cicerone walks nor the third hike down to the cove below Lubenice were dangerous if proper shoes are worn. So, please, no flip flops. And wear sun block. And bring lots of water. And you should probably not do the third if you're even moderately afraid of heights. Otherwise, enjoy!

The Zadar Mali Lošinj Ferry

Croatia's coast doesn't so much mean an end to land, as it does a point where the land begins to trickle out. The islands continue for miles, breaking up the Adriatic into a series of channels and spaces. It’s a watery place, with rough stone edges and remote specks and ridges. The only real way to get around is by boat, which is how we got from Zadar – on the edge of the sea – up to Lošinj island.
It’s a monotonous journey, but a pleasant one. We boarded at nine in the morning and drove off the boat in Mali Lošinj at three in the afternoon. The coasts of the mainland and of the islands slipped by slowly, none much unlike any other. A handful of other voyagers joined us, some getting off before us, some getting on at stops along the way. Two decks, painted blinding white, were mostly empty because of the intensity of the sun, but the inside of the boat was quiet too. It’s a lonely, less-traveled route.
A constant, low-frequency hum was the only real noise below deck – the sound of the engine churning. The Adriatic was flat and calm, and the only change in the reverberations came when the ship ground into reverse as we neared a port. The only other persistent noises: a slight clattering of the coffee cups, piled high on the cafeteria bar, and the voice of the cook, who sang and yelled with a great deal of energy. He made a meal for the crew, served at noon, that smelled tantalizing – only sparsely-filled sandwiches were available to the passengers. The sandwiches sat in seran wrap behind glass at the bar. A bowl of bananas was apparently meant for someone else; the bartender told us that they weren’t for sale.
There were three stops along the way. The ports were small and sparsely populated, little more than a concrete dock jutting out from a sleepy island. What I will remember most is the clarity of the water. Without the churning of the ship’s wake, it was nearly transparent. Looking down from the deck, it was possible to imagine that the rocks beneath the surface were only tinted a light aquamarine and not underwater at all. These outer islands were surrounded by the clearest seawater I have ever seen.
A flurry of activity erupted in the hold at every stop. Though few passengers boarded or got off, locals swarmed on board. They stacked and carried away crates of produce and cardboard boxes, picking up shipments from other ports and sending goods and packages onward along the route. This seemed to be the more important function of the boat – not to bring cars with foreign license plates to distant locales, but to supply the inhabitants of far-flung places with a link to the mainland. Jadrolinija, the giant among Croatian ferry companies, is state owned and not overly concerned with profits. It exists because the people on the islands need a connection, not because people are clamoring to travel this way.
Between stops, very little happened. When someone got up to go on deck, or when the cook changed his song, everyone noticed. People came back below into the air conditioning almost gasping from the heat and sun.
As we approached Mali Lošinj, the last stop on the line, a restless excitement came over the passengers. In the sixth hour of our voyage, the uniformity of water, sun and movement had begun to devolve into tedium. Everyone was glad when the port came into view; no one lingered long on deck before assembling at the cars.
We’ve taken a number of shorter ferries on our trip, including a few here in Croatia, but never one that felt like a journey in itself. Driving off, we felt less that we'd been on a boat for six hours - more that the land had slipped away for an interminable amount of time and we had just found it again.

Zadar: On Dry Land

The Mediterranean is quite a seductress. Even in a city like Zadar, it's easy to just spend all your time on or by the water. It takes a lot to pull yourself away and move inland. Zadar's Old Town is filled with Renaissance and Romanesque buildings, white stones walkways and orange roofs for as far as the eye can see. There's a reason that it feels a lot like Italy, as it was part of the Roman Empire, then the Republic of Venice and then, briefly, part of Italy proper (after its foray as Austrian). We could have/should have done more sightseeing, but were content to just walk around on dry land for a while.
On Zadar's peninsula, if a building isn't old or white (or old and white) it's a pizza shop. The pies are more reminiscent of New York than Italy, floppy and cut diagonally and sold by the "piece" aka slice. Outside of the Old Town, most people pick up a Croatian savory pastry called burek for a bite on the go. There are bakeries absolutely everywhere in Zadar. Near the sights, though, it's all pizza all the time. And gelato.
Lace-makers line a number of streets, setting their chairs up close to the walls to get whatever bit of shade a roof above can offer. A few have doilies set out for sale, but most are just content to sit quietly amongst friends and make lace. So close to the island, I assume they are making Pag lace or "white gold," as it is referred to. I don't know enough about it to be able to tell.
Zadar has been populated since prehistoric times, making this church from the 9th century seem almost modern. Almost. It is St. Donatus Church and is the most important preserved structure in all of Dalmatia. We climbed the bell tower next door, from which we hear a tune from our apartment miles away each morning, and were able to see the rotunda's orange roof, shingled in a spiral of bright terracotta. Beyond it was the sea, the perfect, complimentary blue sea, and we were lured to the wet side once more. Moving inland again hours later, on our way home.
Outside the center, Zadar seems a lot more familiar, more local and less touristy. Like in any other town in any other country, a carnival was set up - it's not a summer night without people spinning around in the air and bouncing off of one another in bumper cars. It took so long for the sun to set that by the time the neon lights had their proper black backdrop, most of the drowsy children were draped over their parents' shoulders. A few teenage girls waited for their dates in more-date-than-carnival-ride-friendly attire.
At a bar on the corner, on significantly less 'dry' land, a bucket of sardines ("70 pounds," we were told) were lined up on a grill, one next to the other like, well, sardines. As a row finished, they were piled onto a plastic plate, topped with a nub of crusty bread and placed on a table as a complimentary snack. Definitely beats a bowl full of beer nuts. At about 10pm, most of the nibbling bar goers were just starting their evening. Zadar's Garden Festival was taking place, a series of concerts and after-show boat parties that draws crowds every year. I heard a few thumps of music when I got up for a drink of water in the night, hours later, and then happily snuggled right back into bed.

2011 ISAF Youth Sailing Championship

Somehow, without knowing about it beforehand, we found ourselves in the middle of a championship. Zadar has been full of young sailors, their parents, their sponsors and their coaches. We see them in the supermarket, at restaurants, on the boardwalk and on the beach - they all wear white t-shirts with the ISAF logo and seem to be treating the event like a vacation. It's the premiere youth sailing event of the year, though, and it's a big deal.
We saw the boats first, lined up on the marina concrete in exact, gleaming rows. The competitors hadn't arrived yet, and we were free to walk around and take pictures. A few days later, the sails arrived and the sailors began to trickle in. A fence went up around the dock area; we were no longer welcome. Signs for the "ISAF Youth Sailing Championship," were plastered all over town and a big floating stage was set up off the town promenade for the opening ceremony.
The first race began at noon on the 9th, but the boats went out much earlier, massing chaotically like seagulls on the water and scooting back and forth between the islands. From the beach, they were alternately distant and very close. You could hear them coming across the straight, sails snapping, voices calling out to one another. As the races began, groups formed, divided by class and gender, and spread out in different directions. More organized, it became like watching schools of fish divide and rejoin and break apart again.
Amazingly, the ferries and fishing boats kept running, sometimes blowing their horns to alert the competitors and get them to move out of the way. People swam amongst the boats when they were close to shore and jet skis whined around and through the groups. Life certainly went on, probably more undisturbed than the racers were.
There are 58 countries with teams at Zadar, fielding 247 boats manned by 349 youths. The vernacular of categorization is almost comically incomprehensible - there are laser radials, 420's, RS:X's, 29'ers and bullets, none of which I can tell apart. The New Zealand team was the favorite coming into the race, apparently, but I was told that the US had a good shot. The countries represented were dominated by ex-British colonies, with a few Asian nations thrown in and a small contingent of South Americans.

Two Puerto Rican sailors - Raul Rios and Fernando Monllor - led the standings after competition ended on day one, which (we gather) is a surprise. They put out a few happy but cautious quotes: "It was pretty light and shifty and it was my first bullet. It is a great feeling," Rios said. "It was very nice. Sailing with Raul has been really good and a great experience, he is a really good sailor and having the opportunity to sail with him has been a great pleasure," Monllor chipped in. The races will continue on Sunday and Monday, but we won't be there for them.

Quotes courtesy of isafyouthworlds.com

Ugljan Island

Ugljan is the closest and most easily accessible island from Zadar - and since all the islands have their draws and we only have so much time to go 'sploring, we figured we might as well hop on the ferry and head on over. It has the densest population of any island in Zadar's archipelago, almost entirely apportioned to its eastern coast. This is a view from the Saint Michael fortress ruin out over the northern tip of its mostly deserted western side. Nary a rooftop could be spotted, just green shrubbery as far as the eye could see. Like an enormous moss covering. We could see why it's referred to as "the green island."
It's a very fertile island, but on our hike up to Sveti Mihovil (St. Michael), we felt like we were in the desert. The sun beat down hard and we joked about sucking on one of our wet water shoes. I would have joked about how 'sveti' I was, but my pun recognition was greatly dimmed by the trudge. Testament to the heat. We were joined halfway by a family of four, who stopped for a rest and were never seen again. Alongside the trail were these collections of stones, resembling inscriptionless graveyards.
Saint Michael is at the highest peak of the island, which makes sense for a fortress site. Unfortunately, it also makes sense for tv tower placement and one has been erected smack dab in the middle of the ruin. On the upside, we can make out the tower in the distance from our home on the mainland, and we now point and go "we were up there!" Still, it's a shame. Apparently, there is another historic castle on Ugljan which has been nicely restored - and renamed after a Croatian basketball star. It's like both ruins on the island are tongue-in-cheek statements about ancient icons and modern icons.
Down on lower land, we lounged in the town of Preko. It was surprisingly calm compared to the bustle we'd sailed away from on the other side. A number of older men filled large plastic pitchers with water from a well and then bicycled them back up toward home. (This man has more precious cargo: ice cream). The agricultural settlements are mostly inland, uphill from the coast. Vegetable gardens and vineyards join the namesake olive groves (Ugljan comes from the word for oil) on a list of the island's bounty. I wondered if the old woman we'd bought greens from at the Zadar market had ferried her produce over from here. She waved goodbye to us with a mutated carrot - it looked like a demented orange chicken foot - and then handed it to me as a gift.
Of course, there's also fishing. Everyone else at this outdoor restaurant next to the fish market dined on pizza and pasta, but we ordered the special on the chalkboard. We were served twelve grilled sardines each with a garlicky swiss chard/potato mash (a Dalmation specialty called 'blitva'). They were the best sardines of our very sardine-heavy trip so far - and not just because they didn't come out of a can.
Right across from Preko's semi-sandy, mostly stone beach was the island of Galovac. We considered swimming over to it, but weren't sure we could balance all of our belongings on our heads. So, instead, we walked along the coast until we found a cove and took a dip. A small cluster of pine trees shaded us from the direct sun. They say the water in the channel between Ugljan and Zadar is some of the cleanest and clearest in the Adriatic, because of the constantly shifting currents. If I weren't wearing my sexy new watershoes, I could probably have counted my toes.
As the afternoon rolled on, more people began to come over on the ferry. Beaching begins late here, as it's still hot and bright at 8pm. Ugljan gets an average of twelve hours of sunlight per day all year round. That's a statistic that will be repeating in my head come February. Most of the teenage boys that came over were cologned and shaved for the evening, but these guys were content to play (standing) water polo until the sunset.
And here is Preko and Galovac from the ruin. We thought the large building on the islet was a hotel, but it's actually a Francescan monastery from the 15th century. Not surprising. So far, traveling in this country has seemed like a pick your own adventure book. We pick a region, then an island, then a town, and even that story can have a multitude of endings. There's just treasure upon treasure, natural and historic. Welcome to Croatia.

The Desolation of Pag Island

Pag Island, people are fond of saying, looks like the moon. Certainly, that's not a bad description. Rock and water meet in pure forms here, with little vegetation and a simple duality of color: blue and white. It has the longest coastline in the Adriatic, with many switchback arms and deeply cut bays. Most of its shores are completely, utterly desolate.
There are pockets of people scattered everywhere, though, taking in the fine beaches and beautiful water. There is nothing on Pag to separate the ground from the sun; sunbathing is a direct intake activity, where heat and light seem to be part of the atmosphere itself. We stopped at the head of this bay, where a thin line of gravely earth gave way to smooth pebbles and white stone. The water is intensely salty in these coves, and especially clear.
The salt is the reason why Pag is inhabited at all. Or, it was until the advent of Croatian tourism. For almost three thousand years the people of Pag have harvested salt in giant pans that stretch up the protected, central slit of sea. Pag Town, the capital and original settlement, was once famous for this bounty, and has some beautiful marble buildings and bright-white streets. It's nestled into one of the only green spaces on the island, protected from the salty winds and cordoned off from the greater seas.
Nowadays, Pag has a reputation for wild partying, with the northern town of Novalja becoming known as "the Croatian Ibiza," which is why we avoided it. Tourism here skews young and wealthy, and is centered on a few beaches on one stretch of coast. There is one main road that travels the length of the island - taxis rushed along it, ferrying vacationers up through nothingness to their clubs and hotels.
Little of that energy has permeated the rest of the island, though, and it can feel like a desert at noontime. The boats that cruise through the water are piloted mostly by lone, sun-darkened men who have been dried and wrinkled by the elements. There is an unrelenting harshness to the landscape, and it's a place only for the hardy - one senses that a few days here would be a trial and that a lifetime would be difficult. Though it looks like paradise from some angles, there is nothing here except rock and salt.
Somehow, in this wasteland, amazing food abounds. Besides salt, Pag is known for two things: the local sheep cheese, Paški sir, and lamb. The cheese is delicious, with a spare, hard-edged sharpness that perfectly mirrors the landscape. The lamb is supposedly even better - I saw it being grilled, whole, over a wood fire, stuffed with herbs and slick with drippings and olive oil. It smelled delicious, but we ate fish instead.

Perhaps the best seafood that we have eaten on the trip - and maybe the simplest - these four hake were swimming in olive oil, their skin crisp with salt and heat. We ate them ravenously, sitting on a porch between the sea and the road, using our fingers as much as our forks. Our hostess was very proud of us for ordering them, though she couldn't convey much to us across the language chasm.
We left feeling a kind of simple melancholy, as though the day we'd spent there had drained us of emotion. The sun is tiring, of course, and the landscape invites an emptier mind, rather than contemplation. Driving back to Zadar across the causeway, it felt as though the surrounding elements had doubled - sea and rock giving way to vegetation and buildings.