Four days in Zadar: an organ the sea plays at sunset

Three nights on a peninsula the Romans laid out and the Allies bombed flat, with a Roman forum in the middle of it and a day inland to the waterfalls at Krka.

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Length
4 days, 3 nights
Where you stay
Zadar
Places
10 across 4 days
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Zadar is the coast without the ticket queue. The old town sits on a narrow peninsula with water on three sides, laid out on a Roman street grid, and it is a place people actually live in: children on scooters across the forum, the cathedral bells over the fish market, cafes on a marble main street polished like a skating rink.

It has been knocked down more thoroughly than any other town on this coast. Allied bombing in 1943 and 1944 destroyed most of it, which is why a ninth century church can stand beside a 1950s apartment block on the same square. What survived, survived because it was built to last: the forum, the round church on top of it, the Romanesque cathedral, and the Venetian gate.

Three nights gives you the peninsula at a walk, one day inland at the waterfalls and an evening or two doing nothing at the western tip, which is where the whole town goes to watch the sun set into the islands.

Highlights

  • A quay that plays itself: pipes under the steps, sounded by the swell
  • St Donatus, a circular ninth century church standing on the stones of the Roman forum
  • The cathedral bell tower, and the peninsula laid out below it
  • Skradinski buk at Krka, a staircase of waterfalls an hour and a half inland
  • The gold and silver of a city that kept its treasures through every occupation

Where to stay

Zadar, three nights

Everything is on the peninsula. The Roman forum and the churches around it are in the middle, the museums are on the same square, the market and the gate are at the eastern end, and the sea organ is at the western tip. From one end to the other is twenty minutes on foot, less if you use the broad marble street the locals call Kalelarga.

Sleep in the old town for the walk to the sunset, or in Borik and Puntamika up the coast for beaches, hotels and a bus ride in. Prices here are noticeably lower than in Split or Dubrovnik, which is one of the better arguments for coming.

The university was founded in 1396, making it the oldest in Croatia, and it was refounded in its modern form in 2002. In term time that gives the town a student population and a nightlife that has nothing to do with tourism.

Day by day

Day 1 in Zadar

In through the Venetian gate, out to the sea organ at sunset

Come in through the Land Gate, the ceremonial entrance the Venetians built in 1543 with a winged lion over the arch and a triumphal arch dressed up as a city gate. It faces the small harbour where the fishing boats tie up, and it is still the most impressive way to arrive on foot.

Walk the length of the main street, which is limestone worn shiny, and keep going west until the town runs out. Get to the tip of the peninsula an hour before the sun goes down.

The steps at the end of the quay are the sea organ. Underneath them a set of pipes turns the swell into sound, so the noise changes with the weather, the ferries and whatever a passing boat leaves behind. Sit on the steps, listen for a while, then turn round when it gets dark for the ring of glass discs alongside, which light up once the sun has gone.

Then eat late. The old town has more restaurants than it needs and the ones on the small squares away from the waterfront are the better bet.

  1. 17:00

    Kopnena Vrata

    Historic

    The Venetian land gate of 1543, designed by Michele Sanmicheli, carrying the lion of St Mark and the city's patron on horseback above the arch.

  2. 19:00

    Morske orgulje

    Other

    Marble steps on the western quay with 35 pipes underneath, sounding chords as the waves push air through them. Free, always on, and different every time you sit down.

  3. 20:30

    Pozdrav Suncu

    Historic

    A 22 metre circle of glass plates set into the pavement, charging all day and putting on a light show after dark, with the planets laid out along the quay beside it.

  4. 21:30

    Dinner off the waterfront

    Eat

    The squares one street back from the harbour serve the same fish for less than the terraces with the view, and they fill up with locals rather than day trippers.

With more time: If you arrive early, the harbour barge is worth the crossing for its own sake: rowed by hand, running whenever somebody wants to go over, and one of the oldest continuous services on the coast.

Day 2 in Zadar

The forum, the round church and the bell tower

The middle of Zadar is a Roman square that never got built over. The forum was laid out under Augustus and paved with the inscriptions still readable in it, and what stands now is a wide open space of fallen columns where people cross to work. One column is still upright: in the Middle Ages it was used as a pillory, and the chains were only taken off in the nineteenth century.

The round church on the edge of it is the building Zadar puts on its postcards. It went up in the ninth century, in the pre-Romanesque style this coast made its own, and its foundations are Roman stone lifted straight from the forum, sculpted fragments and all. It has not held services for two hundred years and is used for concerts instead, because the acoustics under the dome are extraordinary.

Next door, the cathedral is the largest in Dalmatia: a long Romanesque basilica with a blind arcade across the front, rebuilt after the war damage of the 1940s. Its bell tower is a separate ticket and a separate entrance, and the climb is the best twenty minutes in the city. From the top the whole peninsula makes sense at once.

Keep the afternoon loose. The museums on this square are small and good, the swimming is ten minutes south, and the terraces on the forum are made for sitting.

  1. 09:00

    Forum Romanum

    Architecture

    The Roman forum, open, free and still in daily use as a shortcut. Look for the paving inscriptions and the surviving column, which spent centuries as the town pillory.

  2. 10:00

    Crkva svetog Donata

    Religious

    A circular ninth century church built on recycled Roman masonry, bare inside and unused for worship since the early 1800s. Go in for the space and, in summer, for the concerts.

  3. 11:00

    Katedrala sv. Stošije

    Religious

    The Romanesque cathedral of St Anastasia, restored after wartime bombing, with a marble sarcophagus of the saint in the north aisle. The bell tower next to it is ticketed separately and worth the stairs.

  4. 13:00

    Lunch by the market

    Eat

    The stalls inside the Land Gate sell fruit, cheese and bread until about two, and the cheap kitchens around them feed the people who work there.

With more time: The museum of ancient glass, on the harbour side, holds Roman bottles and beads dug up around the city and runs glass blowing demonstrations most afternoons. For swimming, Kolovare beach is a quarter of an hour south of the old town on foot and has shade and a bar.

Day 3 in Zadar

Inland to Krka: Skradinski buk and the island monastery

The Krka river cuts through limestone about 85 km southeast of Zadar and drops down a staircase of travertine barriers on the way to the sea. The lowest and largest of them, Skradinski buk, is a wide amphitheatre of falls with a boardwalk looping through the woods around it. Allow a good hour and a half for the circuit alone.

Go early. Coach parties arrive from mid morning, the boardwalk is one way and narrow, and the car parks fill. Swimming below the falls was stopped in 2021, so bring a hat rather than a towel.

Two entrances serve this end of the park. From Skradin a park boat runs up the river in season, which is the better arrival. From Lozovac a shuttle bus drops you at the top of the falls, which is the easier one with a car.

In the afternoon take the park boat upriver to the wooded island in the lake above the falls, where Franciscans have kept a monastery and a library since the fifteenth century. The boat is the only way onto it and the trip takes about two hours in total.

Getting here without a car is possible but long: a bus to Sibenik and a local connection to Skradin. A hire car or a day tour turns it into a comfortable day rather than a project.

  1. 09:00

    Skradinski buk

    Nature

    The park's main event: a broad staircase of falls dropping into a green pool, with a wooden walkway through the woods and old mill buildings along it. Busiest between eleven and three.

  2. 12:00

    Buffet Kalikuša

    Eat

    A snack stop at a restored mill beside a small waterfall. The food is ordinary and the setting is not, which is a fair trade in the middle of a park.

  3. 13:30

    Visovac

    Nature

    A small wooded island in the middle of the lake with a Franciscan monastery, a church and an old library on it. Reached only by the park's own boat, which leaves from above the falls.

With more time: Further up the river the park has a second set of falls, a Roman military camp with the remains of an amphitheatre, and a Serbian Orthodox monastery in a bend of the gorge. All three are quiet compared with the lower falls and all three need a car.

Day 4 in Zadar

Gold, silver and the archaeologists, then the road out

The last morning is two collections a hundred metres apart on the same square. The convent beside the round bell tower keeps the church treasure of Zadar, gold and silver reliquaries made between the eighth century and the eighteenth, most of them saved from occupations and bombing by being hidden. The best known is a silver chest made in the 1380s to hold the body of the city's patron saint, paid for by a queen of Hungary and Croatia.

Across the forum, the archaeological museum runs from prehistory to the medieval city over three floors, and it is the clearest explanation you will find of how this stretch of coast went from Liburnian to Roman to Croatian.

Then coffee on the forum, and the bus or the shuttle out.

  1. 09:00

    St. Mary & St. Simeon

    Religious

    The gold and silver of Zadar: reliquaries, panels and processional crosses kept by Benedictine nuns, plus the fourteenth century silver chest made for St Simeon a few streets away.

  2. 11:00

    Arheološki Muzej

    Historic

    Three floors on the same square, working down from prehistory through the Roman city to the early Croatian kingdom. Well labelled and rarely crowded.

  3. 13:00

    Last coffee on the forum

    Eat

    Tables among the fallen columns, at half what the same cup costs on the Riva in Split. Allow half an hour for the airport shuttle from the bus station.

With more time: With a later departure, the village of Nin up the coast has a tiny ninth century church that is sometimes called the smallest cathedral in the world, a lagoon full of medicinal mud, and a long sandy beach that is rare on this coast. It is half an hour away by bus.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

The airport is about 9 km east, with a shuttle into town timed to flights and a journey of around twenty five minutes. Buses from Zagreb take three and a half hours or so and run all day, which is faster and more frequent than the train.

The old town is a peninsula about a kilometre long, entirely walkable and largely pedestrian. The bus station and the newer parts of the city are a fifteen minute walk from the Land Gate, or a short ride on a city bus. A small rowing barge has ferried people across the harbour mouth for centuries and still costs almost nothing.

Ferries and catamarans leave the quay on the northern side for Ugljan, Dugi otok and the bare outer islands of the national park offshore. Day boats out to them are sold along the same waterfront and take most of the day.

The sunset, and where to watch it

Alfred Hitchcock stayed here in 1964 and said the sunset over the islands beat anything in Florida, which the tourist board has been quoting ever since. It is a fair claim: the sun goes down behind Ugljan, the water in between is flat, and the whole western tip of the peninsula fills up an hour beforehand.

Two installations by the architect Nikola Basic sit there. One is a set of pipes under the marble steps that the swell pushes air through, so the quay hums in chords that change with the sea. The other is a disc of glass in the pavement that stores solar energy all day and turns it into a light show after dark. Go for both, an hour before sunset, with something cold.

Eating and drinking

This is Dalmatian food with a Venetian accent: fish grilled whole and sold by the kilo, black risotto, pasta with shellfish, and lamb or octopus baked under a peka lid. The morning market beside the Land Gate is the best half hour in town for anyone who cooks.

Zadar's own drink is maraschino, a clear liqueur distilled from marasca cherries and their crushed stones, made here since the eighteenth century and once shipped to half the courts of Europe. It is sweet, almondy and stronger than it tastes.

Zadar has been sacked, bombed, occupied and rebuilt so often that its charm is not the kind that photographs well. It is in the ordinary use of extraordinary things: a Roman column doing duty as a landmark, a ninth century rotunda used as a concert hall, a quay that plays music because somebody thought it should.

Three nights, a bell tower, one long day at the falls and a couple of sunsets is about the right shape for it.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is Zadar worth visiting?
Yes, particularly if Dubrovnik and Split sound too busy or too expensive. It has a Roman forum, one of the oldest churches on the coast, good museums, a genuine student population and prices that have not caught up with the rest of Dalmatia.
How many days do you need in Zadar?
Two days covers the peninsula properly. A third and fourth let you get out: Krka for the waterfalls, the offshore island national park by boat, or Plitvice on a long day. Anyone travelling the coast should give it at least one overnight rather than a lunch stop.
Krka or Plitvice from Zadar?
Krka is closer, about ninety minutes each way by car, and its main falls can be seen in half a day. Plitvice is bigger, greener and about two hours away, and it wants a full day inside the park. If you are driving on to Zagreb afterwards, save Plitvice for that journey.
Can you swim at the Krka waterfalls?
No. Swimming below the main falls was allowed for years and was stopped in 2021 to protect the travertine. There is swimming elsewhere in the park's river sections in places, but check the current rules at the entrance rather than relying on old photographs.
Which islands can you reach from Zadar?
Ugljan is twenty five minutes by ferry and makes an easy afternoon. Dugi otok takes longer and has the cliffs and the salt lake at Telascica. The offshore national park, over eighty mostly bare islands with nobody living on them, is a full day boat trip and usually sold with lunch included.
Can I change the days around?
Copy the plan into your own trip and move things. The one to keep where it is is the sunset, which is the reason to be at the western tip in the first place.