There seems to be no stopping Zadar, the main city of northern Dalmatia. It’s not just the number of projects that have been realised in recent years but the innovation and vision behind them: the Garden and offshoots; the landmark public installations of Nikola Bašić; and the Arsenal, an arts centre like no other in Croatia, now followed by new club Satir, and a handful of modern cocktail bars such as Shine and Zoilo. Garden stablemate Barbarella’s is sited at Petrčane, where Croatia’s biggest music festival takes place. Next door to that, progress in Falkensteiner’s huge Punta Skala Resort continues apace with the five-star Hotel & Spa Iadera to open in the summer of 2011. Back in town, the excellent Zadar Museum of Antique Glass is now open; the day that a five-star hotel fills the converted landmark Maraska building moves ever closer. Zadar hasn’t had it this good since it was a bustling resort a century or more ago.
About The City
Stuck out on a peninsula halfway between Split and Rijeka, Zadar was isolated from the mainland for significant chunks of the 20th century. Italian (Zara) between the wars, after severe Allied bombing, Zadar became part of Tito’s Yugoslavia until 1991. Under serious threat by Serbian forces for four years, Zadar was cut off from Zagreb completely for 14 months during the Yugoslav War.
Zadar’s isolation has given it a distinctive local culture. It is perhaps most identified with the cherry liqueur Maraschino – you’ll see the sign of the local producers, Maraska, all over town. It is also known for its sunsets, which drew Alfred Hitchcock here for one day in 1964. His portrait can still be seen around town and he provided inspiration for the Nikola Bašić’s ‘Greeting To The Sun’ installation. The famous red sunset, and prime space atop the Venetian city walls attracted the UK crew to plant the Garden club there, accessed, if so desired, by rowboat from the mainland to this busy peninsula. The setting could not have been scripted better – although sadly Hitchcock never made his film.
Everything takes place in this criss-cross of streets on a tongue of land some 600 metres long and 300 metres wide, encircled by the fortifications, with scenic embankments below and the sea beyond. Cars are only allowed as far as these quays; locals scurry about their business in the narrow downtown streets. To reach the mainland, pedestrians either have to walk as far as the narrow section of channel at Foša, halfway to the bus and train stations away to the east; cross the busy footbridge enclosing the border of the marina of Jazine; or, as people have been doing for centuries, throw a few coins into the ferryman’s open sack to take them over the water.
The most central point of entry is by boat, with three ferry points dotted on the north embankment below the Venetian fortifications and the new terminal on the south embankment.