We intentionally got an earlier start on the day to give lots of sightseeing time during the drive from Rijeka to Zadar.
On the way out of Rijeka we stopped by a city beach, allegedly the city’s most beautiful, but at 10:00a it was already packed with people so we continued on.
We opted to follow the coastline driving toward our destination in Zadar, which was understandably a very twisty road but provided scenic views of the sea and nearby islands (which Croatia has tons of).
In the attractive looking town of Senj, we accidentally veered off the coastal route and ended up going up into the mountains. We realized when we got to the top of the hill climbing that we had made a wrong turn but decided to stick with it to see some of the high country while we were driving, although it added ~2 hours to the trip.
Stopping for coffee in the town of Gospić, we asked for a recommendation for a local restaurant and were told to go to Restaurant Maki, a few kilometers away, and it was fantastic!
We had a goulash dish - the broth was incredible...
...and the equivalent to a pot roast with potatoes that had incredible gravy.
There was no English on the menu and most items were were written in by hand, none of which easily translated. Tammy resorted to looking up pictures from reviews on the internet to order dishes - all great choices!
As we came back down toward the coast, the views were outstanding, including the lightning of a storm clearly coming toward us.
We only got a little rain and a bunch of wind but it looked ominous for sure. Still not to Zadar, we stopped at a little beach coffee/bar to take a break (driving for at least 4 hrs already) and got a chance to get near the water again :-).
After getting the hotel’s address loaded into the map, we drove the last hour-ish to the Torretta Palace Hotel. When we arrived there it became clear that the hotel wasn’t in Zadar at all, but nearly 30 minutes away in the small tourist town of Turanj - wasn’t quite what we’d intended :-(. The hotel was on the water at least (across a local access road) with its own private dock with chairs.
After we walked up and down the boardwalk looking at food options, we landed on a little place next to our hotel and had a pizza...with the obligatory olive :-). Since they didn’t serve cocktails, we also applied our skill gained in Zagreb and ordered a gin shot and a Sprite - worked great!
After dinner we briefly (because the movent of dock made Tammy seasick) sat on the hotel’s floating dock to catch the last of the sunset, then walked on the piers getting pictures and looking in the water.
We saw something swimming near the surface of the water like a jellyfish/flounder hybrid - never seen anything like it...and couldn’t get a pic :-(.
Although we didn’t make it to Zadar today, we were fairly tired from the early start and driving, so watched another episode of The Protector and called it a night.
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