June 23 - The train to Zadar
The next day I took the 6:50 am train to Zadar, a seven hour ride. My seat faced a table and the two seats across from me. So we were four for the ride; an older Croatian man who spoke English, a younger man working on his computer, and an older stylish Croatian blond woman who spoke no English. We spoke on and off for the ride. When I got off at Knin to change trains, I had three people yelling at the steward to help me find the next train.
In Zadar I took a bus to the old town and was overwhelmed by the throngs of tourists, mostly Italian families. I escaped to the youth hostel and luckily they had a single room for me. I ate dinner – yoghurt and banana and potato chips - on a quiet pebble beach looking out at the lights around the coast of the Adriatic. I imagined Odysseus sailing, looking for the few lights along the shoreline that might reveal a port or two to guide his ship. Imagined the walled old city, originally Zara, with its fortifications around the church within.
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