Our pleasant-est of pleasant surprises on our trip to the Balkans was the coastal town of Zadar.  We decided to stay in Zadar randomly – it was a coastal town almost a straight line from the more inland Plitvice Lakes.  We read that it had a pretty old town and a newer interesting waterfront feature – the Marine Organ.

After most of our day in Plitvice lakes we decided to head into town to check out the Organ and get some dinner.  We wandered through the old town and marvelled at the beautiful Venetian stone work – it was like a miniature, less crowded version of Dubrovnik.  The city is very clean and the stones shiny, like they polish them on a regular basis.  Little art galleries and pizzerias were strewn about the town.

When we made our way outside of the old wall we were thrust upon a vision of utter majesty – the orange-red sun setting on the restless, white-capped Adriatic Sea, the sound of Nikola Basic’s award winning urban art instalment – the Marine Organ.  As mentioned in a previous post, the Marine Organ is a set of polyethylene pipes of varying lengths and widths set into the concrete seafront with slats on one end to allow the wind, waves, and water in and an opening on the other to the let the chance music out.

We sat on the steps, watched the sailboats pass by in the choppy waters and the sun set, and listened to the music.  The music was enchanting, harmonious, hypnotizing.  I could have listened to it all day.  We noticed that there were a few cafes set back from the concrete steps and decided that some day, one day, when we return, we will spend more time in Zadar and sit at one of those cafes for a day, drink the delicious coffee and listen to the music of the ocean.