Gospić – Zadar: 120 km

The biggest day of my trip so far lays in front of me. Onehundredandtwenty kilometres. I wake up early. I open the curtains of the guesthouse on the border of the small town, but I can’t see anything. Gospić is draped in a mist so dense I can almost touch it. The building across the street, an abandoned motor clubhouse, is hidden from view. The grass next to the road is frozen and crystalized. My coffee I have outside. The cold hugs me as an old friend I had almost forgotten about. It hasn’t been this cold since I crossed the Alps, the better part of a month ago. It’s refreshing and familiar at the same time. I dress accordingly and set out.

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The mist makes the town eerie. Cars emerge as if out of nowhere, houses and corners appear almost randomly. I’m about half an hour into my ride and completely damp, when the sun unexpectedly piers trough the grey curtain. In 10 seconds the world opens up. The mist disappears so quickly it’s surreal, its only reminder the wet roads and drops of water bravely clinging on the grass in the meadows next to the road. But those too will disappear within the next hour.

I pass villages just like Gospić as I follow the train tracks on the plateau behind the Velebit mountains. After a short climb, and a 20-kilometre descent, I arrive back in the country of polished streets and tourist facilities; coastal Croatia. Not before I cross a dry, almost desert like area, that I think Texas might look like. The ride into Zadar is hair-raising. Cars on this busy straight road seem to deny my existence, as they pass by on high speed and so close the wind they carry makes my bike unstable. There’s no other road into town. I turn up my music and tell myself everything comes to an end.

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I’ve been told Zadar is nice, so I booked a two-night stay. The rumours are true, Zadar is nice. But the hostel is amazing. One of those places with an extremely relaxed vibe. Two Argentinian guys run the hostel while they wait for their Italian family heritage visa. They cook in the half open kitchen and invite the rest to try their creations. Someone is always playing the hotel’s acoustic guitar in the background. In a corner two travellers silently concentrate on their chess game. I obviously book another night and come to a well-deserved rest. I also don’t mind that with this plan, I can watch the World Championships cycling.

Zadar has one of the best buildings I’ve ever seen. Well, experienced I should say, for it makes music. Created by Nicola Bašić as a relief from the monotonous concrete walls slapped along long stretches of the Croatian coast after their destruction during the Second World War, the Sea Organ is a wide staircase into the sea on the edge of the city.  Underneath it are chambers of air. The waves and tides change the air pressure in those chambers and push air through holes in those steps, creating an organ played by the seawater. Every night large quantities of visitors sit here to listen to the sea play its music and watch the sunset. According to Alfred Hitchcock; “Zadar has the most beautiful sunset in the world, more beautiful than the one in Key West in Florida, applauded at every evening.” I’ve never heard a building play music, let alone be played by the sea. An inspiring combination of public space, sound, nature and architecture. I go to see it three nights in a row.