Introduction to Zadar, Croatia

A bustling town of around 100,000 people, ZADAR boasts a compact historic centre crowded onto a tapered peninsula jutting northwest into the Adriatic. It displays a pleasant muddle of architectural styles, with Romanesque churches competing for space with café-bars. Near the northwestern end of the peninsula, Zadar's main square or Forum is dominated by the ninth-century St Donat's Church (summer only: daily 9am–10pm; 5kn), a hulking cylinder of stone built – according to tradition – by St Donat himself, an Irishman who was bishop here for a time. The cavernous, bare interior makes the perfect venue for summer chamber concerts. Opposite, the Archeological Museum (Mon–Sat 9am–1pm; summer also Mon–Sat 6–9.30pm, Sun 6–9.30pm; 10kn) has an absorbing collection of Neolithic, Roman and medieval Croatian artefacts. The adjacent Permanent Exhibition of Church Art (Mon–Sat 10am–1pm; summer also Mon–Sat 6–8pm, Sun 10am–1pm; 20kn) is a storehouse of Zadar's finest church treasures. On the northwestern side of the Forum, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Cathedral of St Anastasia has an arcaded west front reminiscent of Tuscan churches. Around the door frame stretches a frieze of twisting acanthus leaves, from which various beasts emerge – look for the rodent and bird fighting over a bunch of grapes. Southeast of the Forum is Narodni trg, an attractive Renaissance square overlooked by the clock tower of the sixteenth-century Guard House. A little further southeast, on Trg Petra Zoranića, the Baroque St Simeon's Church houses the exuberantly decorated reliquary of St Simeon, ordered by Qulizabeth of Hungary in 1377 and fashioned from 250kg of silver by local artisans.

Information by Rough Guides

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