Charm of old town Zadar and the Sea Organ

The previous post in this series is here..

After a long day at Plitvice we were dropped off outside the old town gate. It was again a mile walk along the wall. This time we decide to walk on top of the wall and see the boats and other sites. 

Went quickly back to our hotel and changed to get rid of the smoke smell on our clothes. The plan was to get a bite to eat (we were jet lagged and it started hitting us) and then see the Sea Organ and go up the bell tower.

Found a nice Pizza place and had it inside. If you don't want smoke, don't make the mistake of eating in the open dining tables. Peopel sitting there smoke or the passersby blow smoke that you can visually see come and settle down on your Pizza!

After that weird meal at 5PM we walked to the Sea organ. It was as amazing as advertized. The sea comes and and pushes air through these channels that make music along a 500 foot? stretch. 

From there we walked through the ancient Roman ruins to the Bell Tower. We could not go to the Church as there was a service and the doors had already closed. 

Walking up this tower reminded us of the Pisa Tower. Same narrow staircase with a window to the town every now and then. We were early for the sunset but decided to stay there on top of the tower for an hour! Needless to say there were a few 100 sunset pics.

Given Squarespace is yet to fix my slideshow gallery display, just gonig to post the pictures here one after the other. For the first time in 12+ years, Squarespace has not followed up on my ticket! This prompts a post of its own on Legacy products.. 

got this pano shot.. and then two other familes joined us.. 

Took this shot and they all asked me to show it to them and they took the same shot and thanked me for the composing.. little moments like that always make my day!

The fencing does come in the way.. 

After the tower we walked back to the market and waterfront, did some shopping, had some ice cream, I managed to get separated from San in that market and we both started singing the family song to get reunited.. saw the usual Chennai beach scenes on the sands there.. with the exception of a lady dressed as a mermaid for photo ops with kids and Mickey mouse's Croatian cousin! 

The town was bustling with activity. We stayed up till 9 and decided to call it a night.

A video highlight...

We still had half a day to spend the following morning before flying out of Zadar..

Santorini bus tour in parts - Pyrgos monastery, a kitten and Kamari beach

The previous post on this series is here..

After our lunch, ocean fun and ice cream at Perissa, we were back in the bus climbing to the top of the hill on this side of Santorini to go to the Monastery.. a few hundred years old, this place had reclusive monks who did not want to contact outside world for some time. They even buried their dead inside is what our guide told us.

 They did open up and have a store near the outside chapel eventually. The whole place was interesting and quiet. Then it got pretty windy and we were told not to have high hopes for later in the evening, given rain clouds were rolling in. 

We saw everyone go kiss the same objects and pictures.. couldn't have been good during COVID times! The small chapel was really beautiful. 

While we were being told that, a kitten walked out of nowhere and decided to sit on my lap. I love animals. They seem to love me too.. however god has played a cruel trick. I am almost allergic to all cats. Initially the family panicked. They did not want me sick before the last stop. A few people tried to lure it away, but no! The kitten just sat on my lap for a good 10 minutes. Finally the little one grabbed it and placed it on the floor and we had to leave. Apparently six kittens were just born a few weeks back in the Monastery. This was one of those six. Did have watery eyes for a few minutes later in the night, but didn't get sick as everyone expected. 

We got amazing views of the Perissa beach from the Monastery.

The little one was still mesmerized by the cat...

Then we drove down to Kamari beach area. Guess this tour has a tie up with some wine makers in Santorini. So we stopped at a rest area near the black beach, and were offered three wines or Cherry juice. Skipped it and ate the crackers. For some strange reason we were hungry. We walked to the beach across the street and took pictures. This beach was full of pebbles but there were no people on this side as far as the eye could see! There were pistachio trees here other than olive trees in this area.. that was a change!

Caught the little one in one of her moments..

We did get to see a real donkey on the way to this place..Apparently there was a time when every house had a donkey to haul things up and down the hillsides of this island !!

A video clip of this leg of the bus tour! 

After this short break, we were off to to go up and around all the way to Oia.. the last stop and grand finale for the tour!

A Bus tour in Parts - Emporio and Perissa Black sand beach

The previous post in this series is here..

After the ruins our next stop was the largest village in the middle of Santorini island called Emporio. It included a small castle, beautiful small walkways (that reminded me of the Galli's of Varanasi) and a village center with a rebuilt Church.

This all blue and white combination gave us the best family pictures on this trip.. 

we had a good laugh over this sign..there was a lot of potential at this place.. but a lot of hard work to be done.. given my history of house remodeling projects, the family kept mocking me for a good 10 minutes..

fortunately we arrived at the next photo spot 

The whole place seemed to be desolate with no inhabitants (a few of these old places are now Airbnb's apparently) but we did not see a single resident in that walk. 

After touring the old Emporio area, we walked back down and headed to Perissa. Saw this "cheese" church on the way down!

There is a beautiful black sand beach here and a lot of eating places around the beach. If you eat in a restaurant, they let you use the beach umbrellas for free (in some cases 10 Euros).

We observed that most of the folks who were waiters and ushers in these restaurants were Syrian. There is some Syria Greek connection we don't know about. These folks were extremely nice and kept making jokes and made us laugh as we tried to decide our lunch location..

it was a bad idea to go into the water after a heavy lunch.. but went into the water with the kids for a good 30 minutes. That was part of the tour and the break. Almost everyone in our group had someone from the family go into the water as the rest of the party sat on the reclining chairs and were taking photos of their feet while sipping drinks!

Jr. ventured into the water with me (as did the little one for some time) and took pics of me doing yoga poses on rocks. One of these is very slippery and I got my legs cut up in a few places.. 

It was a pleasant afternoon, thanks to the clouds!

Post water, we had some yummy ice cream and we drove off to our next stop! 

 

We said bye to Aquarius and started back on the bus tour to the next stop..

saw more churches and blue domed houses on the way..

A short video of this segment of the trip..

The next stop was a drive up the hill to the tallest point on the other side of the island with a lot of weird history!