Adriatic views: Zadar

Zadar, Croatia. For some it was once “the Venice on the other shore”. The history of Zadar sums up that of many other European cities, in the intertwining of different people and cultures, of thousand-years-old arts and architecture

For those like me who come from the sea, Zadar is “the Venice on the other shore”, to cite the title of a 1916 report. Zadar was a Venetian district for centuries and, despite the destruction of the Second World War and a hasty reconstruction, the urban layout and architectural traces of the old city are important and evocative.

A consideration devoid of any twentieth-century Italian rhetoric, but on the contrary a harbinger of Adriatic belonging. Because the history of Zadar summarises that of many other European cities, in the intertwining of different people and cultures, of thousand-years-old arts and architecture.

A contradictory and tragic history, not to be forgotten in order to best face the difficulties and potential of a new Europe of cities. Seaside cities, specifically, open to the world, cosmopolitan and multicultural, small or large.

Zadar is an island among islands. Because the old city was surrounded by water, because the new city is stretched out on the water. Because Zadar is the capital of the wonderful islands of its archipelago.

A relationship with the sea that is not only geographical and historical, touristic and commercial, but also sentimental. First of all along the shore that goes from Morske orgulje, the sea organ, to Foša, what remains of the channel that divided the city from the mainland in ancient times.

The organ will celebrate twenty years next April, of sounds and aquatic relationships. An organ that is also an invitation to urban swimming, to enjoy the pleasures of salt water, with its steps that the sea covers or uncovers depending on the tide.

A place of playful celebration in summer sunsets, of meditative ceremony in winter dawns. Always generous with marine melodies and aquatic pleasures. For some just to watch, feel and breathe the sea, for others to wet their hands, feet and face, for others still to dive.

The last time I arrived in Zadar, last August, I sailed from the fertile island of Olib, the island of olive trees, about twenty miles northwest, driven by a happy, blue Mistral that followed days of bad weather.

There were two of us on board a small boat. I, sailor Ishmael who loves to always breathe new air at the bow and Stefano, the captain who only shares with Ahab the mad passion for the wind.

I moor in the late afternoon at the marina, which once was called Valle di Bora, a place name that for anemophiles is worth the trip alone. Then the next day a walk at dawn, after having some coffee.

The streets are not crowded, the pedestrian bridge that allows you to cross the northern inlet, the historic port, is deserted. I enter the old city from the Porta di San Rocco and climb the Venetian walls, which are a World Heritage Site.

I have the feeling of being on a Parisian boulevard, embellished by the smell of the sea. I get off, after passing the Arsenale, another small Venetian jewel.

In front of me, on the other side of the entrance to the port, the red lighthouse. There is already the boatman arranging the small red lead-coloured launch, with which he ferries people from one bank to the other by rowing, as has been done here for centuries.

The barkajoli are an institution in Zadar, like gondoliers in Venice. There is written evidence of the barkajoli since the 14th century. An old Touring guidebook indicates a “triangular” service, whose vertices are the two points of the current pedestrian bridge and a third on the northern bank of the Bora Valley.

Their daily comings and goings, in any weather conditions, are the clock of Zadar time. Space “is a thing, while time is the idea of ​​a thing”, writes Joseph Brodsky, bewitched by the waters of the Bosphorus, which is the aquatic throat of Constantinople, as this arm of the sea is for Zadar.

So, looking down from above at the wake of that small launch, the barkajoli are for me the tireless painters of this mysterious aphorism that the water simultaneously echoes and erases.

I am at the green lighthouse where a woman, her bike leaning against the wall, is looking at the sea, her small red dog at her side, curled up on its hind legs. Both still, breathing deeply in harmony.

The dock bends to the left as you exit, it is the cruise ship mooring that is now free. After two hundred metres the dock bends to the left again, where there is the Pozdrav suncu, Greeting to the Sun, a light installation by architect Nikola Bašić.

A circle made of solar panels that accumulate energy, released at night through astronomical light games. Immediately after there is the organ, designed by Bašić himself. An ingenious and minimalist sound construction that plays thanks to the movements of the waves. An organ with steps which descend towards the sea and open the long southern shore, a sober, elegant Adriatic promenade.

From that dock I dived, I swam, I stood still on the surface of the water listening to the music of the sea, I too raised and lowered like water in the pipes of the organ. On that dock I then sat down to listen to the music of the sea, watching a pale Moon fade in the light of day and set behind the island of Ugliano.

Perhaps, I noted in my notebook that morning, even Enzo Bettiza, who dedicated beautiful and heartbreaking pages to Zadar in the now distant 1996, would today be more confident about the future of the city, about the possibility of rediscovering ancient Adriatic relations also useful for healing painful wounds.

Of course the geographical destiny of Zadar, Zara, Jader, Idassa, Iadera, Jàdera, to use all its names of today and yesterday, is stronger and more beautiful than any historical event. Certain also of its Adriatic intimacy, to use the words of another of its singers: Predrag Matvejević.