My 3 Days in Zadar: Sea Breezes, Art, and Surprising Bites

Living in Scotland isn’t easy, as we all know. The weather is challenging, and you never know when summer is going to arrive. It’s supposed to be from June to August, but that wasn’t the case in 2025. While I’m writing down my beautiful memories of Zadar, it’s pouring outside my window here in Glasgow. It’s June, and I’m still wearing a warm jumper. How sad is that?! Luckily, we made the right decision to go to Zadar at the beginning of this year!

Well, the truth is, we couldn’t afford to go to southern Provence or Lisbon; there were only expensive tickets left on the site. I quickly searched every flight from Glasgow or Edinburgh to any beach city, and that’s how I found Zadar!

We arrived late on Monday thanks to Ryanair repeatedly delaying our flight. We were supposed to arrive early in the morning and have three full days in Zadar, but that’s life, isn’t it? Anyway, we had a great time — and I got a nice tan.

I’ve got some lovely experience and some okay ones. Here we go.

Beach — Definitely go for a swim at **Kolovare Beach**. We took our 15-month-old baby with us, so we couldn’t really go on any island trips, but Kolovare was good enough. It’s mostly a pebbly beach, but some areas do have sand where small kids can play. We bought sand toys from IKEA, and she played for a good long time!

Kolovare Beach and my 15 month old

Café — If you’re like me and want some space while enjoying your iced coffee — without being stared at on the street — I’d recommend **KAVI COFFEE**. It’s a lovely, cool place and of course nice ice coffee.

Vegan food — It’s easy to have too much meat on holiday, so we decided to skip meat for one of our meals and go vegan — and it was great. We went to **The Botanist. They have seating that looks out onto the Adriatic Sea. Very relaxing, and the staff were super friendly. Most importantly, we enjoyed the food! We ordered the AYE-AYE burger and FLAMINGO TONGUE SNAIL** — both were really tasty. Funny names tho. The skin-on chips and gnocchi were absolutely delicious. They also served red olive focaccia before the main courses — soft and flavorful.

AYE-AYE burger and FLAMINGO TONGUE SNAIL

Sightseeing — The Sea Organ and UNESCO sites are must-sees, but I’m personally a fan of old windows and arches. When walking through the Old Town, you’ll find lots of back lanes and entrances to people’s atriums with beautiful skylights. Also, the art of window grating is hard to miss!

Buy Film or Develop Your Film — We brought our Canon Model 1 with us on this trip and were worried about not being able to find a film shop to buy or develop film. Luckily, we stumbled upon one — **Photo Lido** — while looking for a restaurant. How lucky! The price for developing a roll of film is 8 euros, which is reasonable. There’s no need to return to the shop either, as the owner can send you a link to download the photos.

Above is all the nice experience we had in Zadar! Then I’m going to share less pleasant one. We went to Restaurant Bruschetta for lunch one day since it has good reviews on many sites and blogs. We ordered mixed fried seafood with Mixed Fried Seafood with Calamari, Pasta Pljukanci with Prawns and Zucchini, and Black risotto (squid). I love the fried seafood but thought the portion is a little bit small considering it is 21 euros. The pasta and risotto were properly cooked — you could really taste the core of the pasta. The risotto had the perfect texture, not too soft or hard! The only issue was that both dishes were too salty for us. They tasted amazing at first, but halfway through, the saltiness became overwhelming.

However, I must give credit to the waiter who served us — he was so friendly!

Overall, it’s a lovely experience in Zadar!

Traveled from 23/6/25–26/6/25

A Note for future me — Next time when I am in Zadar, definitely need to check out Konoba Tovar!!! We passed the restaurant just before we left. All dishes look so good and not over priced.