We finally made it to a port! Today we’re in Zadar, Croatia.
After breakfast, we make our way to our shore excursion meeting point. All Azamara excursions meet in the same room. We check-in and are given a numbered sticker. Groups are then called out to leave the ship.
We signed up for Zadar on Foot and the History of Maraschino. Our guide met us steps from the ship and handed us a listening device. There were 28 of us in the group so a decent size, but not too huge.
Our first stop was the sea organ. The architect in charge of building the cruise ship dock wanted to build this sea organ. The city said no, but the architect said he’d do it for free. They said yes to free and this very interesting sea organ was born. It looks mostly like steps, but there are small holes where the sound comes out. The crashing waves cause harmonics and the more intense the waves, the more intense the music. Tourists love it, but the locals do not. There isn’t a way to turn it off so they are constantly hearing the organ.
Our next stop is to a church where we see old relics. Nuns protected them during turmoil and because of that they continue to protect them today. We saw an old cross necklace from the 7th century. The church itself had a very different energy and vibe to it. I don’t know if it was just sea legs on dry land, but I swear that building was swaying. Brian said it was the sea legs, but I said I wasn’t swaying outside of the church. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside so you’ll have to see it in person. One room had statues of nine of the twelve disciples. I’m not sure what happened to three of them. The statues had very realistic expressions and one of them felt especially creepy.
The tour ended with learning about Maraschino. This liquer used to be made in a factory across the river from where we were, but that factory moved and the old building is becoming a Hyatt. My brain was done learning at this point, but basically this liquer was loved by many important historic figures from the past and was even on the titanic. The tasting was at a Michelin star restaurant and was served with a dessert. The dessert was amazing and I’d love to come back and eat here!
We roamed around after the tour. I found a gelato shop with the lids! Gelato with lids is the best and this didn’t disappoint.
We had a relatively busy evening. We started by hosting a Welcome Reception for the 81 people in our group. Several of the officers came by to say hello. I spoke after the cruise director and talked about the excursion that is setup for tomorrow.
We skipped lunch and were famished at this point. We decided to do a quick dinner at the buffet. I had a freshly made ribeye with the best French fries. Dessert was the same chocolate torte from yesterday and it was equally delicious.
I was at guest relations and noticed a signup for the escape room. I had no idea the ship had an escape room! There were only eight spots left on the form and six were already taken. I was going to go back and ask Brian if he wanted to do it, but the crew member persuaded me to signup at that moment. I did. It turns out the escape room is hard to get into. There was a long waitlist for it later. We arrived to the escape room and only four of the eight showed up. We had 45 minutes to complete the mission. We were given the first clue and worked our way through 12 clues to find the heart of the ocean bracelet. It was a lot of fun! We won ourselves a certificate for some Azamara swag on the last day.
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