North Dalmatia: Zadar, the Kornati Islands, and Fewer Crowds

Dalmatia without the crowds

North Dalmatia tends to get skipped by visitors moving straight from Split down to Hvar and Dubrovnik, which has always seemed like a missed opportunity to us. Zadar has the Roman ruins, the layered history, and the old-town charm that draw people to the rest of the coast, just without the crowds that come with being the most famous stop on the itinerary. It’s a real working city with its own rhythm, not a place that exists only for summer visitors.

Zadar itself

Zadar’s old town sits on a peninsula and holds one of the more interesting Roman legacies on the Adriatic — the Roman forum, built in the 1st century BC, still anchors the town center, with its ruins sitting right alongside the medieval churches that were built up around and even out of them over the following centuries. St. Donatus’s Church, a striking 9th-century round structure, sits directly on top of the old forum floor.

Down on the waterfront, two more recent additions have become the city’s signature. The Sea Organ is a set of stone steps built into the harbor with pipes underneath that turn the motion of the waves into low, resonant tones — an actual musical instrument played by the sea. Next to it, the Sun Salutation is a circle of glass panels set into the pavement that collects solar energy through the day and puts on a light show after dark, timed to the same rhythm as the organ’s sound.

What makes Zadar work as a base is that all of this is genuinely walkable. The old town is compact enough to see properly in a day, but interesting enough that most visitors end up wanting two.

The Kornati Islands

South of Zadar, reachable from either Zadar itself or the smaller town of Murter, lies the Kornati archipelago — more than a hundred islands and islets, most of them bare limestone with little or no vegetation, protected as a national park. The landscape here is stark rather than lush, all pale rock plunging into deep blue water, and it looks distinctly different from the greener, more forested northern Adriatic coast just to the north.

The islands have essentially no fresh water and no permanent population, which is part of what’s kept them so undeveloped. A handful of small stone shelters, once used seasonally by fishermen and shepherds, are about the only structures out there.

Good to know: because the Kornati have no fresh water, no reliable signal in places, and channels between islands that aren’t always obvious from the water, this is one part of the coast where a guided day trip or charter with someone who actually knows the archipelago is genuinely the better call over renting a boat and figuring it out yourself.

Islands close to the city

Zadar also puts you within easy reach of a string of smaller, quieter islands — Ugljan, Pašman, and Dugi Otok among them — connected by regular local ferries rather than the tourist-heavy catamaran routes further south. They’re a good option for a slower day trip: modest villages, olive groves, and coves without much in the way of infrastructure built up around them, which is part of the appeal if the Kornati themselves feel like too big a commitment for a single afternoon.

Nin, just up the coast

A short drive north of Zadar, Nin is one of the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian towns, with a small, easily walkable historic core built on an islet in a shallow lagoon. It’s a low-key detour rather than a full day trip, best paired with the shallow, warm lagoon waters around it, which have a long-standing reputation as a good spot to wade in and cool off after a morning of sightseeing.

Getting there

Zadar Airport has grown into a genuinely useful gateway, with a good spread of budget-carrier connections from across Europe in the summer months, which makes North Dalmatia a realistic option even if you’re not planning to route through Split. As a base, Zadar gives you the same Dalmatian coastal experience — Roman history, island access, good swimming — with noticeably lighter crowds and, generally, lower prices than Split or Dubrovnik carry in peak season.

Best time to visit

June and September offer the best balance of warm water and manageable crowds. July and August are busiest, though even at peak season Zadar feels calmer than Split or Dubrovnik. The Kornati are best visited in the warmer months when charter operators are running full schedules.

[Editor’s note: this is where to add what Zadar and this stretch of coast actually mean to you — any personal history here, a favorite way to spend a day on the water, what’s changed since you first came. Swap in your own photos too.]