Zadar

Pipes buried under the waterfront steps sound whenever a wave pushes in. The note shifts with the strength of the wave, so no phrase ever repeats.

A disc 22 metres across is paved with glass panels over solar cells. Power gathered by day drives patterns of light across the disc at night.

Built as a cylinder in the ninth century, its floor reuses stone from the Roman forum. The echo is good, so it now hosts concerts rather than services.

Columns and paving lie scattered where they fell and people walk freely among them. One standing column was where offenders were chained in the middle ages.

This gate of 1543 carries a winged lion and a figure of the patron saint side by side. The moat in front of it now serves as a harbour for small boats.

The oldest street crossing the peninsula bears a name that simply means wide road. It is not in fact wide, but by the measure of its own time it was.

Tools for the cherry liqueur this city has made for over 200 years are gathered here. Old copper stills stand beside bottles wrapped in woven straw.

One boat a morning goes out to a sea holding 89 islands. Almost nothing grows on the bare white rock, which makes the view unlike anywhere else.

Five well heads were opened in a row over one cistern for use during a siege. No water remains, and only the name survives from the original purpose.

Twenty minutes north, seawater is held in shallow pans and dried by the sun. The salt is still raked together with wooden tools.

Dalmatia's largest church, mended after the 1202 siege and reconsecrated in 1285. Its campanile rose in two goes: lower floors in 1452, the top in the 1890s to plans by English architect Thomas Jackson. From the top, roofs and offshore islands spread out.

A museum of Roman glass, perfume flasks and tableware, recovered from tombs around Zadar. It occupies the old Cosmacendi palace, and finger-sized phials are especially plentiful. Glassblowing demonstrations sometimes run in one corner.

Godecaj, ruler of Nin, built this tiny stone church next to his house in the 9th century. Since Nin's bishops once used it, people call it the world's smallest cathedral. One scholar argues its skewed walls track the sun like a calendar and sundial.

A national park where the 14km canyon of Velika Paklenica splits the southern face of Velebit. With over 360 equipped routes it is Croatia's busiest climbing site. A Cold War bunker dug into the canyon now serves as a visitor centre.

White sand on Dugi Otok's northern tip, off Zadar, with shallow jade water. Ferries to the island leave from Zadar harbour. Add the sea cliffs and salt lake of Telascica nature park, in the island's southern reaches, to fill the day.

Planted on a former bastion of the walls and opened in 1829, it is reckoned Croatia's first public park. It sits on the walls near the Land Gate, looking over the little Fosa harbour. On summer nights a stage inside hosts performances.

Croatia's largest natural lake lies south of Zadar, kept from the sea by a thin strip of land. In Roman times a 40km aqueduct carried its water to Zadar. A bike path and birdwatching towers ring the shore, busiest in migration season.