Zadar Accommodation

Zadar's lodging divides on a simple line: inside the walls or out on the coast. The peninsula carries small hotels, guest houses and a large number of apartments in converted upper floors, which puts the forum, the market and the bars in the Varos lanes within a few minutes on foot. The trade-offs are the ones any old quarter brings, stairs without lifts, no parking closer than the lots outside the walls, and noise on the summer nights when the terraces stay open. Hostels cluster here too, which is why the peninsula suits a short first visit better than a fortnight.

Four kilometres north west, Borik holds the larger properties: full-service resort hotels behind the pines, aparthotels, a campsite and a marina, nearly all of them within a few minutes of the city's main swimming beach. Puntamika and Diklo continue the same shore with apartments and rooms in family houses at lower prices, and Petrcane, twelve kilometres out, adds the resort complex at Punta Skala. Camping is a real category in this part of Croatia rather than an afterthought, with large sites at Zaton near Nin. High season runs late June to early September and the peninsula fills first; outside those months a good share of the coastal properties close entirely.