Zadar Nightlife

Zadar drinks outdoors and starts late. The Varos quarter behind the peninsula's south shore is the densest part of it, a grid of narrow lanes where bars occupy ground floors and put their tables in the street, filling from about nine and running until the small hours at weekends. The Riva and the waterfront around the Sea Organ carry the earlier trade, when the sunset crowd stays on for a drink, and the lanes off Kalelarga hold the cocktail bars and a couple of wine bars pouring Croatian labels from Ravni Kotari and the islands.

Out of town the shape changes. Borik and Kolovare run beach bars that start in the afternoon and turn into music venues after dark, and the Ledana pavilion in the park above the walls has been the city's summer club terrace for years. Zadar's larger reputation, the festival scene that made this coast a destination for electronic music, has mostly moved up the road to Tisno, so what remains in the city is bars rather than superclubs. The season is sharp: the terraces are full from mid-June to early September and a good half of them shut for winter.