Zadar
Alone

PRACTICAL SAMPLE

Dining Alone

Zadar’s restaurants seat a woman alone without fuss, and a table for one is routine. Service is efficient rather than hovering, and the bill does not come until you ask for it (Može račun?), because bringing it unbidden would hurry you out. A book on a Five Wells Square terrace or at a Forum café table is ordinary, and a meal arrives at its own pace: pršut and Pag cheese to start, then the fish, then coffee, with nobody hurrying you between them.

Where a restaurant has a bar or counter, sitting there is normal and puts you in the life of the room. Where it has none, as at Harbor on the quay, ask for a small table against a wall from which you can watch the place fill.

A free excerpt from Zadar Alone.