Palm shadows

The scale of these palm trees and the bastion walls behind have to be seen to be appreciated. These are the walls of the Grimani (or sometimes Grimaldi) bastion, which has been used since the 19th century as a small park or botanical garden (Queen Jelena Madijevka Park or Perivoj kraljice Jelene-Madijevka) (and it's a very pleasant place to sit and read a book). The bastion was one of several built during the renaissance period when Venetian-held Zadar was under attack from Ottomans (I don't think it was ever actually taken).

This was taken in the middle of a quite extraordinarily chilled day. After a quick trip to the supermarket this morning, to pick up supplies unavailable yesterday afternoon because the shops were closed for All Saints Day, I went swimming in the late morning (which was chilly but lovely - the sea temperature has now dropped to 18 degrees). After a beer or two in the sun, drying off, we went for lunch - unfortunately just the two of us as our anticipated lunch date was feeling under the weather. After lunch, we wandered round the outside of the bastions and along the sea wall past the University back to the Roman forum area where we watched the sun go down in the company of many Croatians and their children, who treat the Roman forum ruins as just the best playpark in the world.

I went black and white partly because I've been involved in the dreaded "post a black and white photograph for five days on Facebook" challenge, and I was also involved in a bit of a set to between my sister (now a blipper, of course), my sister-in-law and my brother about the merits of black and white photography. I don't think my sister in law follows my blip, and she certainly wouldn't do if it were black and white... After all, we all remember the days of black and white TV, and we wouldn't go back, would we...? Apparently....

Hmmmm. Anyway, Mr A tells me that my brother is actually rising the challenge in the end (he was nominated by my sister not me...I wouldn't have dared...). Let's see.

But I won't post this as the Facebook black and white - I've got some wonderful Roman carved heads that are ideal for that.