I prefer to avoid Summer crowds. I prefer early September temperatures over the crazy hot Summer ones (that we had plenty of this year). And I would choose an Island over mainland every time.
For our last trip of the Summer, we decided for a small Island, an hour boat ride off the coast town of Zadar, Croatia ... the Island of Iž. There is no use for a car on the Island, so we took a Bus from Ljubljana to Zadar and then a ferry over to the town of Veli Iž.
Not only that the September edition of Iž fits perfectly to my travel destination profile, I was also lucky with my September weather preferences. September rain came early this year, "We felt the rain" (courtesy of Bob Marley) ... for 4 days. They told us that the annual average for Iž is 6 days of rain, so scoring 4 out of this 6 in just 7 days is almost a perfect achievement :)
While packing, I realised that this year I started to avoid taking my full-frame camera (accompanied with 2 primes and a zoom) with me on travels. I felt that the sheer weight of the setup started limiting me as a traveller and as a photographer. Walking around with 10kg of photo equipment was just not a joy anymore ... I can not imagine how it ever was :). No surprise then that "my small Fuji", I bought back in 2015, spent more and more time with me; all images below taken with "my small Fuji" & processed in Lightroom.
Iž is a rather tranquil place. Beautiful sunrise, cosy winds, greenish sea ... just perfect for filling up before the September crazy strikes the mainlands.
The town of Veli does not come with a cash machine and the restaurants do not take cards. So, I enjoyed my walks to the Post office to experience the dead of the classical Post office ... the locals came in mostly to participate in sport betting while the rest of us came for the money.
During our morning walks, we twice met Saša, a singer-songwriter, a Troubadour performing between Split and Belgrade, turned resident musician of the only hotel on the Island. Natasha met him the night before when he was performing and since she liked his music I offered to take a couple of pictures if he brings a guitar along one of his morning walks ... well, 2 mornings after, we met again, this time with a guitar.
Just off the entrance to the port of Veli Iž is a small Island. We visited it once and did some African drumming there with Andrej.
And we did a lot of Book reading. And we did a lot of dancing ... fortunately for me, I do not have picture to prove it :)
Enjoy the place through my eyes.