Sibenik hosts its 50th International Children's Festival

By the time we made it to the town of Sibenik, our sweet Beli has fallen asleep. We debated whether to skip the event but then I remembered we had the stroller in the car.

As we parked the car we heard singing from a crowd walking past the parking lot, it was a loud wedding party going to the church . The song resembled "Las mananitas" but a Croatian version. We waited a few moments then placed our sleeping beauty in the stroller. The noise didn't even phase her.
We walked along the seafront to the entrance of the downtown area, and what do you know, there were steps. Not a problem we can manage a few steps uphill.


We saw a cathedral then turned left and saw more steps, oh boy..then we turned to the right, and more steps!

Ok, maybe I'm exagerating just a bit, but then again I was unaware that the town was situated on a hill. I guess it makes sense to have all those steps.

We quickly learned that sightseeing with a stroller and a sleeping toddler was not a good idea after all.

We found a poster on one of the streets with the program for the festival, the opening ceremony was scheduled for 9pm.

And from the security we saw walking by, we concluded that the Croatian President would be present for the opening ceremony.

Since it was only 6pm, what would we do for 3 hours? We could only do so much walking around. After much consideration we decided that hopefully we could watch the play Buratino at home as it was suppose to be televised.

And we opted to return another day and have a proper visit of the town.

The cathedral that we saw, St. James. resembled the churches we saw in Florence, then I read its history and it made sense. The construction began under the direction of the Venetian architect, Antonio Dalleand then it was passed on to the sculptor Jurac Dalmatinac.

It took over 100 years for its completion, with influences from Northern Italy, Tuscany and Dalmatia and the result was a church with an upper Renaissance style and a Gothic lower level.

Did you notice the faces towards the bottom of this picture? There are more than 70 unique portraits immortalising important contemporaries and figures from the 15th century who had for some reason particularly impressed the architect.

It was dissappointed not to see the city in it's entirety. But not to worry, we will be back!

For more information on the Festival you can click here. If you had a Children's Day Holiday in your country, how would you celebrate it? I think in Mexico I remember as a child my Mom mentioning, El Dia del Nino, it was a special day for my sisters and I because we had a fun day at school filled with activities like dancing and singing. But for parents it was a more serious holiday, it was a day to remember and acknowledge that children have rights and that they should be protected by their families, society, and the government and that children are special to the future of Mexico and to the world. Fascinating right?