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Good morning to you all,
Today Myles and I decided to learn a little more about Split and Croatia in general. We slept in a little bit because we are both suffering from jet lag. We are trying to push through, but it is really rough. Once we were able to drag ourselves out of bed we had to get some caffeine, We headed into the depths of Diocletian's palace to find some espresso and a walking tour. There are cafes on every corner in the cities we have been to so far in Croatia. They are specifically cafes that serve espresso, a few other coffee type things, and liquor....all day. It is just as common to see a group of men sitting at a cafe at 10am with half of them having a beer and the other half having coffee. My kind of place (haha). Anyways, after drink some wonderful espresso we wanted to find a walking tour that we could join. The streets of Diocletian's palace do not really follow a rhyme or reason and so you think you might be going the right way, when in reality you have been heading slightly away from where
you want to be. As a result of this, we had a hard time finding a lot of places that were marked on google maps. As we were about to give up, a lady walked up to us and asked if we were looking for a tour. We told her yes, and she offered to give us a private tour. Since we were having such a hard time finding an official place, we decided to go with her. She showed us around all of the different entrances to Diocletian's palace (4 gates, silver, gold, bronze, and Iron). Then she showed us the basement under the palace, the vestibule, Let me pass street (smallest street in Croatia), filming locations of Game of Thrones, and a lot of Roman architectural details that we would not have noticed on our own. It was enlightening and very interesting. The only downside was that she decided to try to discuss some controversial political stuff with us and we had to ask her to please stick to the tour information and not her personal opinions. I guess that's what we get for going with a private guide instead of a tour. Overall it was lovely.
After our tour we decided to grab lunch. We had heard about a Croatian sandwich that we wanted to try called Cevapi/cevapcici (pronounced Che-vapp-eeee). It is a sandwich comprised of a special bread, hand rolled sausage, a farm house cheese, onions, and a red pepper/eggplant spread. We were told by our bartender the night before and then again by the tour guide that the best place in Split for Cevapi is a place called Kantun Paulina, and as coincidence would have it, that is basically where our tour ended. So we went and got some Cevapi. It was freaking ahhhhhhhh-mazing. Like top 10 sandwiches of my life. The sausages were very flavorful, the cheese was slightly tangy and soft,the pepper spread tasted like nothing I had ever had before, and the bread was chewy and soft (kind of light a sour dough, but not at chewy).
After lunch we decided to go more in depth to some of the places that the tour guide had just touched on. So we bought a self guided tour of: the basement under the palace (where they filmed the baby dragons in Game of Thrones), the catacombs under the main cathedral, inside the
Temple of Jupiter, and our ticket included a tour of the inside of the cathedral but we ran out of time. The basement is especially interesting to me because they show the layout of the castle complex as it was originally intended in the time of Diocletian. Since the palace was built the Croatia people have seen many wars and have been conquered multiple times. Each new group tends to damage the overlaying structures and so they are rebuilt again and again. The basements were created to prevent flooding to the structure above. And they have only been discovered and excavated in the last 80 years (ending in the 1990's). The catacombs were a bit of a let down as I wanted to see something akin to the catacombs of Paris, but alas, we will just have to go to Paris someday soon to see.
After all of our touring, we were starving so we stopped a nice restaurant in the heart of the palace complex. Still reeling from our delicious lunch we got Cevapi again. Although it was good, Paulina's is by far the best. To accompany our meal we had a lovely Croatian red wine. Croatia is
known for the red being similar to Zinfandel which I am not typically a fan of, but the red here is not as acidic and a little smoother than the Zinfandels we have in the states. Anyway, we know Cindy and George will love it here as this Zin is right up their alley. After dinner we decided to have a night cap at Shooters again with some hilarious Irish people, and then on our way home we stopped to eat some fries and motz sticks, and then we met two British guys (Ben and Aaron). As we were talking to them, we realized that we are all going on the same tour to Krka national park the next day.
That pretty much wraps up day 3. Stay tuned pics of the most beautiful waterfalls you have ever seen on tomorrow's blog.
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