Blogs from Split, Dalmatia, Croatia, Europe

De Hvar, nous avons pris un traversier de 2 heures jusqu'à Split, 2ème plus grande ville de Croatie. Outre le fait qu'elle est sur le bord de la mer, la raison principale de visiter cette ville est le palais de Dioclétien, une ancienne résidence construite par l'empereur romain du même nom en l'an 305. Selon Wikipédia, c'est l'un des édifices de l'Antiquité tardive les mieux conservés Ce n'est pas vraiment un palais, c'est plus une petite et jolie vieille ville où l'on retrouve maintenant majoritairement des restaurants, cafés et magasins ainsi qu'un flot incessant de touristes japonais à travers les petites rues étroites. Le Lonely Planet mentionne que le tourisme de masse n'a pas encore atteint cette ville, j'ose pas imaginer quand ça va être le cas. Oui je sais, je suis un touriste moi aussi, ... read more

On Wednesday morning we left rainy and cool london to spend a week in warm and sunny croatia. This time at least we weren't the only ones up so early. We organized this trip with 20 of Mike's friends from CTLS (for those who don't know, its the transnational legal program that he is studying with in London), and we rented a big house by the beach, so that they could study (and in some cases, take) their exams. Elysia was the lucky one who got to benefit from all the school's social events, as well as this trip, and not actually have to do the work. Needless to say, so far there has been some work done a whole lot of fun. We spent the night before we left at some of Mike's classmates, Rome, ... read more

Day 1 - Saturday We awoke Saturday morning to a much quieter town after the previous night's thunder storm. The weather was cooler, but sunny, clear and very pleasant. We had arranged for our host to drive us to Trogir where we were to embark on our week-long bicycle cruise of the Dalmatia coast National Parks with islandhopping.com. It was a struggle to load our 4 large, 3 medium and three small pieces of luggage into his car. When we arrived in Trogir Old Town (anther Unesco heritage site), we found the Magellan, checked in, then sat in a cafe to have some coffee. Afterwards, Jill and Maureen went for a walk while Fred and I sat for a time watching the goings on up and down the wharf. We boarded at 12:30 and got settled ... read more

The Hotel is located very close to the Park entrance so we had our breakfast, met our guide outside the hotel and walked around to be in time for the Park opening at 8am. This was the ‘get in touch with nature’ part of our trip. PLITVICE NATIONAL PARK Plitvice National Park is Croatia’s most popular tourist attraction and it was granted UNESCO World Heritage status in 1979. The special feature of the Park is that it has 16 lakes interconnected by a series of waterfalls. Today we would spend 3 hours in the Park walking around two lakes and enjoying a short boat trip across two others. The first thing that struck us was the stunning clarity of the water; we could watch the trout swimming around lazily –it was crystal clear. The lakes were ... read more

We had another free day in Split after our Bosnian day trip, which we used to check out the incredible old town dominated by Diocletion’s Palace– one of the world’s most impressive Roman monuments. Diocletrion was a 3rd century AD Roman Emperor who decided to retire to Split. I can understand why, it’s a beautiful harbour town and combined with the fact that it had sulphur deposits. The palace itself is a huge area taking up several blocks from the harbour. We kicked off the morning by climbing the Bell Tower, which was a very narrow steep staircase, but at the top we were rewarded with excellent 360 degree views of the city and harbour area. From there we went to Marjan Hill, a tough climb in the 30 degree plus weather but worth it once ... read more