Croatia 25 - Klis /G.O.T /if you dont know what I am talking about it's time to move on /No health and safety as such


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May 5th 2019
Published: May 5th 2019
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Warning . I sound a little like the advertisements on the T.V before a programme starts. If you are offended by bad language , programmes of a sexual nature or flashing lights switch off now. If you don't want to hear the football results go out of the room now. So this warning is for you - if you don't know what G.O.T. means you have two choices read on and be enlightened or read on because you know exactly what this blog will contain. Actually if you are one of those people who have no idea what I am talking about you can move on to the next blog . We will be doing something Roman next .

Gabby the motorhome is parked up on a car park close to the firestation. I don't know if we should be here or not. There are cars parked but it does not look very official. We could get a parking ticket . Still we are here and we are off to see the castle of Klis. We have seen the castle in the distance and it looks impressive . The town is pretty non-descript and without G.O.T it would probably have very few visitors. The teachers bring the kids out from Split to tell the children about the castle and its many inhabitants but now I am sure the kids are more interested in its recent history. Most will be G.O.T. fans and more interested in Daenarys and her Unsullied army and the city of Meereen.

The weather is a little overcast . We have lost the sunshine .

The walk up to the castle is quite gruelling especially for the feet. Cobbled all the way up. We can feel the cobbles through our shoes.

I was accosted part way up by a guy selling lavender. He shoved a pouch under my nose encouraging me to smell it and buy some. Hard sell.

No barriers and nothing to cling on to . The higher we climbed the more we realised health and safety had taken a holiday here. Drops of hundreds of feet lay just over small walls. One step in the wrong direction and that would be it . A long roll down to the town below. The Chinese visitors had taken to climbing on the walls and having their photos taken in the most unrealistic poses. How they never fell off is beyond me.

We paid our 40 kuna each at the gate . We did not get a guide . We had to make it up as we went along. The kids were sitting on the walls listening to guides dressed as Uzcocks. They carried their bows and long swords trying their best to bring history to life . The kids got in the way, walking four abreast. It was a case of brute force to barge a way through them. They were never going to give way to anyone climbing up or down . Up and up over rough paths we walked . Once we escaped the kids it was easier going. Apart from the kids the place was relatively empty. . There were the usual suspects of ramparts and of gateways. Some crumbling and unsafe . Some paths closed off due to being to dangerous to walk along. A church part way up . Nothing exciting inside . . An art gallery in one of the newer buildings. A museum with some artifacts . Long Uzcock swords and battleaxes. Ivory handled daggers . There was work going on but it seemed a lot more needed to be done. You would have thought the money brought in by the film industry would have made much more remedial work possible. Visitor numbers must have climbed once filming ending.

Klis Fortress was medieval and from its ramparts we could see Split. The city spread for miles and miles with high rise buildings dominating the skyline. Klis had at one stage become the royal castle of the Croatian kings. It guarded the frontier and was developed during the Ottoman wars. It had been conquered and reconquered many many times in its history. It has stood at the crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Balkans. It lies on the Roman road to Salona the Via Gabinia constructed by Tiberius. Salona is our next stop . If we can find it .

Why did we come to see the castle ? In the past it would have been just to see the castle . However a few years ago we started to watch G.O.T. Game of Thrones that series based on a set of fantasy books that are a cross between a poor mans Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and the newer Vikings and the Last Kingdom. Much of the filming was done in Croatia and Ireland . Whilst we have not seen the Irish sets we have seen the walls of Dubrovnik and Lokrum Island both of which were used for the series. So Klis had to be added to this tour of Croatia for no other reason than to see where G.O.T was filmed.

The season was adapted from the second half of the book "A Storm of Swords" with some elements of "A Feast of Crows " and "A Dance with Dragons" All of which were part of the series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R,. R. Martin. Daenerys successfully captures Meereen amidst a slave revolt and nails 163 masters to posts as revenge. This bloody episode was filmed at Klis where the castle doubled up as Meereen. We walked the same steps as the actors and actresses in these scenes.

It was not the best castle we have seen nor was it the worse. We probably expected too much of it. Computer generation and some good carpentry skills certainly help make something better than it actually is. It passed a hour or so and when we got back to Gabby we had no ticket nor any notice telling us we should not have parked where we did. So all in the end was good and we had added another location to our Game of Thrones visiting list .

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