Split Croatia 9 July 2013

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Split Croatia 9 July 2013

It’s day 58 of our 6 months – I can’t believe we have been away for 2 months already. It has been such a wonderful experience.

After leaving Omis we headed up the coastal road to Split. This was another stunning drive. The ocean is so blue, the rugged whitish rocky mountain range and orange roofed, light-coloured houses packed into coves and up the hillside. Many of these coves have fine gravelly beaches. It is a really busy time of the year so plenty of traffic and plenty of European holiday-makers. We were really enjoying the drive along the coast of Croatia. There is no wondering why people from all over Europe come to this area for their summer holidays. It is beautiful and the temperature is definitely beach weather.

The roads are in really good condition in Croatia so it makes driving on windy roads easy. We have kept off the motorways so that we don’t miss any of the scenery.

We arrived in Split at about 10.30am. Immediately we had a good feel about the city of 200,000 people (second biggest in Croatia. Its 2 main industries is tourism and ship building. It has a deep port and 2 big cruise liners were docked. We found a parking station and paid 38 kuna (5 kuna to $1.00 AUD).

Split is the largest town in Dalmatia, and nearly everything worth seeing is concentrated in the compact old town behind the waterfront Riva, made up in part of the various remains and conversions of Diocletian’s Palace itself and the medieval additions to the west of it.

We walked 5 minutes to their Stari Grad. We visited the basement of the old Palace. The ground floor of the Palace is now full of shops with court yards full of restaurants. It was a great atmosphere.

All of a sudden we heard some drums. It was the Emperor and his soldiers, all dressed in original clothing. They did a welcome performance for us.

Often cities offer free guided walking tours presented by volunteers who love their city. We spotted one here so joined it. It was really interesting. We learned that the 3 floors of each ‘apartment’ the top floor is always the kitchen so that if it catches fire the whole place doesn’t burn. The tunnels, the drinking wells, the carved stone (including vine leaves) and the life of the people were all described with enthusiasm by guide with an American accent.

He showed us a café that he recommended and we ended up having a coffee there.

After that we climbed up the clock tower and had a beautiful view of the city, its harbor, the old town and the vast spread of the newer city. It was a wonderful site.

Next was a visit to the vegetable market in old town and then back to the Camper for lunch.

At about 2.00pm we started our travel up to the Krka National Park near Sibenik.

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