Split, Croatia 28.07

We left Hvar Island and drove to catch the ferry back to the mainland. Artur enjoyed his last chance to drive along the windy roads of the island. We had learnt from seeing the lines of cars when we arrived, that we shouldn't turn up too late or we would miss the last ferry.
The lines were very long when we arrived, and no one was moving, so we left the car and went off to buy some ferry tickets and an icecream. Soon we were on our way across the water, and then safely on the other side.

The drive along the coast of the mainland was absolutley beautiful. It was similar to the drive along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. The road would take you from the very edge of the water, to the top of the mountains, and back again. This meant we had spectacular views over the whole landscape from above. We were amazed at how busy the roads were, and at how many people there were in the coastal towns. We had gotten used to the peace and quiet of Hvar.

Our Campsite

We soon made it to Split, and found our campsite without a problem. It was apparently the only campsite in Split, and it was about 7km outside of the city. It was worth it though, as the camping places were almost on the beach itself! There was a flat area with a couple of trees facing the beach, and it was here that everyone could pitch their tents.

We managed to find a great spot about 50m from the water's edge! There were a lot of people around, but we still found a great place, close, but not too close to the toilet and shower block. There was even an open air bar near us, that had a roof, but it was very high, and there was no walls. It looked like the perfect place for an evening drink, or a cocktail by the beach.

Nearby we saw a big family of Polish people. It was weird because they had extremely expensive cars, but they were camping! We think it must have been because they had a dog, and several children. Probably more enjoyable for them, than at a fancy hotel.

While Artur set up the tent, Loren got out the cooking stove and made some gnocchi in sauce, and a mozzarella and sliced tomato salad. It was good teamwork, as we finished at about the same time, and were both ready to eat.

After our meal, we decided to go for a swim at our new beach. We went running into the water, but the water was very shallow, so we were running for quite a while before we made it deep enough to swim! The water was the weirdest thing we'd ever come across, in terms of temperature. The top layer of water was like ice, it was so cold, but the water underneath was really warm. This meant that deeper water was much nicer to swim in as it was mostly warm, but as you slowly entered the shallow water, you thought it was freezing. You'd think the sun would heat up the surface, which would make it the opposite.

After our swim, we went for a walk along our new waterfront. We walked all the way past the campground, and then along the town front. We saw lots of lovely restaurants as we walked, and a big group of men playing 'boules' on a special court. It was funny to see how thrilling the game was for them, and how much they invested in each of their throws.

We also saw some mini soccer pitches set up on the sand, but no one was using them. The tide was really low, which Artur found really depressing. It looked like the aftermath of a storm, where lots of boats are left stranded on the land, far from the water. The water was so shallow by the shore here, that when the tide goes out, it goes out a long way.

Exploring the City

The next day, we got up early, planning to do some sightseeing in Split. We wasted a bit of time in the steaming sun, at the wrong bus stop. It looked so desert-like at this place where we were waiting, we could have confused it with Las Vegas or another American desert city. We sat on the ground, under a huge, worn-out billboard, with lizards running by us, while we waited. Eventually we realised we were at the wrong place, and went back towards the campsite. Once we had found the correct stop, we took the bus to the centre of Split.

The bus dropped us off at a big market, so we wandered through, admiring the Croatian national flags and t-shirts, pretty dresses, and piles of fresh fruit. We soon arrived at the other side of the market, and found ourselves at the Silver Gate. This gate was one of four
that lead into the famous Diocletian's Palace.

As we entered the Palace, we were surprised by how much of the Palace remained. The ground was covered in marble, and there were still huge sections of building that were standing. Pieces of the palace that had been recovered, like broken columns and huge stones of marble lay around, everywhere you could see. They had turned into park benches and other uses things for the locals and tourists alike.

We decided to visit the Cathedral first, which looked pretty spectacular from the outside. It was even more astounding from the inside. It was originally a temple built by Diocletian for the worship of his gods and goddesses. It was later turned into a spectacular, circular shaped Cathedral.

The Cathedral was covered in green and red marble, and every surface was adorned with a beautiful sculpture, or a gilded painting of a saint. It was one of the most spectacular buildings we had seen yet. We wandered around in awe for a while.

After a while, we decided to visit an exhibit that was going on, on the top floor of the building. It was an exhibit on the treasures of this church. The exhibits were pretty, but not particularly interesting, until we noticed that a lot of the displays were in the shape of parts of the human body. Then Loren noticed that the sculptures of heads had a small hole at the top. We had a closer look, and realised that the sculptures were really replicas of the body pieces that were hidden inside them. The heads had skulls in them, the fingers had real fingers inside! It was quite freaky, but it made the exhibit much more interesting.

We enjoyed the Cathedral, but we realised that the city of Split wouldn't mean much to us, unless we had a guide telling us about its history, and what all of these ruins and buildings were all about. Lots of people were advirtising walking tours, so we decided to take one ourselves.

Tour of Diocletian's Palace

We were introduced to our guide, who turned out to be our personal guide, as no one else was on this tour. She was a Croatian woman, who had lived most of her young life in Sydney, Australia. She was very surprised and fascinated by Loren's eyes, which she didn't think seemed very typical for an Australian.

She told us a lot about the emporer Diocletian, and about his decision to retire in Croatia and build a huge Palace to live in. She showed us a picture of what the Palace would have looked like back then, and told us which parts remained today.

The Palace dates from the 13th century, and it is now one of the most imposing Roman ruins in existance. It was built facing the harbour, as a strong rectangular fortress with walls measuring 215m from east to west, and 181m in width. There are towers built along its walls to strengthen it as well.

The imperial residence, the temples and the mausoleum were south of the main street, connected by the east and west gates. The beautiful columned square, the Cathedral and the open air temple of Jupiter are some of the most beautiful things that remain in the Palace today.
It turns out that the Cathedral that we visited was originally the mausoleum for Diocletian. However, Christians from another town near Split had a natural disaster in their town, which sent them running to Split for shelter. They knew that Diocletian had persecuted the Christians in his time, so they set about destroying anything that had his face on it or his name. His mausoleum was turned into a church, and his face was chipped off every surface into which it had been carved.

The first thing she took us to see, was the underground part of the Palace. The Palace was built with a second level underground, which replicated every room that was built above it. Even the big open courtyards and temples with their tall ceilings, were replicated beneath the ground.
These areas becames storage space, and eventually people just started throwing things down there that they didn't want anymore. The archaeologists still haven't excavated the entire underground of the Palace, so we were only able to see less than half of it. They are still digging through the junk and finding precious artifacts all the time.

From underground, we could see how the town has developed since then, and how layer upon layer has been built on top of the foundations of the Palace. It is a living town, so it continues to grow and create history of its own.

Next, we went to see the Temple of Jupiter, which was fairly small. Today this building is used as a Baptistry, and there is a big baptism altar in the centre of the room. A huge modern statue dominates the room, and had the same wispy style to it that the other famous statues in Split seemed to have.

Next we went to see the North Palace Gates which were still fairly spectacular to look at. The main feature here though, was the enormous statue by Ivan Mestrovic, of a powerful Slavic religious leader, Gregorious fo Nin.

For some reason, it is tradition to touch the toe of the statue. This has made it quite shiny compared to the rest of the surface. We made the most of the toe rubbing experience, and took turns with the rest of the locals. I think it was for good luck.

Then we walked to the West Palace Gate, that opens onto a huge square. There was a huge townhall built here, in a Gothic Venetian style. Probably located here because it was a popular area with the nobility and rich merchants. We saw some cool old buildings which were built by them, and many of them bear the crest of Venice.

Ethnographic Museum

Before we left, our guide told us about the ethnographic museum, which had opened a new exhibit about 20 days before we arrived, 'Apoxiomen'. There was a Greek statue that was discovered underwater off the coast of Croatia, and it had been restored. It was quite an impressive find, as not many Greek statues remain today.

We were quite impressed by the restoration process that they worked through, and by the final result. We spent a long time admiring the beautiful statue. Apparently it is in the style of the Olympic statues, made in honour of Olympic victors. In this case, the man in the image is not performing a sport, but scraping of the dust and the oil that they layered on themselves to protect from the sun. The rest of the museum was extremely interesting as well, as it was about the culture and history of the Croatian people. Loren was very interested in the traditional clothes, the jewelry and shoes. Artur tired of these things quickly though.

There were some amazing examples of lace making by Croatian women. The designs were so intricate, delicate and beautiful. Even Artur was impressed by them.

While we were in the musuem, we heard drums outside. We rushed to the windows, and saw a guy dressed as Diocletian, accompanied by his Pratorian guards. He paraded right beneath us, and then over to the main courtyard. We could see him still from where we were, and he was addressing the people and greeting them with 'Ave'. It was pretty cool to watch. We got some cool pictures with the Pratorians earlier during our tour.

After the museum, we went to see the view from the Cathedral Tower. The staircase was really tiny, and we kept having to stop to let other people down. We were really happy with the view when we got to the top. There were no screens covering the windows, obsuring the view. There were just huge arches on every side with open views to the surrounding town and coastline.

The view over the Old Town was beautiful, but we were surprised at how messy it looked from above. We loved looking at the waterfront the most. There were huge ferries coming in and out, and lots of other smaller boats. The town was also surrounded by mountains, which were bare, and looked like huge rocks. We were very impressed, and spent a long time up there just drinking in the view and the cool breeze.

By this point, we were fairly exhausted from the heat and from being on our feet all day. We decided to head back to the campsite and recover. After our rest, Loren cooked some dinner on the camp stove, and then we got ready to out again.

Evening in Split

We waited at the bus stop for a while, but we figured that we had just missed it. We stuck around for a while, and then decided we should probably just go out in the local town instead. We wandered along the water and admired the lights sparkling along the coastline.

On our way, we came across a Dalmatian dog tied to a fence in front of a supermarket. Loren stopped to say hello, but he was pretty shy. It looked pretty funny because her dress was white with black flowers, so they looked quite colour coordinated. Patting a Dalmatian in Dalmatia!
As we arrived at the main street, we noticed a bus pulling up at the stop. We realised it was our bus, and that it must just be running really late. We ran over and made it on just in time. We were thrilled, as it was looking like it was going to be a quiet night.

Split was even prettier by night, than it was during the day. The walls of the palace and the tower were lit up against the dark night sky. We walked along the main esplanade by the water. There were lots of outdoor restaurants and classy looking places. After walking for a while, we came across a huge crowd of people and a big stage. There was a group of dancers performing traditional folk dances of Croatia. They were all wearing cool traditional outfits, and they looked like they were having a great time.

We watched several of the dances, and each one was quite different. In one of the dances, they did a kind of shuffle that looked really cool. Loren was over the moon to see these dances while in Croatia. It was absolutely perfect!

After the dancers finished, we decided to find a nice bar to have a cocktail in. We chose one of the outdoor bar, where they had a huge menu of cocktails. We chose some fairly colourful concoctions, but they tasted good.

After our drink, we went for a wander around the old town. We found a gallery that was open for a showing. It was a photographic exhibit, and the subjects of all the photos were famous people. We recognised quite a few of the celebrities, and it was interesting to see how each of them had been captured in these pictures.

We decided to have another drink somewhere, and found a nice restaurant on the Narodni Targ, one of the main squares. We tried some of the local beers, and shared a shrimp cocktail, as something to nibble on. It was a perfect evening, and we were so glad that we had come to Croatia.

The next day, we still had about half of the day in Split before we left on a ferry for Italy. We got up early, and decided to go for a jog by the beach. It was really nice, and the view along the water constantly changed, which kept us entertained while we ran.

After our jog, we went to cool off in the water. It was beautiful, and the sun was already out and shining. We took our snorkelling gear into the water this morning, and hoped to have some success fish watching. Unfortunately, the sand was very fine, and mixed easily with the water, so it was hard to see anything. We went out further, but we came across the same problem, the water just wasn't clear enough. We had a great time though, just relaxing by the water all morning.

The Long Journey to Italy

Soon we had to pack up the tent and pack the car, and drive to the ferry. We had a printed confirmation from the company, so we figured we had plenty of time. We parked in the line and sat in the shade waiting for the ferry to let us on. Just as the line started to move, a ticket collector came around asking us for a ticket. Apparently there was a check in desk somewhere, and we had to exchange our paper for a boarding card or something like that.

Artur ran for the terminal to get the card, and Loren drove the car in the slowly crawling line. He made it back in time, and Loren continued driving. As we got inside the ferry, each car had to do a u-turn and reverse into the place indicated for them. Loren was in the process of doing this when several other cars drove in and blocked her way. She was now stuck sideways, and unable to turn. The Italian attendants came over and were yelling instructions in Italian, but it was impossible to turn now that the other cars were blocking her. They indicated for her to drive forward, so she did, and then they continued yelling because apparently this is not what they wanted.

Artur started yelling at them, because they were upsetting Loren, and instead of moving the problem cars they just yelled at us to turn around. Someone who spoke English came over, and told us we were supposed to reverse in. We yelled back that we knew that, and were trying to do that but we were being blocked. Artur took over the driving, and reversed aggressively and very fast towards the yelling guy that was indicated where to park. Gave him a good scare. We were pretty unhappy, and the English speaking guy apologised, and admitted that the guy yelling at us in another language was not very helpful. We were driving a car with Polish number plates, in Croatia and being yelled at in Italian. It wouldn't be too hard to learn a few phrases in English, to assist the travellers who do not come from Italy.

The ferry itself was quite small, but had comfortable sitting areas. There were booths with tables like a diner, so we were able to sit and write or eat. The air con was a bit strong, but they had a couple of kids movies playing, which were pretty funny.

We arrived in Italy at about 10.30pm. Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of our day. We still had to get to our campsite and set up for the night. It turned out that the campsite was located in the mountains of Pescara, not near the coastline. We had the GPS to direct us, but unfortunately the tiny Italian roads did not translate into drivable routes. The GPS took us to pedestrian streets and staircases, and told us to drive on them. Sensibly we refused, and drove off looking for other routes.

We ended up driving in circles in one of the little towns, continually being directed back to the same intersections via different routes. We have since discovered that some of the street signs in Italy that want you to drive straight, actually point to the left. This created a huge amount of confusion, as we made it to big boards of signs with arrows pointing in all directions. We followed the arrows to the campsite, left, but apparently they meant straight, so we kept driving onto tiny streets that we had to reverse out of. Eventually, we drove straight at those weird signs and got out of our repetitive circle of the town. It wasn't a straight trip from there, but we eventually found our way to the hidden campsite.

We arrived at about 2am, and were completely exhausted. There was a little path into the site next to the owner's house. We went in to have a look, and found some cute little individual campsites. There were surprisingly, quite a few people there. We have no idea how they found it. Eventually, we decided to camp on a grass patch near the cars, because there was a light for setting up the tent, and we probably wouldn't wake other people up.

On our way back to the car, we took the wrong path, and couldn't get out the gate. It was a long walk around to the other gate, so we decided to just jump over it. Artur jumped first, and then Loren jumped. Unfortunately, Loren's skirt got caught on the pole, and the pole punctured a huge gaping hole in the back of the skirt. The buttons were pulled so hard that they ripped off and tore pieces of material from the skirt with them. On the whole, not the best welcome to Italy!

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Split pictures