Day 21 – Split

We arrived in Split a little after 9 in the morning after not a bad night’s sleep on the ferry. We were met at the terminal by a large, jolly chap who is the owner of our ‘hostel’. He walked us along the promenade (very slowly). The street is called ’Obala hrvatskog naradnog preporoda’ which is understandably shortened to ‘Riva’ whether just for convenience or to avoid the tourists a headache when they come to pronounce it I don’t know. Many of the street names here are ridiculously long but are nearly always shortened.

The promenade itself is very beautiful. We were informed in broken English that the street had been refitted at a cost of 1 million euros. It was worth every cent. The street is pedestrianised and the pavement is laid with marble which glistens in the sunshine. All along the waterfront are benches interleaved with modern designed flower beds all sculpted in an ultra-modern style whilst keeping the character of the place. On the other side of the street are numerous cafes all with carefully designed awnings. Along both sides are very contemporary street lights. All of these contrast beautifully with the buildings which are old but well kept. Most notably Deocletian’s Palace.

The palace was built by the Roman Emporer as a ‘retirement home’ and it is truely lovely. Now a UNESCO world heritage site the area is a warren of Roman streets filled with restaurants and boutiques. We will explore more of that later.

I guess what I am trying to illustrate is how modern and civilised it is here. This is not the Croatia I imagined. In almost every way this place is more civilised than any part of Italy we experienced!

Our room is actually what I would call a studio appartment with a large bedroom, kitchen/dining room and bathroom complete with fridge and cooker! It even has a hot shower and flushing toilet as the landlord so proudly demonstrated on our grand tour!

Once we dropped off our bags and showered after our stuffy ferry journey we went to the laundrette to do some washing – it’s amazing how much you miss machine-washed and dried clothes – and then headed into town.

The whole place is so laid-back and clearly has a slow pace of life. We really felt like we were on holiday and it is so nice. We headed to the market which was full of every type of produce you can image – and so cheap too. We bought lunch here – a local cheese pastry thing – it was interesting to say the least!

Next stop was the beach. There wasn’t a lot of sand but a lot of concrete all around the bay. Not particularly nice but then I’m not a fan of beaches anyway. We stayed fo a while – it was nice to relax.

Afterwards we tried to book our train to Zagreb only to find that the station staff were still on their ‘lunch break’ at 4 in the afternoon – so laid back. After a little more wandering we headed back to get ready to go out for dinner. The meal itself was in a lovely little restaurant in the old town with live music. The stroganoff was delicious and so was the beer ( especially at about 1.40 pounds for half a litre)!

We meandered back to our room after dinner enjoying the street entertainers on the beautifully lit-up promenade. This place is so nice!!