After our melancholic trip through Bosnia, with its war scars visible for all to see, it was nice to return to sun-drenched, beach-filled Croatia, which has shrugged off any remaining signs of the Balkan conflict.
Split was wonderfully warm at 9pm as our bus pulled in to the lovely harbor-side station. We were again accosted by little old ladies offering us rooms, but pushed them aside as we sweated through the twisty streets in search of our final hostel. When we found it, we were greeted by a super-enthusiastic host who had more energy than anyone should on such a balmy, humid night. Our room thankfully had A/C but instead of a wall unit, there were these giant tubes that had to stick out of the open windows. Miraculously, it still managed to cool down the place.
We got up, picked up some breakfast at the local fruit market and headed to the center. The highlight here was the Diocletian Palace. It is a huge structure that has somehow grown to be a part of the city itself as hotels and shops are housed in its old marble-white buildings that glitter in the sunshine.
We visited its labyrinthine-like basement
and (attempted) to climb to the top of its bell tower.
Jon made it to the top and took some lovely photos. My acrophobia kicked in as I saw its wiry, open staircase
and I decided to admire the half-way-up view instead.
The rest of the city is also quite lovely. There were beautiful flower gardens
and interesting museums with old statues. One of them cost an extra 10kn to see, only you could catch a glimpse of it from the regularly-priced museum so it was a bit of a rip-off. The statue was found by a tourist – or a fisherman – or a tourist who was fishing (?) – completely by accident. Now it’s the star feature of the museum.
We spent our last day as typical Czech tourists vacationing in Croatia – at the beach, soaking up as much sun as possible before returning to a grey, gloomy and much colder Prague. It was a perfect end to a relaxing and intriguing vacation.
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