Split, Croatia
So. Our day in Croatia. Our last port of the cruise. Neither Richard nor I had much idea what to expect from such a foreign country. I got a Croatian phrase book, but all I learned to say was Bog (Hello). It's the only Slavic country I've ever been to, and was actually part of Yugoslavia at one point. It was a socialist country until something like 1995. Just so different than everything we'd seen in Western Europe. But what was quite interesting about it, to us anyway, was its history as part of the Roman Empire.
Although I didn't learn some of this until after I got home and took a class on Ancient Rome, here's a little breakdown. Circa the late 3rd century, Diocletian became the emperor of the Roman Empire. By this time, the Empire was SO massive, it encompassed most of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East, plus, obviously, the Italian peninsula and the area where Croatia and Greece are. He divided the Empire into four parts, and there were four emperors (a tetrarchy). Then he retired (the first emperor to do so voluntarily) to a massive palace he'd built for himself in modern day Split, Croatia. So that's one of the things we saw.
A sort of run-down of our day. There won't be many pictures in this post, but I'll make a cut anyway.
We left the boat and it was a fairly nice day. It smelled. I remember sticking my head out of our balcony and it smelled, the water was sort of oily and really dirty and I was already sort of irritated with the place about that. We walked through the dock area to the main area of the city of Split, which is all within a few blocks of the water. There were cafes and shops everywhere. An interesting thing about Croatia is that it is the birthplace of the tie. Croatian soldiers used to wear kerchiefs their wives gave them; Cravat is a bastardization of Croat, apparently. There were ties that were really beautiful and, at the time, we thought they must be quite expensive. They were a lot in Kuna, which is the money there--this is the first place (besides England, obviously) we went to that didn't accept Euros. But we found out later that, at the time, it was about 7 Kuna for 1 dollar. So those ties that were 100 kuna were really only like 20 dollars, and perhaps Richard should have bought some. But oh well!
Here are some pictures from random wanderings around the town of Split:
This is a statue of Gregory of Nin. He was the first one to say, hey, lets have our Catholic church services in Croatian, rather than Latin. Apparently they appreciated it, because they built him this awesome statue.
There was also a little outdoor market. Well, a large outdoor market. Most of the stuff didn't really interest me. They were selling umbrellas and I thought about getting one, because I left mine on the bus the day we went to Amalfi. But I didn't. Later, I would regret that.
Some more pictures of the streets and sights:
Diocletian's Palace:
The city bell tower:
After exploring the small city, Richard led the way...We didn't have a map. Can you sense what's coming? We got lost. We ended up walking into some sort of giant National park, through a residential neighborhood, far far FAR from the touristy areas. No money, no way to communicate.
I made a map of our approximate route:
I was sure we were lost by the time we got to the park area--point C on the map. Richard was sure he knew where we were going. It started to rain about halfway between C and D. It started to POUR about 5 minutes later. We got to D, which was a dock. Richard kept saying this was the main dock, and he could see our boat. He could not see our boat, because, as you can see, we were on the wrong side of the FUCKING COUNTRY! We made it about 3 miles before we realized we were at the wrong harbor. If we had walked that far in the other direction we would have ended up in BOSNIA!
We walked back. It was still pouring. Pouring. Absolutely drenched. Hair plastered to my face, dripping into my eyes. Nothing on but a sweater. Sweaters are not good rain wear, fyi.
We walked back to town, god knows how we even ended up back in town. I got some Kuna out of the ATM. 50 kuna was about 17 dollars. We stopped at a mall to pee; I still looked like a drown rat, but it stopped raining as soon as we got back to town. After walking for about 2 hours in a downpour, now that we had reached civilization again, it just stopped.
Then we spent 38 kuna on lunch. We got 2 slices of pizza, which were about 2 kuna each (cheapest lunch ever!) and then 2 sprites--which cost like 15 kuna each! I guess they have to import them. My pizza had basil and corn...Yup, just...corn kernels on the top. Odd.
Richard forced me to walk around for a while more, even though I just wanted to go back to the boat and change clothes. Eventually, we did walk back to the boat, and it got really sunny. Richard took a few shots from our balcony:
It was the worst day of the vacation, but now it makes the best story of the trip. So it's ok.
Next time, Venice!
Although I didn't learn some of this until after I got home and took a class on Ancient Rome, here's a little breakdown. Circa the late 3rd century, Diocletian became the emperor of the Roman Empire. By this time, the Empire was SO massive, it encompassed most of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East, plus, obviously, the Italian peninsula and the area where Croatia and Greece are. He divided the Empire into four parts, and there were four emperors (a tetrarchy). Then he retired (the first emperor to do so voluntarily) to a massive palace he'd built for himself in modern day Split, Croatia. So that's one of the things we saw.
A sort of run-down of our day. There won't be many pictures in this post, but I'll make a cut anyway.
We left the boat and it was a fairly nice day. It smelled. I remember sticking my head out of our balcony and it smelled, the water was sort of oily and really dirty and I was already sort of irritated with the place about that. We walked through the dock area to the main area of the city of Split, which is all within a few blocks of the water. There were cafes and shops everywhere. An interesting thing about Croatia is that it is the birthplace of the tie. Croatian soldiers used to wear kerchiefs their wives gave them; Cravat is a bastardization of Croat, apparently. There were ties that were really beautiful and, at the time, we thought they must be quite expensive. They were a lot in Kuna, which is the money there--this is the first place (besides England, obviously) we went to that didn't accept Euros. But we found out later that, at the time, it was about 7 Kuna for 1 dollar. So those ties that were 100 kuna were really only like 20 dollars, and perhaps Richard should have bought some. But oh well!
Here are some pictures from random wanderings around the town of Split:
This is a statue of Gregory of Nin. He was the first one to say, hey, lets have our Catholic church services in Croatian, rather than Latin. Apparently they appreciated it, because they built him this awesome statue.
There was also a little outdoor market. Well, a large outdoor market. Most of the stuff didn't really interest me. They were selling umbrellas and I thought about getting one, because I left mine on the bus the day we went to Amalfi. But I didn't. Later, I would regret that.
Some more pictures of the streets and sights:
Diocletian's Palace:
The city bell tower:
After exploring the small city, Richard led the way...We didn't have a map. Can you sense what's coming? We got lost. We ended up walking into some sort of giant National park, through a residential neighborhood, far far FAR from the touristy areas. No money, no way to communicate.
I made a map of our approximate route:
I was sure we were lost by the time we got to the park area--point C on the map. Richard was sure he knew where we were going. It started to rain about halfway between C and D. It started to POUR about 5 minutes later. We got to D, which was a dock. Richard kept saying this was the main dock, and he could see our boat. He could not see our boat, because, as you can see, we were on the wrong side of the FUCKING COUNTRY! We made it about 3 miles before we realized we were at the wrong harbor. If we had walked that far in the other direction we would have ended up in BOSNIA!
We walked back. It was still pouring. Pouring. Absolutely drenched. Hair plastered to my face, dripping into my eyes. Nothing on but a sweater. Sweaters are not good rain wear, fyi.
We walked back to town, god knows how we even ended up back in town. I got some Kuna out of the ATM. 50 kuna was about 17 dollars. We stopped at a mall to pee; I still looked like a drown rat, but it stopped raining as soon as we got back to town. After walking for about 2 hours in a downpour, now that we had reached civilization again, it just stopped.
Then we spent 38 kuna on lunch. We got 2 slices of pizza, which were about 2 kuna each (cheapest lunch ever!) and then 2 sprites--which cost like 15 kuna each! I guess they have to import them. My pizza had basil and corn...Yup, just...corn kernels on the top. Odd.
Richard forced me to walk around for a while more, even though I just wanted to go back to the boat and change clothes. Eventually, we did walk back to the boat, and it got really sunny. Richard took a few shots from our balcony:
It was the worst day of the vacation, but now it makes the best story of the trip. So it's ok.
Next time, Venice!