Split, Croatia

Split wasn't a highlight for me, but it was an interesting city.

Getting there from Rovinj was a gorgeous drive. At one point I remember entering a tunnel after a lush valley, hills everywhere, and then exiting the tunnel to desert, a brushy, dry coastline. (I've been through more tunnels in the last two weeks than I think I've been through in all my life.) 

Split is a grander coastal city than Rovinj (and probably all towns along the coast), and it has its own thing going on, as a good-sized city, besides tourism. It has a wide malecon and a port for cruise ships. The malecon includes dozens of benches, flowering bushes, and palm trees. I was surprised at how many people (including people who looked like tourists) were sleeping soundly on or near the benches at 9 a.m. I took advantage of the city fountains to grab water, which seemed to be available almost everywhere I visited this trip.

the malecon

My first night in the city I heard some of the most beautiful, haunting and peaceful, music I've ever heard, walking back to my guest house through a well-trod alley. I've looked up what the man who was singing wrote down for me, "Kad Procvatu Bethari," and while the music is beautiful, of course it's nothing like what I experienced in the orange glow of that alley, this very sweet young hippy playing his guitar and singing so beautifully, with the sound echoing off the walls. 

Diocletian's Palace was impressive, but the experience was significantly diminished not only by the tourists, but also by the restaurants and souvenir vendors scattered even within the palace. But there are some elements of the palace, including the sphinx, that are 3,500 years old. For the third time in a handful of days I paid to torture myself and climb a tower. In this tower, the stairs seemed sturdy enough, but the exposure was high, particularly to the outside. Yet again I was breathing deeply and counting stairs. And people asking if I was okay. I can drive through Central Europe on my own, but climbing stairs in a church tower is about as terrifying as it gets. I gave myself permission for this to be my last tower on the trip, and I was relieved when I convinced myself it wasn't worth the view. (But then a minaret later presented itself in Mostar...) 

a very uncrowded moment

3,500 years old

now how cute is this gargoyle?

see?? you can't even see where the stairs and pillars overlap

The crowds were a bit much for me, the tourism a little more intense than anywhere I'd been thus far, and I decided to head over to the island Hvar for a few hours in the morning. Definitely a mistake. Hvar is large enough that I imagine you might be able to get away from the crowds, but masses of people show up on a large catamaran almost hourly. I did climb up to an old fortress, which of course would be incomplete without a prison.

this is the boat shoveling people onto Hvar--it's an hour-long trip

from the fortress

prison

My favorite part of my Split trip was going kayaking for about four hours one evening. It had been a very hot day (they all were), and there were eight of us total. I partnered with Slovan, our guide, who at 40 is the oldest member of the Croatian national climbing team. (I wish "the oldest" at something was not younger than me.) A few of us also did some cliff jumping (which doesn't scare me nearly as much as all those tower stairs... I trust the water, and I get to give in to my constant impulse to jump when I'm up high!). I was told photos of the jumping would be posted, but nothing so far. We launched near an area where two of three ships were grounded in extreme winds in the last year. No one will take responsibility to remove the ships, the owners saying they don't have the money.

sunset after kayaking