9 October, Split, Croatia,



I don’t have much to say about Split, a few things happened there that might make great stories later, but its a little too soon to laugh about them now, and they aren't necessarily things I want to cover in a blog for public consumption. I’ll hit the basics of the city though.

The thing you need to know about Split is that it’s the main tourist port along the middle of the coast of Croatia. It’s a nice city, though the first time through (I was there twice, I’ll explain why later) I didn’t find the really good parts – the restaurants and bars that don’t cater to tourists, the really interesting places to walk and meet people, etc - and the one person I met was a beautiful Ukrainian woman that ended up causing me a great deal of grief. I knew the Ukranians were trouble. Didn’t I say that before?


(the palace)

The city itself is pretty small, focused on a very old, very big Palace built for Diocletian in 305 AD, which unlike most other cities, has continued to be used throughout the centuries. It takes up a good half the old city, and its walls enclose a maze of small, narrow, marble lined streets that have been used for the last two millenia and continue to be used to this day, mainly by a variety of small shops, a few cafes and restaurants, and other retail establishments on the ground level.





The upper stories are still residences, lived in by the population probably a lot like they were a thousand years ago, aside from the addition of electric and cable TV. The walkway in front of the palace, along the water is by far the most happening place in the city. At night everyone, tourists and locals alike seem to walk up and down it, looking around and, as in Zagreb, at one another, seeing who is out and about and seemingly deciding as a group which bars or cafes to go to. Each night it was filled with people until around eleven or midnight, when the cafes began to close and people either went home or into the palace walls to find a bar and continue the night there...



The western end of the city is covered by a gorgeous park, with pine trees coverng the paths up the hill to a fantastic view of the city. Aside from the park, the only other things on the western end are a large marina, populated by the type of large yachts I was surprised not to find in Pula, a small monestary, and its grounds, which make for what has seemingly become the premier location for walks for young lovers, and my hotel, the Jadran Hotel, which at one time was no doubt the premier hotel in town, with two massive pools (one of which has bleachers for several hundred or a thousand spectators), its own harbor, and a deluxe restaurant and bar, but now is fading in its luxuriousness, with water stains, age, and lack of maintenance creeping in on the exclusive atmosphere.



Staying here in the off season, I at times had the distinct feeling that I was the only visitor, especially late at night when I would arrive and find the night clerk on the couch, watching television, and my key on the desk, waiting for me, indicating that I was the only guest out and about past midnight, or whatever hour it happened to be. This happened every night, be it 11pm or 5am, so the hotel couldn’t have been even close to fully booked. Even so, it was relatively expensive, and I would have been better off in either private accomodation or at least paying a similar amount to stay on the other side of the harbor, nearer to the action.

Other than the Ukranian woman, Liliya, I could easily forget the entire city, as I didn’t meet anyone else who made any impressions. Tourism is the order of the day here, and people are friendly as far as it goes as long as you are eating at their restaurant, or shopping at their kiosk, or whatever else it is you might be interested in. There are some amazing views, and some gorgeous scenery, but after three days I was more than ready to move on… so I caught the ferry to Hvar Island, taking the high speed catamaran to Hvar town on Tuesday, and bidding fairwell to the Croatian mainland, for at least a few days. On top of everything else that happened here, I was using the internet as I was waiting on the ferry, and evidently left my notebook there. I realized the second day in Hvar that it was missing, and backtracking, that was the last time I saw it. I went back to the internet shop a week or so later, to see if it was still there, but of course it wasn't... they hadn't seen it. It wasn't the end of the world or anything, but there were lots of random notes in there and many pages of writing in cafes and restaurants that had never been put into the computer in any form... two and a half months of travel diaries missing...



The reason I was back there again is that I met a bunch of people on Hvar Island, and ended up traveling with two of them, Alex and Sinead, for several days. It turned out that I needed to rent a car in Dubrovnik in order to go to Sarajevo and get back in time for the ferry, and Alex and Sinead were flying to London from Split, so I gave them a ride along the way. At the time it seemed like a good idea, and it was of course as I got to see them for an extra day and they didn't have to take the bus, but it ended up being much farther out of my way than I'd thought (it took a good four hours to drive, and added a couple hours to my driving the next day as well), and so it took up more time of my car rental than I had planned. In the end it didn’t matter much, because I didn’t care for Sarajevo, and was more than ready to leave after only a couple days, but its a good lesson for anyone planning on driving in Croatia or the Balkans... the going is slow. Incredibly scenic, but slow...



Split the second time was a  better city, I have to admit, though it might have been the fact that I knew some people and was hanging out at the hostel that evening (though I didn’t stay there, they were overbooked and turning people away). I was only there for a day, but Alex showed me a good sandwich shop, and Sinead and I spent a good early afternoon in a park and had some fun shopping for a jacket for me. Sarajevo was going to be very cold, with lows near freezing, and in fact the first night in Bosnia, there was heavy frost on my windshield in the morning, but I didn’t end up buying a coat, and my fleece pullover was good enough for the three days I was there... more about Bosnia later, for now, its on to Hvar Town, as that's where I went next...

Stephen

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