Split

After our heavy touring days in BiH, we were ready to head back into Croatia and hit the beach.  We hit the road just after breakfast because we already knew what awaited us regarding travel time.  At least we thought we did.  Road tripping in Bosnia is slow and tedious.  Many small towns make you slow to a crawl, and even the fastest stretches are only two lanes, and then you are inevitably stuck behind a truck.  We were prepared for the fact that the 240 km (150 miles) would take us 4 hours.  We were not prepared for the fact that the GPS would not have route information for vast stretches of the drive, that we would actually be taken off paved roads and onto dirt ones or that part of it would lead us through a ski town in the middle of nowhere that turned us loose into the wilderness with rock roads that were created and destroyed by the mountainside falling onto them.  It was an adventure, to say the least.

But we made it.  And the moment we crossed into Croatia and saw that sea shining in the distance we knew it was all worth it.  And it was.  We spent 2 days touring and wandering and marveling and jumping into the sea.  It was fantastically fantastic.

I won't go into too many details about our tour of the Diocletian's Palace, which makes up about half of the entire city of Split, but will put a few details as captions under the photos.  It makes it more pleasant for both of us since I am way behind right now (hard drive crashes will do that to you) and need to catch up and Wikipedia will give you all of the information you need if you so desire.

Enjoy a photo walk through one of my favorite parts of Croatia.

Our room for the duration - right in the city center of old town.  It is the top floor balcony right in the middle of the picture.

Our first stop - Froggyland.  A very unique museum of taxidermied frogs positioned doing human activites.  A fun 20 minutes.

We wandered the streets for awhile and even stopped at the street bar for a quick drink before dinner...(above left)

Having dinner downstairs from the apartment where we had some selfie fun...and back to wandering the streets where we encountered some unusual sights...

We had gelato on the seafront and then climbed the steep steps to our hotel.

Ready for our private tour of the Diocletian's Palace - which is actually most of the city of Split.

Two of the entrances to the Palace.

The 24-hour clock.

The interior of the basement of the palace was discovered only a few years ago (it was buried under garbage until then) and was recently used in the 4th season of Game of Thrones.  It is a vast complex that mirrors the rooms above ground.

The bell tower (we would climb it later)

The Peristyle of the Palace.  Which leads you to the Dome (below)

And the klapa singers.  Consisting of 4 male acapella singers, klapa is traditional Croatian music and UNESCO heritage protected.

The Cathedral of Saint Domnius has a two sided alter.

And a statue of Jupiter.  Emporers used to declare themselves God's and Diocletian named himself Jovius, the son of Jupiter.

 The narrowest street in the World (they say).

The statue of Gregory of Nin, the Bishop who opposed the Pope and started holding mass in the Croatian language instead of Latin.

Touring is thirsty work!

There are no green spaces in the center of the city (save the one in the right picture above) so people make the areas pretty with flowers wherever they can.

 Just a quick rest before we take on the stairs to the tower.

Looking up at the 183 steps to the top of the bell tower to get to the view.

At this point, we went to the beach (next post) and then dinner.  On our way home, we encountered a traditional dance show right outside our room, so we stopped to watch and went to be thinking that 2 days was not enough here in Split.