Day in Split

Lay day today. Walked to town for coffee, picked up the laundry and some fruit from the markets.  They still weigh the fruit in the old style balance scales and the fruit is imperfect shapes and sizes but smells and tastes so delicious.  Just like the old days before everything was mass produced.  Not a word of Australian is spoken so it makes for interesting transactions.

The plan then - have a drive around Split, look at the beaches, drop into a shopping centre after lunch, afternoon siesta, then walk down to the old town for tea.  All those plans of mice and men, yadda, yadda, yadda?  It all started badly when we couldn’t find the lookout on the mountain behind Split on the GPS.  No worries, just head in the general direction and there’ll be signs?  No chance, ended up at a guard house boom gate thing, only residents could access the road, we did find a beautiful beach, stopped checked it out then on the road again.  This time we really got geographically challenged, Pam ended up telling me where to go, I declined the offer.  Weird how they have roads on a map to the lookouts and they are only accessible on foot or bicycle…we weren’t up to that challenge so we decided to go to the other side of town to find the other beach.

Miraculously found a park and walked down to the beach and along the promenade.  Lots of concrete and white rocks, very hot and the bare rocks/concrete reflects the sun and heat and there is very little shade.  Lots of people baking in the sun, laying on towels on the concrete or rocks, looks very uncomfortable.  The people swimming just stand in the water, then go back to their towels – no surf of course!  It was lunch time by then so we found a spot on the beach – beer/wine and burgers.  Life is really tough at the moment.  Back to the car and to a shopping centre, wandered around there, bought some water and supplies for the trip to Dubrovnik tomorrow.

Brought our stuff back to the unit and relaxed for a couple of hours, walking back down town for tea at about 5pm.  Walked all over those cobble stones we’ve missed over the last couple of days (Don’t worry - there are photos!!).  Pam found a Zara, she said she’d be 10 minutes, long time later I met her out the front, found a place to have tea, then walked some more along the port promenade and home by about 9pm.  All set now for our trip to Dubrovnik.

This is the hill we tried to drive up.  Got halfway before being stopped at the gatehouse.  We did get a good look at the beach we went and visited.

Kasjuni Beach from the hill

Looks good - it just that it's all 20ml gravel.  Everyone everywhere have to wear rubber swimming shoes into the water.

Unless you're diving off the platform, then you leave your shoes on the platform.

Bacvice Beach - there is no actual beach in this photo - all the way round is a concrete promenade.

The sandy beach - I think I can almost see a wave, but I'd be mistaken.

Beach side chairs for hire.

Concrete to rocks to the clearest water ever seen.

One way of getting in the water - dive in, there are ladders at regular intervals around the walk as well so you can climb out.

This is one of the roads we take walking down town.

 These are street scenes from around the old town.

The old and the new.

Shops down this alley and to the right.

Looking for a bargain.

Shop front ina doorway from the 13th Century.

Shop beside a gate built by the Romans about 2000 years ago.

Still no bargains.

Beautiful cobble stones worn with age.

No room to pass.

Split with the sun going down behind me, brilliantly lighting up the town and mountains behind.