Prague and Central Europe 2017: To Split

Reluctantly left Rijeka this morning, beautiful place and very good hostesses, they gave us a bottle of the local wine when we left, they know the wine maker so they thought it would go well with our next feed. Very nice gesture.

Driving to Split – two ways – the freeway, or the slow coast road. The difference was 4 hours or 8 hours. Of course it was the coast road. I’ve been left speechless and astonished by the scenery, no pictures can tell the grandeur of the landscape, so many roads through so many hairpins through so many rocks. Pam insisted we stop as regularly as possible to get photos, they pale in comparison to the real thing. The roads are so good, the bridges, corners, cutouts and tunnels are an amazing feat of engineering. It was difficult to stop at the places to get the best photos because of the terrain, but we have a small sample of photos to whet your appetite. The colour of the water is also incredible, greens and blues and so perfectly clean.

We have decided many of the drivers/riders must have some sort of radar system in their vehicles, they think nothing of passing on blind corners at double the posted speed, I’m sure we saw half a dozen near misses which would have been disastrous if the worse happened. Scary stuff, we stayed well back. Even on the freeways with a posted speed of 130km/h, I would do 140km/h and pass a couple of trucks, hundreds of cars passed me like I’m standing still.

Called in to Karlobag for smoko at about 11am, lots of little villages along the way, hard to get in to most of them, and if you can they only open in peak periods.

Decided to have a lunch stop at the small town (according to Lonely Planet) of Zadar. Lots of people may not have heard of it, I can assure you millions have. Tourists everywhere!!! The old town is a small walled city, part of the wall is still standing, the streets are very narrow and every doorway and window has some sort of shop. We stopped at a wine bar for lunch, order a beer and a wine – no wine??? Pam have a spritzer instead – tasted like bad vodka – drank it any way. Also – no food. We finished our drinks and got a local sausage in pastry and another sort of roll.

Got away at about 3.30 and arrived in Split at about 5.30. The accommodation is ‘interesting’. I’ll wait for a couple of days to pass judgement – I think Pam has already made a judgement which is not very positive. Anyway, the host is very nice – offered (and I accepted) a glass of home made local ‘Black Wine’. Very nice – at least I’m happy!!! Walked down town to Split where again they have the old town walled in, a real tourist area and very commercial.

Off on a boat ride tomorrow, must find a laundry too.

These are various pictures of our drive - don't worry, we have plenty more to show you when we get home!