Spent the morning walking around the old city centre of Split, which is the Roman built palace of the Emperor, Diocletian. Usual layout for a Roman City, with two main thoroughfares, Cardo Maximus running north-south, and Decumanus running east-west, forming four quarters within a massive city wall.
Not an abandoned ruin like many ancient Roman cities, but a fully working, modern town where the locals still live and conduct their businesses. A fresh market and a fish market were just outside the walls.
Croatia has this funny rule that says you can’t run a free tour. In Zagreb, they charge you an optional dollar donation. However, in Split they deal in big dollar signs (sounds better than big Kuna signs), so the free walking tours start at 30 Euros, which is about AU$50. Consequently there are tour groups of only three or four people wandering about. The rest of us miserly buggers are wandering around in a daze trying to make sense of a map and accompanying walking instructions like (and I quote) “Pass the street (if you can), go forward, slightly left and then right, follow the street and then turn right, down the stairs, slightly left and then right down to the Fruit square”. Try doing that in a first century Roman city, surrounded by Italian tourists.
Anyway, when the number of Italian tour groups reached a crescendo about 11am, we gave up for the morning at station #23, did a left and a right and a do-si-do, and found ourselves outside the city walls on the Riva (kind of their Esplanade), where we had some coffee and did some boat watching for a while.
Lunch and a rest back in the apartment, then later in the afternoon, with the sun well over the yard-arm, we hit the beach for a short swim.
Turned on the telly as tea was being prepared. Only 25 channels available, and three of them had Australian content – Sea Patrol with Lisa McCune, Australian Border Security, and some Australians competing in the World Championships of beach volleyball. It’s rather sad when the most important thing the Croatian public can find to watch on television is a documentary about some Indonesian dude who was caught smuggling several packets of laundry detergent into Australia that turned out to be, well, laundry powder.
Golden Gate
Peristil
Bell Tower
Vestible
Dioceltian’s Cellars
Grgur Ninski
St John’s Baptistry
Riva
Split Beach
Split Beach
Split Beach