Split

9th - 12th April 2010

Knowing that we had a long bus trip ahead of us, and we weren't sure if there would be anywhere to get lunch along the way, we made our way to the hotel buffet breakfast with a plan. Dan and I ate up good at the buffet. I think I had 2 ham and cheese rolls, a big bowl of cereal with stewed fruit and yoghurt, 2 hard-boiled eggs and about 4 mini hot dogs. Yep, that's how you do breakfast and lunch in one.

I was a bit concerned about the buses from Plitvice to Split. Although it is only a 250km journey, we were in the middle of nowhere and from the research I'd done online before, lots of people on blogs spoke about difficulties with the buses not coming or stopping etc. We'd found from the hotel that one was due to arrive at 9.45 but we should get there 15 minutes earlier as they often don't run to schedule. We were all organised by 9 so we checked out of the hotel and strolled to the little shack on the side of the road that they call a bus stop. Eventually two American girls arrived and told us that they had had to stay an extra night because the bus they were supposed to be catching the night before, to Zadar, never showed up. Made me a little more anxious that we were gonna be stranded in the middle of nowhere, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Then at 9.45 on the dot a bus pulled up and happily let the 4 of us on. The price of the ticket shocked me a little because it was almost double what we paid the day before. We forked over our 300 Kuna (about $A70) plus the fee to store our luggage underneath and got comfy for the long journey ahead of us. We'd only been on the road about 15 minutes and the bus pulls over at a small roadhouse and the driver announced something in Croatian and everyone got off. We followed, but as it turned out they were only having a 20 minute break. We grabbed some drinks and then got comfy again. I managed to sleep for an hour or so, and after a few more 10-15min breaks we were heading for the coast. We said goodbye to the American girls in Zadar and continued further south along the coast. We finally arrived in Split just after 4pm. Yep, 6.5hours on a bus.

We negotiated the poor directions and small laneways and alleys to find our accommodation. We got a great place. A small studio apartment with a private little garden, and a washing machine!!! We got settled then headed down to the front sea port and grabbed a kebab and sat and ate. They were busy setting up the marina for the Croatia Boat Show that was starting the next day, so we had a bit of a wander and look around at all the pretty boats that were being scrubbed and polished.

We ended up heading for the supermarket to collect some dinner supplies before relaxing at the apartment for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We cooked a lovely dinner of spag bol and called it a night early. It always amazes me that after spending hours travelling that I seem to be too tired to do anything else.

The next morning we had a bit of a sleep in (one of the first of the trip) and got ourselves organised by doing 2 loads of washing. Plus Dan used all the hot water in the shower and we had to wait an hour for enough for me to be able to wash my hair!! Once we finally got out around midday we walked down to the massive markets. I decided that because it was warm and the sun was out that I needed to buy new sunglasses. After an hour of looking through the markets, Dan walked out with a new pair of "Oakey" sunnies and I was left glaring. I did manage to buy a replacement leather bracelet the same as the two I left behind in Glastonbury, but I still couldn't find another coloured one to go with it L. We then walked through the Palace and old town, which is now pretty much the heart of the Split shopping district. We found it really hard to tell where the palace stopped and the town began, because it's pretty much just all shops now anyway. It's a shame, because it's like they haven't tried to preserve any of the historical buildings in anyway. We made our way down to the basement halls of the palace and found they were hosting a wine festival in there. We walked in for a look, but were sorely disappointed. There were about 10 stalls with wine on them, no one offered us a taste, and Dan tried some cheese. We spent all of 6 minutes down there before leaving hungry and thirsty.

We grabbed an awesome meal deal from a kebab shop for lunch; Yummy chicken burgers, chips and a drink for less than £3 each. After we'd eaten we sat down on the waterfront just relaxing and soaking up the warmth. All of a sudden the sky changed colour and it started raining, so we made a quick dash back to the apartment (About 10 minutes) to bring in all of our washing.By the time we got back most things were wet again, so we brought everything into our tiny room and hung clothes up from anywhere and everywhere. By the time we had everything in and sorted out it had stopped raining. We finally decided that we'd put it back out again and just as everything was back on the line, it begun to rain again. Back inside went all the clothes.

After we'd sorted the washing situation we headed back across the other side of the city and up a hill to a nice big viewing point where you can see across the city and port. Others must have thought it was a lovely spot too, because we ran into 2 wedding parties having their photos taken up there. (We actually ended up seeing about 6 different wedding groups throughout the day!!) After we'd made our way back down we decided that ice-creams were in order, and sat on the nice promenade and ate them.

We relaxed back at the apartment for about an hour before heading down to a traditional restaurant for dinner. It was cheap, and a decent feed. Dan had a mixed grill while I had an escalope (Not sure if it was Veal or Pork or Beef) which was served in a bowl with a mushroom & tomato sauce. We slowly wandered back up to the apartment after dinner, but Dan insisted on stopping along the way to pick up some cakes for dessert!

The next day we had a late start as the weather was wet and cold. We ended up going for a long long walk along all the swimming beaches of Split. I thought that they were surprising small considering how touristy Split is. I managed to step in the biggest dog turd ever and because my shoes have awesome grip, I struggled to get any of the poo out!

We managed to find ourselves a burger and chips for lunch and we sat and ate (in the rain) at the edge of the water! We gave up on the weather and headed back to the apartment. Dan almost succeeded in giving me a heart attack when crossing the road. We had the green man, but he noticed a car turning quickly to go up the street we were crossing, so he's just screamed "RUN!" at me, not realizing that the cars are on the opposite side of the road and it posed no threat to us! A few people waiting at the bus stop gave Dan a few weird looks.

We ended up going for a walk up to the Maritime Museum after we'd dried out at the apartment for a while. The museum was just up the road from where we were staying, but when we got there, it we deserted. It was just like derelict buildings in scummy parks. We took in the view quickly before making our way out disappointed. We ended up just drying out at the apartment for a while before going out for "The world's best pizza" (according to the lady who ran the accommodation) for dinner. It was OK, but it was a long way off being the world's best!

Our last day in Split was by far the worst weather we'd seen; Constant heavy rain, and freezing cold weather. Luckily we were able to leave our bags at the apartment, as our catamaran didn't leave until 2.We packed up and put on our wet weather jackets and set off looking for a big shopping centre that was marked on our map. It took us about an hour searching in torrential rain but we ended up finding it. Turned out to be not that big, but it was dry so we had a look around inside for an hour or so. We purchased some garbage bags and headed back to the apartment to pick up our bags.

After we'd completely wrapped our packs up in garbage bags we set off down to the port where we purchased our ferry tickets and lunch. By the time we'd eaten it was pretty much perfect timing; we just strolled up the dock and hopped onto the ferry for the hour long trip to the Island of Hvar!