We wandered off the ship and into town which was bustling with summer tourists. There was a lovely waterfront area in front of the historic Diocletian Palace. Apparently the Roman leader was looking for a place to retire and he built an enormous palace on the waterfront of Split where he could take in the healing sulphur baths. This is another UNESCO World Heritage site - I think we've managed to see one in almost every place we've visited.

Inside there was another cathedral and more tourists than you could poke a stick at. However we managed to find a small square with a number of cafes and we settled on one to relax and soak up the atmosphere. I tested the local Croatian wine and managed to pick a nice white.

After our short break we continued through the grounds of the palace over the stone paths worn to a brilliant shine through years of use. We returned to the front waterway and noticed a bicycle powered rickshaw. We decided to have a little adventure.

The local tour guide took us around town and up to a headland at the end of the waterfront. It was an easy way to see much more than we would've had time for on foot. The tour was supposed to be 1 hour but he extended it by half an hour before dropping us back at the ship for our 2:00pm catch up with Mark Pecar. We had discovered, via good old Facebook, that he was visiting family in Croatia so we organised to meet up.

After finding Mark, we walked back to town and chose a restaurant along the waterfront. Mark recommended the grilled squid as a local dish. Yum! It was very good indeed washed down with a nice glass of wine for me and beer for the boys. It was interesting catching up on twenty years and great to see that a friendship still existed after such a long time apart. Mark is going to organise a Croatian feast when he returns for Anna and Ivan and ourselves to further reminisce about our younger days! I started feeling old knowing Mark, Anthony and Warren are all retired now!

After returning to the boat Anthony was very happy to see that the maître'd had come good and we now had early sitting for dinner! Yay! And Anthony was happy to see the sunset after dinner instead of before! We had a nice walk around the deck and then an early night for Anthony (I read my book of course!).

We enjoyed Split and I wouldn't mind coming back to enjoy some of the 1000+ islands and the Dalmatian coastline in greater depth. This was just a taster!