I’m very happy to finally be on a Croatian ferry out to an island. It’s a two hour ride to Hvar, which is about 42 miles from Split. As usual, since we’re late in the season there are limited runs and options — and we had a few rainy days but today is supposed to be at least partly sunny and not windy. Not that we’ve let this deter us from touring around. And having nice meals. I met up with Elaine and Stephanie on Wednesday late afternoon and we had a nice dinner in a Konoba (a restaurant supposedly owned by fishermen so fresher fish. Ironically our least favorite dish was the octopus in a chickpea stew. But the charcuterie and cheese was delish).

Split is by far the largest Croatian city I’ve been in — it’s the second largest in Croatia (after Zagreb). It used to be more of a transit hub than a tourist destination (there’s an airport as well as big bus and train stations). But the old town area is lovely. And now cruise ships have discovered it. Diocletian’s Palace is the big draw. It’s not just one building but really a whole little town. Diocletian is famous (or infamous) for being the last Roman emperor to persecute Christians. Fun guy. He actually chose to retire from Rome (unheard of to abandon ultimate power in his day) and built himself a palace in Split, near his hometown of Salona. The amazing thing is there are several temples, columns, and structures still standing from the 4th century AD. Of course the Christians got their final revenge because they destroyed much of the mausoleum that he left for himself, literally defaced the sphinxes he brought in from Egypt (only 3 out of 12 remain and only one has a head still), and repurposed his Roman temples into Christian churches. The coolest thing about the Palace is that the basements survived semi-intact. Over the years it was buried and even used as sewers but WWII bombings helped uncover a lot — it’s still being excavated. The rooms are enormous and reflect the size and proportions of the original palace built above it. As well as the materials and the classic Roman barrel ceilings. And they left an olive press! It was pretty immense and cool. We heard that the basement was used in GoT where Daenerys kept her dragons. Honestly, though the rooms were large I don’t remember it looking like that. Or maybe I’m remembering a different scene. Or maybe we heard wrong.

Other than Roman ruins, there’s a lovely Marjan park that overlooks Split. Despite the rain, Elaine and I walked to the top and took some lovely photos of Split and neighboring islands in the gray. We also made it to Trogir, another historic town with an old medieval castle/fortress and walled city. It was a short bus ride away (about 20 miles and 30 mins on the fast bus though we got the local on the way back which was more like 45). We walked around the churches and castle, as well as their Riva. And we had a great meal of lamb and grilled sea bass with locally grown produce and olive oil. (Actually the fish and lamb were also supposedly locally sourced.)

And today was the day trip to Hvar. We had no choice but to be there from 10:30-5:30, though the more touristy town is Hvar Grad, which is another 30 minute bus ride from where the ferry drops us off (in Stari Grad). So we had 11-430 to hang out and we took it leisurely. Hvar is famous for beaches with clear green water and a nice summer yacht/club life as well as historic buildings from the 1200s (days of Venetian rule). Honestly since we were not there for beach and swimming, we wanted to have a coffee on the water, walk around the old town, head to the castle, and admire the green water and pretty white rocks, as well as the islands surrounding Hvar. If you know Elaine you know she has to stop to try to collect interesting rocks for her garden. From the castle we kept trying to get shots of the large island across the sea, Paklinski Otoci, which looks like it has fingers on both sides … at each of the coves, you could see the green shallow water. Even though it wasn’t very sunny, here are a few shots of the island and the clear water that we came across on our side.It was decent weather (not sunny but also no wind and about 70 degrees) and a nice relaxing day. With the exception of some annoying (and I hate to add Asian) tourists who were literally snapping fifty-odd selfies of themselves at every possible point, we enjoyed a chill day. Hvar is a beautiful island.