Split

Day 470 (October 10, 2019) – Split, Croatia

Off mainland Croatia are thousands of islands scattered in a broad arc across the Adriatic Sea. The thing to do in summertime is to hop from one island to the next, which is made very accessible by a huge network of inter-island ferries. We thought about doing this ourselves, but we were a little late in the season. In October, many of the ferry routes were running limited service, and by November many would cease entirely until the spring. We'd also already had our island hoping experience across Thailand’s Andaman Sea, so we felt like we weren’t missing out on too much.

We did, however, choose to take the ferry from Dubrovnik to Split, which made stops at a handful of the major islands on the way. Had this been earlier in our trip, we might have tried to do a day trip at one of the islands along the way, but we had no energy for that anymore and went straight through to the last stop in Split. This was also a way to avoid a double border crossing out of and then back into Croatia through Bosnia and Herzegovina, which owns a small piece of ocean-front property in the middle of Croatia’s stretching coastline. Despite departing around noon, we didn’t arrive in Split until after dark, which didn’t leave much time to explore.

We were finally able to get our bearings the next morning. Split was gorgeous, but at this point we shouldn’t have expected anything less, after having been in similar coastal towns along the Adriatic like Budva, Kotor, and Dubrovnik. Unlike the others, Split was a sizable city, which was a nice change in pace. It wasn’t nearly as touristy. It felt like people actually lived there and there were plenty of active industries beyond tourism. It reminded me of California. Right on the water, lots of palm trees, and most of the buildings had matching white facades with red tile roofs.

Split has a ton of history and there are Roman ruins scattered all around town. Most of these were from a palace and fortification constructed for the Roman emperor Diocletian to use in 300 AD for retirement. Many of the walls and buildings are still standing and they are all right in the center of town. Modern day cafes and restaurants are located under ancient stone arches and in previously created courtyards. In fact, there is even a cafe that uses the stone steps of the old central square as seating, so you can grab a drink and sit in the square just like someone might have done thousands of years ago.

The town was also very pretty at night. Many of the ruins and most ocean-front property was lit up in the evening. People flocked to outdoor restaurants and bars to grab a sunset drink and have dinner. We tried a Venetian restaurant for dinner one night, but it was pretty underwhelming. I feel really bad saying this, but I think our best meal in Split was at a Mexican restaurant. That’s not to say that some of the Croatian restaurants we went to weren’t good, it was just that this Mexican place was uncommonly good. We honestly could not remember the last time we had a truly decent Tex Mex burrito. And this wasn’t just a close imitation of the cuisine, as we’ve had to accept for other home-inspired meals. This was the real deal. Of course, we didn’t go to this restaurant until our last night. Had we found it earlier in our stay we would have liked to return.

Being on the water, Split also has its fair share of beaches. We walked to a few of them to the southeast of downtown. These beaches, like most others on the Adriatic, were pebble beaches without any sand, but they were still nice to walk on. It was late in the season, so there weren’t too many people out. Only the serious swimmers were in the water, swimming laps along the shore for exercise.

We also used our time in Split to be productive on a few things. We put some finishing touches on our travel plans. All the essential logistics were now figured out and full booked through the end of our trip. I thought this would have meant that we were done, but no, we still had plenty of other preparations to make for our return home. We started looking into our health insurance options (what an incredible headache…) and I even updated my resume and started talking to a job recruiter. That was a rude awakening. It made me realize how long ago it had been since I worked. I was having to remember what it was that I used to do, and it wasn't always easy. We also managed to teach ourselves how to play cribbage. We found a cute café with a strong wifi signal and spent a couple afternoons teaching ourselves how to play from a handful of YouTube videos. We thought it might come in handy to know a few card games before being isolated on a cruise ship for two weeks without any internet. But we still had a long way to travel to get to Rome. We were back to taking trains, and our next stop was in Croatia’s capitol, Zagreb.