Split

After Pula we went to Split. What a journey! It was supposed to be 10 hours but was actually 12. Damn the broken ferry.


Our plan for Split was to go to the beach so we asked about beaches when we got to the hostel, Ingrid on reception reliably informs us that there is only 1 sandy beach & we shouldn't go there cos it's next to a night club where everyone goes skinny dipping at 4am so its a bit disgusting. Fair enough! Ingrid had other advice aswell - mainly about drinking (our kind of girl). She told us about a really dingy dark dive bar called Splash, she said she wouldn't usually tell customers about this bar but she could tell we'd like it there. We decided we'd go the following night after sleeping off our mammoth journey.

We had a shower then went to have a little walk and get some food from the supermarket. I had really really bad wisdom tooth ache so decided I wouldn't eat anything. Russell got the strangest picnic ever. A loaf of bread, tin of tomatoes & a tin of sweetcorn. I had a bit and it was really nice actually. We sat at the harbour feet dangling over the sea eating our weird picnic.

After sleeping for about 10 hours we got up to go to the beach. We walked there and ate last nights weird picnic for breakfast (with added cheese triangles). The beach was a pebble beach as they all are in Croatia - real painful getting in the sea but once in it was lovely. Guess what was for lunch? More bread, tinned tomatoes, tinned sweetcorn & cheese triangles!

After a hard days sunbathing & swimming we went back to the hostel and finished off the bread & cheese (sadly we had finished the tomatoes and sweetcorn). Then we had a few drinks and went to Splash as recommended by Ingrid. Splash was really cool, it was dark and had a jukebox that only had heavy metal. We loved it straight away. We went to sit on a bench outside and a local followed us out to chat to us (he thought we were American). So we chatted to him for a while and he knew Ingrid from the hostel and a bit later Ingrid turned up. We had a really good night, after the bar shut Ingrid took us to a shop to buy beer to drink on the street. As we were doing this we met a couple we had been at the hostel in Zagreb with - strange how we keep seeing the same people all over.

So we had a great night, Russell paid for it the next day. He was not well at all but was determined to go to the beach again. 3 stages of Russell's hangover - 

Stage 1 - Eurrgghhh Cat i feel terrible

Stage 2 - Eurrgghhh Cat, i really don't wanna be sat in a boiling glass bus stop for half an hour

Stage 3 - Been in the sea, gimme another beer

The beach we went to that day was much further away, we were on the bus for about 30 minutes to get there. We had heard it was sandy but that wasn't true. It was concrete. Who has ever heard of a crazy paving beach? It was nicer than the pebbled beach though.

We decided to have a quiet night that night as we were still feeling delicate from our night at Splash and we had to get up for our journey to Dubrovnik the next day. Russell had this great idea to have ice cream for tea, he might have been kidding but I loved that idea so ice cream for tea it is. First we got a corn on the cob and sat on the harbour, the sky was a lovely colour that night, it was really pleasant. Until a guy with a kid runs up right at the side of us, pulls down the kids pants & lets him pee in the sea right next to us. It was a bit disgusting but hey, when you gotta go you gotta go.

We stayed in a really good location in Split, kind of in the middle of a market next to Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian's Palace was built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 4AD as a home for his retirement. After the Roman's abandoned the site it was empty for several centuries. In 7AD residents fled to the walled palace to escape barbarians & ever since then it has been occupied with homes & businesses. This palace is the worlds most complete remains of a Roman Palace and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place such as forest, island, lake, mountain, desert, monument, building, complex or city that is listed by UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance. There are 981 of them, the UK has 28 making us 8th in the world. Italy has the most with 49. I'm trying to figure out how many we have been to & how many we are going to.