2022 World Tour – Split & Zadar Croatia
Hello from Split & Zadar, my twenty-third and twenty-fourth stops on the trip. I’m skipping the summary and history since it’s the same as Dubrovnik.
The bus ride up the eastern coast of the Adriatic was comfortable but had one weird situation. We had to leave Croatia, enter Bosnia and Herzegovina with the standard out and in procedures, drive 12 miles and then enter Croatia AGAIN, with the standard out and in procedures. I had no idea this quirk of geography exists – Croatia is actually two separate land areas split by a narrow piece of Bosnia and Herzegovina called the “Neum Corridor” that comes right down to the sea. I guessed this quirk was to give B&H a salt-water port as part of the negotiation of the peace treaties after the wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia, but it goes all the way back to 1699 and the Ottoman Empire out of Dubrovnik’s fear of Venice’s power. Check out this article for all of the details: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-bosnia-ended-up-with-just-12-miles-of-coastline
I arrived in the coastal holiday hotspot of Split right on time and rolled 1.5 km uphill to my apartment. The room is very small but manageable and a terrible bathroom, but the worst problem was lack of Wifi, even though it was listed on the booking web site. Well, I should say that my devices connected to the Wifi network, but there was no active Internet connection coming into the router. Luckily due to a default password in the host’s router, I was able to log into it and reboot which got me about 15 minutes of service before it shut down again. I contacted the host but he just ghosted me for the whole time. I finally contacted booking.com and asked to be relocated. They responded two days later saying they were giving me an $18 credit towards my next booking. Well that really sucks. Bad host and tone-deaf booking site that’s supposed to be on my side. Morons.
Anyway, there’s lots to see and do here so let’s get outside. I found a sweet laundry lady and dropped off my full load, although the pin for her location wasn’t accurate so I submitted a change on Google Maps.
Now, you’ll remember from Dubrovnik that it’s summer in southern Europe. It’s 40C+ in the sun so this is when you start hunting for shady spots and keep yourself hydrated. I walked down to the beautiful marina area with hundreds of tourists – it’s holiday time here and the prices are so high. The marina was apparently the end point for an exotic car rally, with a few Ferraris, Porsches and two Lamborghini SUVs parked there on display. I found an Irish pub to try to get a Kilkenny and cool down but I couldn’t see the far wall through the cigarette smoke. I asked the barmaid if there was a non-smoking area, she said “Welcome to the Balkans.” Yeah welcome to lung cancer and smelling like an ashtray.
I found a cool, in both senses of the word, jazz bar and the barmaid was quite funny and said she was there to offer sympathy to her customers. At first I said I don’t have anything in need of sympathy in my life then I remembered the Wifi. She said “Yes, why does this happen?”, best bartender ever! For dinner I had gorgonzola risotto in a place across from the 600 year old City Hall. Several Game Of Thrones souvenir shops here too because some scenes were filmed here, including Diocletian’s Palace where Daenerys locked her dragons in the basement and St. Domnius Catholic cathedral, the oldest in the world dating from the 7th century. The Klis Fortress overlooking the city is the filming site for Mereen.
I took the Big Red bus tour which first looped around the city but frankly there’s not much to see beyond the old city and marina. The other loop went up to Salona to do a walking tour through the Pagan / Roman / Christian ruins that was once the Roman capital in Dalmatia.
The next day I walked to the nearby beach. It’s muddy and sandy and gravelly and full of people. I went for a dip, walking out at least 100 meters due to the very gradual slope. Chilly but refreshing.
Since the Wifi is crap, I searched for a co-working space. The one in the marina area is closed because it’s Saturday but I see another one open 24 hours up the hill. I get there and it’s not to be found, no signs, just a building with restaurants along the ground floor. With the help of a restaurant lady, I find I have to go inside the building and up a broken escalator to find it. I see people inside but the door is locked. Someone finally comes over and I explained that I just wanted a few hours of Wifi, she said there’s no manager here on the weekend so I can’t stay. What? She helpfully called a manager who said she doesn’t do “intake” on the weekend. It’s apparently a “membership” place and she doesn’t work on the weekend to sign up a new person. No such thing as drop-in. Ugh. I went back down to the restaurant and ordered lunch and happily worked for the afternoon with aircon and Wifi.
Coming home I met the kid staying in the unit next door with the same owner. He said he also had the Wifi problem. The owner promised to come out and fix it but never showed. He also said his unit was really dirty and had lots of bugs. That’s some quality accommodation right there.
The next morning I walked in the broiling heat to the bus station and got my ticket to Zadar, the next big town further north along the coast. I arrived in another comfy bus and find my apartment, it’s brand new construction with a large main room, a big comfy bed, a big bathroom, great shower stall and super strong Wifi. Yay!
At 8pm I walked about 7 minutes to the bridge that goes into the Old Town peninsula. I caught the sun halfway touching the water horizon, flaming red and orange. Lots of people standing on the bridge watching the sun go down. I walked all the way around, trying to stay near the old city walls but it’s not a fully walled fortress like Dubrovnik. There are lots of shops and restaurants, plenty of ruins from the Roman times, and churches from the Middle Ages.
The next day I walked through different parts of the Old Town, drenched with sweat. Lunch and gelato to cool off, then headed home for the aircon. I had a Zoom call with the kids from the Barcelona AirBnB, happy to see everyone is doing well.
The next day I headed into the marina area but spotted a shop with the logos of Analog Devices and Microchip, these are specialized electronics parts that you don’t see every day. Turns out it was the shop I would do for myself, full of electronics parts, meters, drones, Arduino and Raspberry Pi boards. Ah, a toy store for electronics geeks!
Trying to stay cool I went to the local cinema and asked what was showing either with English audio or subtitles. The helpful girl said the “Lightyear” movie was English, so I bought a ticket. About 10 minutes in, I realized it was in Croatian with no subtitles. Oh well, this kind of Pixar movie about Buzz Lightyear’s early adventures you don’t really need the dialog. Pew pew! Boom boom! Smash smash!
Taking a last loop through the old town I came across an outdoor amphitheater next to the big church and the waterfront where an orchestra was doing a rehearsal for a concert tomorrow. Near the far tip of the old town there are two notable sites, one is a very large array of solar panels set level into the stone walkway – during the day they charge up batteries and at night they put on a light show which was uniquely entertaining. The other is a “sea organ” with hollow tubes set into the seawall that cause air to be pushed through and make random musical notes as the waves roll in.
Next Stop: Zagreb, Croatia and the life that almost was.
