Monday, September 21, 2015
It seemed like a short night last night. I don’t know why.
Our side of the hotel was quite quiet. Evidently, those with the sea view also
had a bar open with loud music til after midnight. Poor things. The good news
was that a large percentage of the hotel’s guests must have left on Sunday because
breakfast was quite civilized this morning. We put our luggage out at 10 of 7am
and went to breakfast. We came back and brushed our teeth and used the restroom
and by 8:12am were walking out to checkout and be on the bus by 8:30am. Our bags
were still there. We assumed we had been skipped somehow on luggage pickup and just
took them out to the bus. No one else’s bags had been picked up either.
Gabriella blamed the wind. We could see that it was very windy outside and
still not as hot as it has been. It is still warm. I am still wearing sandals.
But it is not hot. Anyway, there were waiters outside this morning taking down the
terrace furniture and rolling up awnings like it was a hurricane or something.
Now, it was windy. I won’t take anything away from that but it was not severe
weather. Anyway, Gabriella told us it is a famous wind in the area. They call
it the moody wind or the Yugo wind. She said since ancient times through to
Tito’s time that for example crimes committed during this wind are not punished
as severely because it affects people. I guess just people who live here because
we didn’t feel anything different. Interesting though. So we were a little
delayed at the bus setting out. It was another spectacular, world class drive.
We followed the coast along the Adriatic Sea north to Split. We had a few
adventures on the way. For example, there is about a 20-kilometer section that
is in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We had to stop and get our passports stamped. A guy
came onboard and walked through checking and stamping passports. We haven’t
gotten a single passport stamp yet on this trip that has anything recognizable
to the place. Anyway, about 5 minutes later we had a stop in Neum at a hotel/restaurant/toilet/shop.
So, a bonus country! Gabriella says the part we were in is Herzegovina. A
little while later we crossed a river and then drove inland for a while because
there is a kind of delta where the road is not on the coast. We had a photo
stop there overlooking the Bacina Lakes. They were scenic but also very interesting
because they are crypto-depression lakes. That means they are deeper than sea
level which because of the karst geology means that the water at the bottom is
brackish and mullet live in there. We stopped in a pretty little coastal town
called Makarska for an hour or so for lunch. Clay and I went to a place about a
block from where the bus dropped us. It was right across from the harbor front so
we had a great view. We weren’t all that hungry so we just shared a pizza. The
pizzas have all been good. Clay had a beer and I had a Coke Zero with ice! I
wanted the sour cherry crepes for dessert that was what I saw on the menu that
made me pick this place whose name escapes me. But, Clay asked for the check,
paid it and set out away from the bus. He made a beeline to an ice cream stand,
so that was dessert. Then he kept going the same way until he found the one ATM
in town with a line. I didn’t realize he was looking for an ATM because we had
walked by one right outside the bus. Anyway. Back on the bus for another few
hours to Split. We are staying at the Atrium Hotel. It is right beside a large
modern shopping mall. It is supposed to be a short walk to old town, but they
drove us there on the bus and it took about 10 minutes. We checked right in and
got a sea view room (a little piece in the distance!) on the 7th
floor. It is a nice room. We had about 30 minutes to drop our hand luggage and
use the restrooms and then we left for our Split city tour. We really only had
a guided tour of Diocletian’s Palace. Diocletian was the last pagan Roman
Empire Emperor. He was born about 5
miles from here. He is the only Roman
Emperor to retire from his post. He planned it and built this huge palace as
his retirement village/home. He did live out the end of his life and died and
was entombed here. After he died, people left and poor people squatted there
for centuries. In the 14 and 15 hundreds rich people started building inside
there and now those buildings are also preserved. It was all quite unexpected,
unique and amazing. They have filmed a lot of Game of Thrones here in Croatia and
specifically in Diocletian’s Palace. Our local guide today told us that Spain
had offered the production 2 million dollars to move production there next
season, so it is gone from here now. It is too bad we are only here for a half
day. I doubt we have done justice to Split. We walked over to the mall during
our free time to get me a replacement toothbrush since the switch broke on my
last powered travel toothbrush. I like this new one better. We’ll see how it
lasts.
Dinner was included at the hotel tonight. It was at 8pm! It
has been a long day. It was a set menu so we had to order this morning. I ordered
beef with gnocchi and Clay ordered vegetarian because he didn’t want salmon.
Vegetarian was fried cheese and risotto. He didn’t want that either. I switched
with him, but he didn’t want the beef either because it was covered in a local
sauce of some kind that was kind of sweet. They served a minestrone type soup.
Clay ate both bowls. They served some kind of salad that I didn’t touch and he
ate his. They served some weird dessert with 3 layers that neither of us could
identify but we mostly ate it. Now it is past our bedtimes.
We have our earliest start tomorrow for what Gabriella calls
our most physically demanding day. We have breakfast from 6am to 8am. Bags out
at 7:15am. Bus leaves at 8am. We go to Trogir in the morning. We stop somewhere
for free time for lunch. In the afternoon, we arrive at Plitvice Lakes and
spend about 3-4 hours hiking 4 of the 16 terraced lakes. She says it is over
200 steps back to the hotel at the end of hours of walking. She didn’t specify
if it was up or down the stairs! I can’t imagine that it will be more strenuous
than the Dubrovnik city walls walk, but I’ll let you know tomorrow.
