Trogir - Split - Omis

After some stunning time enjoying God's wonderful creation, we decided to see some of the more beautiful towns Croatia has to offer... First port of call for us was a mere hour's drive down the road, a place called Trogir. Strictly speaking, Trogir is an island, but it's so close to the mainland that they've built a full land bridge to get out to it... so you can drive right onto it - though this is not the best idea - (parking cost us a fortune!) Great place - has a beautiful Romanesque Cathedral (St Lawrence's) with an incredibly dodgy tower that you can climb to the top of (if you dare - Cave creek just waiting to happen I tell you...) Mez and I both did, separately of course (Can't risk killing the whole family at once...) actually the buggy just wouldn't fit so we had to do it in shifts... Great views though over the whole town, and of course straight down to the square below where there are open air cafes, little shops, local artists selling their work, and buskers making guitars sound just like they're meant to and giving the whole place an ambience that was just exquisite. Trogir is off the main tourist trail which means it's not quite as busy as Split or Dubrovnik, and which also makes it cheaper! We got some black and white paintings for a mere 20 kuna (2 poundsish) each which was a total steal, and will look great on the wall of our house. If we can ever afford to buy one that is! (might need to stop travelling to save eh?... NAH!!!). The seaward side has walls, complete with big doors with spiky bits on the outside to scratch your back on (or impale yourself depending on how hard you push!)

Outside the walls is a stunning promenade with mega huge private yachts lined up along it to enhance the exotic feeling of the place (like it is some secret place where only the rich and famous go...) Enchanting looking wee castley bits on the corners and of course restaurant after restaurant, all the way along the seafront. Some of which have somewhat amusing names... We stopped for a relaxed lunch, before wandering around one of the fortifications, known as Kamerlengo's fortification... how on earth I remembered the name of that I have no idea... I did save some entry things to jog memory but not that one... amazing the random bits the brain retains eh? Anyway Kamerlengo's fortification was interesting, but looked more impressive from outside than from in, so after climbing to the top of the turret while Mez fed Abbey, we made tracks back through the town for some Gelato (which was fantastic!!!) - then onwards to our accomodation another half hours drive down the road at Split...

Abbey was at her gorgeous best as we arrived and we were greeted by our hosts... The wife let out a squeal of delight when she saw Abbey and then on picking her up, started rabbitting away in Croatian to her (one assumes) telling her how beautiful she was and all that guff. Abbey, with her star temperment grinned away magnificently which was totally gorgeous. Our accomodation was great too, just 50m from the beach where we could swim, and with great views out over the adriatic and back around the bay towards Split.

It had been a GREAT day! So we decided to keep it low key and just relax for the afternoon and have a bit of a nap before heading out to dinner. Dinner was an interesting experience as we selected a bit of a flash restaurant and then went large with a nice bottle of wine and both starters and mains... Unfortunately for us the service was pretty rubbish (in fact at one point when we were ordering drinks, the waiter literally ran out of the restaurant to the bar next door in response to whoops and shouts - clearly there was a national football game on that we had interrupted the watching of!!) Not only was the service crap, it was also exceedingly slow, so what had been destined to be a nice relaxing and romantic night out, turned into a bit of a marathon waiting for food to arrive. The bottle of wine we had ordered was long gone by the time our mains arrived, as had the water, and the waiter was nowhere to be seen, so when he finally did show his face I jumped on him to get us the bill. And it got worse. Despite their incredibly inflated prices and shoddy service, the place had no capacity for accepting credit card payment, so, as I had drunk most of the wine, Mez had to run back to our accomodation (we had strolled down to the restaurant) get in the car, and drive 10 minutes back towards the city to a cash machine, get some cash and then come back and pay.

The fact that the food tasted good was by this stage no consolation at all. Needless to say we didn't tip! Nor return the following evening. But I have to say that despite this being our worst restaurant experience on the trip... when you're on holiday, nothing particularly fazes you... so we just headed off to bed, ready for the next day.

Abbey woke first which is not at all unusual, but she was surprisingly grizzly, perhaps because we were being too slow and having a lazy morning. We attempted a swim at the beach just down from our room, but she was not having any of this 'mum and dad time' and screamed her little lungs out. We hastily retreated from the refreshing water and elected to head for Split. (note smiling mum and dad, screaming Abbey, and what is that in the background? None other than a Karlovacko sun umbrella!)

Split is most famous for being the place where, in the 4th century AD, the roman emporer Diocletian elected to run the roman empire from. To do this, he had built an impressive palace - 800m long along the seaward side, and 500m deep. Great property, but I guess if you rule the empire there has to be some perks. Fortunately for the Croats, they never quite demolished the place, electing instead to just build a city inside the palace, which is why the city is so unique... Surviving are just the outer walls, and a few of the more important buildings - the temple built to Jupiter, and right next to it the Cathedral of St Duje. (I guess when building for God's Diocletian elected to cover all possibilities... I wonder if that makes him a pseudo first person of Bahai'i faith??(Actually, given that the Cathedral is of Romanesque style it must have been added later... Apologies to any of the Bahai'i faith for a terrible comparison!)) We first wandered through the Chapel of St Lucy (aka the basement!) then through the main part of the church, including the treasury. I just don't get the Catholic fascination with chopping up saints and preserving bits of them in treasuries so that tourists can come and look at them?? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and though i'd love to be a Saint, I'd rather they didn't chop me up, put me on display, then charge an entry fee to see my arms, legs, heart, brain, or entrails. So the tower was next (St Dominus' bell tower which was started in the first half of the 13th century and took over 300 years to build!) and you know, another tower, another extremely dodgy climb to the top, for more stunning views 60 metres above the street below...

Diocletian was keen to impress and borrowed artistic styles from anywhere he could to do so, so just outside the Cathedral, and between it and Jupiter's temple, (on Right) there is an Egyptian styled Sphinx. Just incase he had any pretty Egyptians over for some dinner (or a combined worship service?) Split was totally the place for buying jewellery, and Mez managed to find three nice necklaces there along with some earrings... But I think Trogir had so captivated us the day before, that Split just didn't seem as exciting. Despite this, it was an entirely gorgeous place to wander around for the morning and early afternoon. We had some Pizza for lunch, wandered down to the Promenade along the front of the palace where there are more restaurants, and fed Abbey while we lazed in the sun and played a guessing game of what flavoured Gelato Ryan had... (Yucky flavour would have been a good guess). The chap that Mez is standing next to is Marko Marulic (I think), a poet and thinker and the father of Croatian literature. I'd like to be a 'father of literature' I think... I bet he didn't get chopped up into little bits and put on display!!! Anyway enough of Split already. It was fun. The day was a cracker, so we decided to head a bit farther south to a little town called Omis (ohh-mish).

Omis is most famous for being a town that was inhabited by PIRATES!!! and though we didn't see any pirates, or even any pirate ships, we had seen one the day before in Trogir (see picture as proof!), where they had obviously been lured by all the multi-million dollar launches and yachts and stuff... They weren't flying the jolly rodger in Trogir because they were there 'incognito' trying not to be spotted. They even used a clever disguise for their boat, putting fluorescent floating things off the side of it, to make it look just like the other sailboats. I just happen to be very perceptive which is why I instantly recognised them for what they were. The Pirates loved Omis and settled there because it was an easy place to defend. The river carves its way out between the two mountains making a narrow harbour with natural fortifications that would be nearly impossible to get past (as Mez, my lovely assistant is showing). The photo of Mez on the right is taken from the round bit of the fortification pictured left which we climbed up, taking with us Principessa Abbey in her pram, much to the amusement of everyone we passed. Clearly they knew how steep the stairs were. Clearly we didn't (See right!) Anyway, it was an interesting wander, and we got to see a reasonably beautiful sunset from the top which made the struggle to get up

there almost worth it! Went for a swim at the beach too which was fun, but Abbey was not so impressed (bit cold for her sensitive Principessa feet!) After a relaxed wander back down, we had a nice dinner at another outdoor restaurant and then headed back to Split for some Shuteye. A Great couple of days...