Oct. 31, 2018
Split was recommended by a Radiologist I worked with, Dr. Crnkovich. It was stunning. We rented a tiny apartment one block away from the ocean and The Diocletian Palace. We spent the first evening just walking along the waterfront. The next day we walked and walked around the area that the map showed was the Diocletian Palace. We just couldn’t find, The Palace entrance. I finally came across the City Information office and walked in and apologized for being too ignorant to find the Palace. He politely laughed and said I wasn’t alone and that he gets asked that question all day long. It seems we had been walking along and inside the Palace all along. It is a working Palace and all these little shops are part of the Palace.
We stumbled across The Bell Tower, while looking for the Palace and went inside it and enjoyed the gorgeous city views. The Tower is part of St. Domnius Cathedral. It has 200 steps to reach the top of the tower.
I rubbed the toe of the statue of Grgur Ninski. It is suppose to bring luck to those who rub it. Rick wasn’t impressed and didn’t partake in the luck seeking activity. I say, “It can’t hurt.”
The Cellars of the Diocletian Palace were mainly used by the Emperor for food and wine storage. Ships were able to moor at the edge of the Palace and unload supplies. There is a room that is circular and it was built specifically this way so the Emperor could hear if anyone was coming near his bedroom. The acoustics of this room allowed for him to hear noises coming toward the room. The show “Game of Thrones” has also filmed scenes from down in the basement/cellar area.
We did a day trip from Split along the coast to Dubrovnik. We passed through the borders of Bosnia. It was only about 8 miles of Bosnia. Rick’s expression was priceless when he heard the guide mention for us to get our passports out as we neared Bosnia. 🙂
We walked along the entire wall of the Palace. The views did not disappoint, which I was glad about because I wasn’t sure Rick was too excited to do all the walking. We were able to enjoy the Rector’s Palace as well as the beautiful view of Minceta Tower. We were reminded of the Serbian army destroying a major portion of this area during a 7 month period. They have since made repairs and we didn’t noticed any damage. There is so much history here and I promise it would have made history class 100% more interesting if we could have had field trips to these places. Again, the “Game of Thrones” does many of their scenes from Dubrovnik.
Our last night we took a sunset cruise and as always it reminds us both how much we love sail boats and the water. The entire boat was looking forward to unlimited drinks and I told one man, I think it is only one drink that is free. He and his whole family were greatly disappointed that it was only one glass of wine each. To make it worse, it was some disgusting wine. Rick and I shared ours with the fish.
No Ordinary Trip 