The first part of our holiday is quickly drawing to close with this being the last full day on tour with Intrepid. We’re just starting to get to know our travelling companions a little better but, alas, it will soon be time to bid them farewell. I guess that’s one of the problems with such short tours (seven days in this case), a problem we haven’t faced before as they’ve all been at least twice as long, so far. At least we got to spend three weeks with Guido! That’s a bonus!
Everyone has been fabulous, all really good people with whom you’d love to be able to travel further with. As I said in my India blog, to experience the sights and the sounds and the food and the cultures and the customs of foreign lands is why one travels abroad but it’s the people you travel with who make the difference. Each and every one of the ten other people we’ve travelled with on this leg has contributed to making our time island-hopping up the Croatian coast a time full of great memories.
This morning’s alarm sounded at 6:10am. The ferry that dropped us off on Wednesday morning in Hvar continued on to Split. She was going to be back again at 7:30am and were going to re-board her to take that final leg. Everyone in our group from the scattered temporary homes joined us down the far end if the dock to greet the ferry. Finding a seat onboard was not easy as she was already pretty full but we did manage to find one right up the front next to the most popular man in Croatia – his phone barely stopped ringing for the first 20 minutes of the voyage. On another perfect Spring morning we docked in Split, the second most populous town in Croatia. A vehicle was there to greet us (well, our luggage at least) at the end of the dock as Bashkim had arranged for it to be transported to our hotel, thereby relieving us of the burden of lugging it to the hotel which was a little distance from the port and then coming back into town.
At 9:00am, after a bite to eat and a coffee, we met our tour guide for the morning – local lass who knew her home town and its history well. We started outside the Diocletian's Palace, an ancient palace built by the Roman emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century. While it’s referred to as a "palace" because of its intended use as the retirement residence of Diocletian, it’s actually much more like a very large fortress. About half of it was for Diocletian's personal use, and the rest housed his military garrison. Today, the palace/fortress hold about half of the residences and commercial buildings of the old town of Split. Croatians like to claim that it is the largest and oldest palace in the world that is still occupied by coming folk. Within the walls of the fortress one can find a magnificent example of an ancient Roman town. All that work by those supremely skilled artisans, stone masons and slaves has stood test of time. To be able to in a room that is 17 centuries old and look up at the arches and the vaulted ceiling is pretty special for me – once a student of Latin. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, those Romans sure knew how to build things that last. BTW, Diocletian is an interesting chap who I must read some more about.
Possibly his “lifetime achievement” was recognising that by the end of the 3rd Century the Roman Empire wasn’t travelling so well thanks largely to those pesky Christians so he devised a scheme to put some of his mates in positions of ultimate power in different parts of the Empire to keep a closer eye on things. The Empire was just too big for one poor, little Emporer to manage all by himself. I guess that probably makes him the “father” of job sharing. The plan worked and some historians say extended the life of Rome’s control over the known world by 150 years or so. He was also the first Emporer to voluntarily give up his job which perhaps makes him also the “father” of early retirement – a man ahead of his time.
The group disbanded in a park outside the palace gates and we all trotted off to do our own thing for a few hours. Kerry and I walked back to the Peristil (the main square) where we visited the Cathedral (a Roman mausoleum converted to a church by them Christians), the Treasury (full of really interesting artefacts from or related to the palace over the centuries) and the Bell Tower – love a good bell tower to climb! This one started with really steep, really tall and really narrow steps which, once the actual bells were reached, gave way to much-easier-to-climb steel stairs. 360 degree views over Split, of course.
While I was climbing the Bell Tower Kerry found a shop or two in need of a financial boost from the Smith coffers. I scored a nice Croatia tee-shirt out of the expedition so no complaints here. After we re-united at the Peristil we wandered the ancient lanes of the palace past excavations of the original Roman buildings lost under centuries of “improvements” made by others as time went by. I was particularly impressed with the mosaic tiled floors that had been uncovered. Romans making things to last, again. A tiny bar tucked away in a quiet corner, well away from the tourist throng below, provided a cool drink over-looking the Split harbour through the arches of the original palace walls.
Back at the park we met our companions and proceeded to our hotel, a kilometre or so from the palace. And a very nice hotel it was – the best of all the Intrepid hotels we’ve stayed in to date. Kerry had a snooze while I went to the rooftop pool for a swim and a chat with Vicky and Ahmed. It’s one of those “endless” pools where the water appears to just tumble over the edge of the building. Cool! We had a bit of a scare as we prepared to head off to meet our friends for the customary “farewell” dinner – one of our backpacks was nowhere to be seen! Kerry calmly went back down to Reception and there it still was where I’d left it a few hours earlier. Phew! Time to “double down” on the checking routines.
Dinner was at a Konuba – a Dalmatian restaurant that serves mostly local food. Like the other night in Korcula, the chap who waited on us seemed to be the family patriarch. We enjoyed lovely, simple and fairly inexpensive meals, toasted a great holiday and our leader, Bashkim, for his tireless work to make our brief holiday together a memorable one. On the way back to the hotel we passed a crowded, noisy bar that had spilled out onto the street. It took no convincing at all for it be agreed that one last celebratory drink was the order of the day.
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