Kevin Blake's Blog

On the way to Split, we travelled through the second country on our trip. Dubrovnik and southern Dalmatia is cut off from the rest of the mainland by a small 9km corridor that was awarded to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1945. This is the country’s only access to the sea, even though Bosnia’s trade in this way still goes through Ploce. Maybe they’ll get round to building a port their soon. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy, but the idea of stopping in Bosnia is met with a kind of “eh, that could be okay, I suppose”. Not exactly for the reasons of any in depth tours, because I’d rather save that for another time, but – I have been to Bosnia now, and if anyone asks – I can tell them the charming little tale I’m telling you now. So, that’s a plus. We stopped in a little settlement called Neum. Cigarettes and food is reportedly cheaper here, so all the inter-city busses passing through the area do the same. Makes sense. A few pictures, “Kev in Bosnia”, “a road”, “some green” and we were on our way out the other side to the second passport checkpoint. No stamps in the passport though Yet more reason to visit Bosnia properly.

Not much else to note, but on the way in to Split, the coach had the radio on. And I heard the familiar jingle, “Ba de ba de baaaaah. something something something”. The Something’s were “I’m lovin’ it”. I assume. 10 points to anyone who can tell me what “I’m lovin’ it” is in Croatian (save up 100 for a free soft toy). If not, I will do my very best to go to McDonald’s tomorrow and find out. So, that was cool, because I was beginning to worry there were no McDonald’s in all of Croatia.

For this part of the trip, we have a private room in Split (10 pounds a night, each!!). Bargain. Anyway, a few nights here before heading up the coast. If we go missing, please send the Air Force to 21 Duplancica Dvori. It’s a lovely little room really. Not as many flies as the Hotel Odisej, and slap-bang in the middle of a real residential part of town.. Great for hearing the cheers last night as we lost at the football

Split has a rather cool little tourist card, called the Split card. Genius. Wait for it, it gets better. The Split card has this little slogan “Split your costs with Splitcard”. See what they did there? With the word ‘split’? Come on, get on the phone and hire those marketing pros for your own company. Right now. I wonder if it works in other languages. It might work even better in Croatian. Or perhaps Split means “double” in Croatian, the slogan has to be extended to be literally translated as “Double a quarter of the normal price and make loads of savings with your Split (Double) card”. Maybe I think too much, or at least voice those thoughts too much. To cut a long story short, it costs about 3 quid, and gets us into museums and places for free. Or cheaper. Or full price. Depending where you are of course

Split has been a very different experience to the rest of the holiday so far. It is a city that feels very much alive. Full of bustling tourists, and Croatians all very animated and lively, the Riva on the seafront is jam packed full of people enjoying coffee early in the morning, and we did have trouble finding a seat. A far cry from the out of season empty cafe’s we experienced in Mljet and even in Dubrovnik (to a point). For people-watching, Split seems like the place to be.

It is also home to a …. wait for it… Old Town. There seems to be a recurring theme in Croatia, that “Old Town” is where it’s at. Maybe I don’t have many big cities to base this off, and if we make it as far as Zagreb I can be a bit more learn’ed on this fact. But everything you would want to see is in Dubrovnik’s Old Town. That’s within the old medieval city walls. I’m not just talking about cathedrals, churches and museums. Even all of the shops are inside the old town. The same is true of Split. Big walls, and in there you have all of the shops, Internet Cafe’s a cinema, the palace, city museum, cathedral, the list goes on… Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice having it all right there So we had a look around the Cathedral of St Domnius, paid 5 kunas to go and climb the bell tower. Which was probably the best 5 kunas spent so far. I also paid another 5 kunas to go and visit the crypt, which was probably the worst 5 kunas I’ve spent so far. No dead people or anything. A nice altar and candle though.

The cathedral entrance is flanked by two black granite Egyptian sphinxes, which were pretty cool – just because they date back to around 15BC, originally a part of Diocletian’s mausoleum. “Who is Diocletian?” I hear you all scream. Well, I’ll tell you. Diocletian was a Roman Emperor in 284, at the age of 39. He was born the son of slaves, but more importantly to this story – grew up in Salona, very close to Split. Diocletian split the role of Emperor into four (The Tetrarchy) which seems like a bit of a brave thing to do, to me. Okay, so historians argue that this might have led to disintegration and civil war, but you can’t blame a guy for trying. He was also responsible for martyring a fair few Christians in his time. Including the patron saints of Split, Anastasius, and Domnius.

Leaving the cathedral, we explored the streets of Split. Pete, overwhelmed by the undeniably terrible smell of fish market (again, wasps all around here. Try taking a wasps nest to a fish market if you still don’t believe me). I fell in love with the narrow streets of the old town instantly. Tall buildings, narrow winding streets. That’s the perfect formula for a good city as far as I’m concerned. There are so many small alleyways and passageways that I have no idea if we have explored them all, but have spent hours walking around in circles with the wonderment of “oh, we’re back here”. Well, I had wonderment, Pete had annoyance. You take what you can get though

On this journey, just around the back of the cathedral is the best little café/bar I have ever been in.
Kavana Duje has really loud heavy rock / gothic music. It’s full of 16-23 year olds (at a guess) with equally rock-goth attire, and I think it’s just great. You go to these sorts of places in London, and you shake your head as you walk out thinking “What on earth are you doing”. I do, anyway. Here though, it just seems right. The music was just right, and didn’t seem nearly as pretentious as most areas seem to be. Oh yes, I did look around the room as I sipped on my beer, staring at the wide eyed hopeful looking faces thinking “shouldn’t these kids be in school?” But I loved every minute of it. Iron maiden t-shirts, dyed black hair, spikes on the wristbands. It’s amazing how much you can respect and warm to people when you don’t understand the language they’re speaking. If I had, I may well have thought “oh my god, please, just shut up”, but I don’t – so I didn’t. All in all, the perfect pub – and I wish I could wrap it up, pack it into my suitcase, and bring it back with me. Saving that, we’re here for a few more days – I’ll go back

Tomorrow, we’re going to check out the zoo and see if maybe they have a mongoose or two (anyone noticing similiarities to Mouflons in Cyprus, you would not be mistaken). We’ll also see what the Natural History Museum of Split is like, again, maybe they will have a stuffed Mongoose, and lastly check out the forest called Marjan, just outside of the Split centre. Hey, they might have Mongoose too!

So, sorry for the multiple blog posts, if you’ve read them all, then very well done It’s just the first day I’ve discovered the iPAQ can be used without having to charge it (charger ain’t working, see) – so all these posts that have been stored up can finally be posted