Split Happens: Croatia’s Gem of a City

For the final leg of our Balkan trip, we left Dubrovnik before 10am on a Thursday morning and drove our rental car north, with our final destination being the city of Split. Split would normally be about a 3 hour drive, but we made a few stops along the way. Our first stop was the walled city of Ston. This town is very small but has a system of surprisingly well preserved city walls. They were built mostly in the 14th century, and are considered one of the longest preserved fortification systems in the world. It was a quiet morning, and we were the only people exploring the walls. We stopped and had some breakfast on the small square, sitting outside (which was a bit chilly but manageable). Ston is interesting, and a nice short stop if you're passing by, but not worth going out of the way for unless you're a big fan of city walls.

Oyster farms along our route. Despite the farms, no one was selling oysters at restaurants because of an environmental contaminate in the farms this season.

The walls rising up the mountain behind Ston.

David climbing a restored section of the wall.

This is the highest we went, but you can climb up all the way to the top of the mountain.

If you know Paul, you know he loves a good historic wall!

Breakfast time!

The Ston sign.

We continued north, stopping by the Klis fortress not far from Split. This Medieval fortress is on top of a big outcrop, with sweeping views to the coast and mountains. It was also a filming location for Game of Thrones. On this chilly, windy weekday afternoon it was quite empty. We wandered around, taking in the views and checking out the indoor exhibits. We then left to go drop off our rental car at the airport - we wouldn't need it for our last few days of the vacation. Overall, it's a nice place to take in some views, but the exhibits need a refresh.

View from the fortress.

Walking up the fortress path.

This picture alone was probably worth the entry fee to the fortress.

Random useless fact: Split has Croatia's tallest skyscraper.

After dropping off our rental car, we took an Uber to our hotel, Central Square Heritage Hotel, which was right on a square in the heart of the old city of Split. It was getting dark already since the sun set so early, but we went out for a little unstructured stroll to get a feel for the neighborhood. Split is the second largest city in Croatia, and it definitely feels much larger than Dubrovnik (it has four times the population). The heart of the old city is the impressive remains of Diocletian's Palace, and you can walk through much of it. It's really interesting how centuries of development engulfed the palace and it's fully integrated into the urban fabric. There's also a cute waterside pedestrian promenade lined with restaurants and palm trees. 

We walked around for a while enjoying the atmosphere of the old city, although it got quite chilly after the sun went down. To get out of the cold, we decided to have some drinks at a bar called The Daltonist. Continuing a theme, we were the only people there. The bartenders were friendly so we decided to ask about this, and they said that it gets packed in the summer, but is very quiet all winter. We also asked them when Croatians eat dinner, and they replied "they don't." Lunch is the main meal, it's expensive to eat out, and there's a strong cultural preference for family meals at home. So we were seeing a lot of empty restaurants not just because of the off season, but also because dinner isn't popular. Well, we did get two free aperitifs with our cocktails since it wasn't busy. 😊

We decided to make this a cocktail evening, and walked over to String's Bar, which has a variety of guitars hanging on the walls and ceiling. They also had very good cocktails. By now we were hungry, and decided to look for something other than Croatian (since we had eaten a lot of local/regional food over the past week). There aren't too many options, as almost all restaurants we saw in Croatia are either Croatian food or broadly European (mostly Italian). But we managed to find a Mexican restaurant called Sanctuary. The waiter was Argentinian and we talked to him about Messi and Atlanta United. The food was OK, but had some odd things - for example pomegranate seeds on the tacos, lemons in the margaritas (which they swore were just "European limes"), and the tortillas were not quite right. The best part were the salsas, which tasted authentically Mexican. We finished off the night with cocktails at Picasso, which apparently is the "it" place in town since it was actually quite busy. And by "it" we just mean the place nearest to where tourists were actually staying in the off-season.

View of the square from our hotel room.

David by the water.

A display of what the palace originally looked like.

View of the cathedral tower and some palace ruins.

There are a lot of random remains all over the old town, such as this mosaic, which is now outside.

The vestibule/rotunda, once a grand meeting hall.

Yummy cocktails at The Daltonist.

String's bar.

Hey, some "not Croatian" food!

Mexican food in Croatia - not quite right, but not too bad. David's enchiladas were better than the tacos.

Our hotel at night.

The bar of Picasso.

On Friday, the last full day of our trip, we started with omelets for breakfast at the restaurant next to hotel, which was included in the hotel price. While the evening before we had walked through some of the public parts of the remains of Diocletian's palace, now we bought tickets to the "substructures" which are essentially the cellars and lower levels, where you can get an idea for the scale of the palace. We spent about an hour wandering through and reading the signs explaining the history and engineering of the palace structure. 

Next, we went to the adjacent Cathedral of Saint Domnius, which is built into the 4th century mausoleum of Diocletian. It's apparently the oldest cathedral on earth still in its original structure, although the bell tower was added in 1100 and extensively renovated in 1908. The church is a circular space, and has rich layers that show its long history - for example a few spots where the floor is plexiglass and you can see through to the original flooring. Our ticket included the bell tower, so we climbed up that next, leaving the church just in time to avoid a large religious (possibly Ethiopian) tour group. The bell tower views were spectacular, since it was a crystal clear sunny (and windy) day with brilliant blue skies. We were the only ones up there.

Afterwards, we walked a block over to the old Temple of Jupiter, but it was unfortunately closed in the off-season, so we went into the palace treasury which is being used as a small museum. The museum is worth a check-in, especially since it's included in the pass for the church and belltower.

David in the substructure of Diocletian's Palace.

View of the remains of the palace from a courtyard, with layers of buildings above.

The dome of the cathedral.

The impressive wooden doors, carved in 1214.

Ogres have layers, Split has layers.

Looking out across Split from the Belltower.

How often does David think about the Roman Empire? More than most!

Columns.

David looking at the Temple of Jupiter from outside.

Demon's apparently need bellows too!

Brilliantly blue sky through the oculus.

After getting our fill of the oldest part of town, we made our way over to the main archaeological museum in the city, aptly named the "Archaeological Museum in Split." On the way, we passed through the Republic Square, which was lined by nice historic buildings and was currently occupied by a long line of elementary school kids possibly out on a field trip. They were walking side by side, holding hands, using the buddy system. Super cute. 😆

The Archaeological Museum in Split has a large indoor and outdoor space with exhibits on mostly Roman artifacts including: jewelry, tombstones, mosaics, weapons, etc. While we were visiting, there was a special exhibit (Momento Mori) on death and funerary customs in Roman Dalmatia (Split area). We'd recommend a stop here, it's about a 15-20 min walk from the center of Split.

After the museum we stopped by a sandwich shop called Foccacina and ate outside by the waterfront. The not surprisingly focaccia bread sandwiches were very good! Paul had prosciutto and David had ham and truffles. After lunch, we strolled around the walled part of the city, did some shopping, got some ice cream and went back to the hotel for a siesta.

Restaurants and shops near the waterfront.

Paul enjoying the brilliant sunshine.

Republic Square.

Graffiti in Split.

A Roman tombstone at the archaeological museum.

Entrance to the archaeological museum and its gardens.

An old Roman mosaic.

Intricate!

A diagram showing the construction of a freeway near an old Roman site. Excavation of this site unearthed many of the artifacts in the museum today.

Motorcycles are a major form of transportation in the old city.

Waiting for our sandwiches at Focaccina.

Honestly...we should have just shared one. Look at that thing!

The Croatian National Theater in Split.

Closer to sunset, we went back out to explore the town, grab a drink and dinner. The lighting was really nice at sunset so we walked back down to the waterfront and strolled through some gardens. In a garden just outside the city wall on the east, sits a statute of a Croatian national hero (Gregory of Nin). It's apparently good luck to rub his toe, and you can tell from the picture below it's well worn. Not ones to ignore tradition, we followed suit. From there we grabbed a cocktail at šetač bar, but had to sit outside in the cold to avoid the smokers. Needless to say that was a quick (and cold) stop before heading back to the hotel to clean up quick before having dinner at Bokeria. This was probably one of the nicer meals we had while in Croatia, and the restaurant was actually pretty full (we're sure mostly of tourists).

Sunset on the waterfront.

How many rubs does it take to get to the center of a bronze statute? 1...2...3 billion?

Gregory of Nin - owner of the lucky toe - Croatian national hero.

Another wedding we came across.

Cocktail so fancy.

The cats in Croatia are well fed, don't you worry about them.

David waiting for dinner at Bokeria.

The following morning we grabbed breakfast from our hotel and took a short walk around the city center to get in a few steps before heading to the airport and sitting on our butts for the 2 hour flight to Amsterdam and then the 8 hour flight across the Atlantic. On the way to the uber meet-up point (since cars can't come into the central city) we met another traveler asking if we were looking for the bus to the airport. We invited her to join us in our Uber and had a great conversation. Turns out she's a Swiss national in Croatia for a boating safety course (it was two weeks long). After parting ways at check-in she found us at our gate and gave us her contact info and two bars of Swiss chocolate for sharing the uber with her! Moral of the story - invite strangers into your car to the airport and you might just make a new friend and find a tour guide for an inevitable trip to Switzerland!

Our trip home went well...but unfortunately David's luggage did not make the journey on the same day. After waiting for 30 minutes at the baggage carousel we found out that his bags were pulled from the Split to Amsterdam leg of the trip due to weight limitations of the plane. Delta coordinated delivery of the bag to our apartment 24 nerve-wracking hours later. May this be a lesson to never check bags if you can avoid it (which in this case we could not...since the folks at the Split airport mandated we check our carry-on size bags 😡)!

Last view of the old part of Split.

The Split airport is really modern and cool looking...but definitely in low demand in November.

Split from above!

The Alps on the way to Amsterdam. Not enjoying this view with us today was David's bag.

So ends our week-long Balkan adventure. Most of the trip was in Croatia, but we definitely enjoyed our quick two night jaunt over into Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia is a really interesting country, but overall, we'd say there's a reason or two why people don't put it on the same level as its southern European neighbors like Spain, Greece and Italy. A lot of what people do in Croatia revolves around spending time in or on the water, which wasn't as much an activity for a November visit. The cities are really cute and well maintained but they don't have a ton of museums or other sights to see. If you're planning your first trip to Europe, unless you have a cultural tie or something in particular of interest to you here, you'd better off going somewhere else. 

Split was definitely a highlight of the trip - with the ruins of Diocletian's Palace built into the city and a good archaeological museum, but in the off season many other sights in town were closed. We've heard stories from friends that visited in the summer and their experiences were very different. They warned about overcrowding and scorching heat. I think if we were to return to Croatia, it'd probably be closer to the shoulder seasons - maybe early to mid May or October - and we'd look into taking advantage of the many beautiful islands and beaches of this Adriatic nation.