Thursday, October 25th, 2007
We enjoyed our hotel breakfast, as well as the robes and slippers (Katie and Dermot are nervous about how much Mrs. B is spoiling them…) and headed off into tour the old city. The town is pretty tiny, after you walk through the castle gate, over the moat; it took us about an hour to walk around the entire thing. We ventured off into little side streets and got to see more of the local’s life.
We even found a little café overlooking the Adriatic, perched on the cliffs on the outside of the wall. After touring and shooing away the incredibly high cat population (neither Katie nor Marge’s allergy medicine could help combat the smell)…. We ate lunch at a little pizzeria right on the marina, and continued to tour the town from outside the walls. Due to the incredible kuna to US Dollar conversion rate, Katie and Mrs. B got massages (about $50 each), while Dermot pumped iron. We had a nice, final dinner with Mrs. B reminiscing about our trip and where she was going to meet up with us next!
On Friday we walked the old city walls, which gave us great views of the town from all angles. We enjoyed our last bit of 5 star (for a long time…) amenities with a light lunch at executive room at Hilton, then we all went to the bus station together. We parted ways with Mrs. B, as she caught the bus to airport and Dermot and Katie caught bus to Split.
Dermot and Katie had a nice drive along the “Highway 1” Croatia all along the Croatia coastline. (Thank goodness for Katie’s big bottle of Dramamine). We stopped at a customs looking checkpoint to realized that we were about to pass into Bosnia & Herzegovina, where all of our passports were checked.
A few stops into our ride, after re-entering Croatia, a very loud talking (on his cell phone) young man started talking to Dermot, but didn’t speak any English. After much pantomiming, dancing movements, praying hands and making a sleeping sign, Katie and Dermot realized that this kid was a little off his rocker. We realized after making sniffing gestures, he wanted us to do/buy/or sell him drugs, so we politely declined and put our headphones back on. The young gentleman also harassed the couple in front of us, so when he got off the bus (thank God), they said “wow, that guy really liked his drugs.” We started talking to Angela and David and learned that they currently live outside of London, but are originally from Madrid. They were traveling Croatia for several days, and they recommended a place for us to stay in Split.
After our 4.5 hour bus ride, we arrived in Split and were attacked by cute old women asking if we needed accommodation. Luckily, Angela and David let us speak with their contact, and we were able to rent their second apartment for two nights.
We walked through the old town, on marble rocks and made our way into a little village to meet Phil, very nice Croatian man who agreed that we could pay at the end of our stay on Sunday.
We all rested and then went to dinner and drinks with our upstairs neighbors. Our dinner was not even $30 for all four of us, and we ended our night at Caffe Paradiso, where Katie and Angela enjoyed authentic hot chocolate ‘cokolada’ that was as thick as real melted chocolate. (Doyle, you would have loved it…haha)