October 16,2015

Sunny Split

Can we believe it?  It’s 60-degrees with bright blue skies this morning as we look out our window at the harbor and sea beyond.  Nothing will spoil this rare perfect weather day.  Wait, what’s that on the horizon?  It’s a monster cruise ship pulling into “our” town.  Oh no, there’s another one.  So Crystal and Norwegian cruise lines have conspired to dump another 5000 touristos into our midst this morning just as we finally escape the rain.  Oh well, everybody has to be someplace.

We enjoy our balcony views as we get ready for the day and linger over a coffee.  It is gorgeous. Our conundrum this morning is how we’re going to get to Dubrovnik tomorrow and we have been procrastinating about this decision.  Do we rent a car for one of the most spectacular drives in the world with the ability to stop wherever we want?  Or do we take a bus for somewhat less money and look out the window?  One is tense but exciting, the other is relaxed and hum-drum.  So we opt for the splurge and get a car/driver to take us the 3-4 hours along the mountain roads.  He will stop wherever we want and take as long as we like.  He will pick us up at our apartment here and drop us off at our hotel in Dubrovnik.  (This is us trying to justify the extravagance.)  Mary says to John, “happy birthday.”  Antonia makes the arrangements with a fellow she knows and problem resolved.  The stock market was up two days in a row which gives us another avenue of justification.

We start with the same route as yesterday down the hill and through the fish market.  More vendors today and a lot more tourists.  You would think vendors would increase with the number of customers but we can’t believe that the cruise ships folks will be buying a lot of squid.  It is back into the palace and we finish with any Rick Steves recommendations that we might be interested in and then mill around the rest of the inner part of the city.

There is a nice park outside of the palace wall with interesting sculptures, and a little sort-of shopping mall that we explore.  The nature of town has certainly changed today with our 5000 new friends and we conservatively estimate that they will collectively drop at least a quarter million bucks into the local economy today.  We see a couple Minnesota sweatshirts and one Lakeville t-shirt—don’t know if it was north or south.  Eventually we wind our way back to the Riva after exhausting the remaining palace sights.

Mary has today’s plan for lunch.  She had spotted a place this morning that sold a sort of rolled up pizza thing about the size of a wrap and we’re going to find it and have a picnic on a Riva bench.  After almost retreating to our apartment to retrace our steps we finally found the right spot.  We get two and then go to the grocery for 2 cans of beer, find a bench in the shade looking at the water and our lives are perfect.  We were going to trade our pizza-wrap things back and forth but decide the chicken and the tuna both taste the same.  That’s good for neither.  We spend a lazy hour nibbling, sipping and people watching.  It’s probably 70-degrees with perfectly blue skies which is a perfectly fine activity for right now.

When we finally get moving again we checkout the ship harbor moving past all of the local ferries and on to our new cruise ship neighbors.  The terminal is a bee-hive of activity with all the comings and goings.  The view from here of the Split waterfront is lovely—sort of like Nice, France—and we can imagine it to be very welcoming to new arrivals.

We’re just killing time at this point trying to extend the day without really anything left on our list to accomplish.  We look for streets we haven’t walked, stop at the post office for a stamp and then wander outside of the old town up a street past “our” neighborhood.  Eventually we find our way back into our little warren of streets, get into our place, open all our floor to ceiling windows and grab books to get us to sunset.

Dinner tonight is at Bajamonti Restaurant on the top of the square Trg Republike.  It is a huge outdoor venue.  With our cruise ship brothers and sisters back on board and heading out to sea the place is almost empty with just a couple tourists and some locals.  It is pricier than our little neighborhood joints of the last few nights but we have a great location looking down the square to the water.  Mary has a salmon with grilled polenta and John has a sautéed sea bass with a chard and new potato stack.  We have been spoiled by our Eastern European portions and prices which makes tonight’s dinners seem a little precious, but still very good.

This is our last shot at the Riva stroll and there are more people around tonight.  The promenade cafes are busier and there is more life.  With the clear skies the temps have dropped pretty quickly and while it is cool it is a lot better than cold and wet.  It is well after 10:00 by the time we get back, and with a need to get up in the morning we go straight to bed.

What did we learn today? That we have become immune to rambunctious children in public places.  It bothered us a lot on our trip to St. Petersburg but now we barely notice after 5 weeks of indoctrination.