Roland's Travelog: Split and Balkan Food

First impression of Split is that it just seemd to be a city full of hot young ladies ! Coming off the boat I had found one of the older variety with a room to rent and she also like yesterday tried to increase the price once I arrived. We had agreed on 120 kuna, then when i got there, there was the 'solo use 150 kuna'. Surely she had noticed on the 10-15 min walk that I was on my own ?? I refused anyway and as I was a bit tired just stayed there anyway even though it was a bit of a dive, grey walls, concrete floor, ancient wooden bed and as I found out the next morning no hot water (unless that was just because I hadn't paid out the extra).

Walked wound the market stalls selling loads of clothes, fruit & veg and various Balkan snacks of which the most common I had found so far was 'burek'. A filo pastry slice with a choice of fillings. In Slovenia you could have apple, spinach or meat, in Croatia it seemed to be meat or crumbled feta cheese. Apple ones in Slovenia are especially recommended, but they are all pretty good, even if they are a bit greasy !

Left: Vegetable Market stall in Split
Right: A meaty burek

First thing to do was visit Diocletian's Palace - a World Heritage Site - and explored around the old streets there which was quite nice but didn't last long. Then I took a bust to Solin (Salona) an ancient roman capital of ....? At this point the weather was still scorchingly hot. After getting off at the wrong bust stop and walking 2 or 3 km to the site I started checking out the ancient roman ruins just as dark clouds approached over the mountains surrounding me. Quick dash around, didn't make it to the amphitheatre, but fortunately I did make it back to the shelter of the cafe, before the threatening storm which looked to great to ignore reached diurectly above and released a torrential downpour of rain. Quick beer sheltering in the cafe from the thunder and lightning and took a bus back to Split.

Arriving back it was raining harder than if you held all the showers in the world above Split and turned them all on at full power simultaneously. Within a short time the streets were like rivers and crowds sheltered under cafe umbrellas and in entrances to buildings. At moments when it eased to simply 'raining very hard', people dashed from one point to the next trying to make some progress towards their next destination. I watched and dashed around myself ignoring the intriguing alleyways and architecture, noticing only all the pretty ladies dashing everywhere.

Evening was spent in an ideal little cafe, over looking the harbour with good muic and a constant supply of the excellent Croatian beer, Karlovacko.