Tag Archives: Tourism

Day 5 (I) – Split….

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19th September. Now that I am a gentleman of leisure, one of the annoying aspects of being on holiday is having to get up early. An alarm set for 0630 seems to be par for the course for this holiday, bringing back dark memories of life as an employee, whereas having to set an alarm at all in normal life is a bit of a bore and if one has to do it, it should be no earlier than 0730. So the news from Željko that we would have to depart our hotel at 0600 in order to be on an 0630 catamarn bound for the town of Split was met with something of a groan. It turned out, as did so many of his plans, to be a good idea, but coherent thought, smooth co-ordination and swift action at 0500 are not my forte.

Anyhoo…at 0600 we bundled our cases onto a bus and stumbled down to the harbour in Bol, just as the sun was going about his (or her) business for the day.

and the catamaran duly arrived

to take us to Split, a journey of just over an hour to a very handsome town. At one stage, it used to be just this place on the Dalmatian coast, until this Roman chap, Diocles, came along, liked the weather and the local availability of fine (Brač) stone, and decided it would be just the spot to retire to once he stopped bothering about being Emperor, so he had a big Palace built there, which now forms about half of the old town of Split.

Željko had arranged for us to have a guided tour, and we met Malenka, who took us round the main sights of the Palace. As we went round, the reason for our very early departure became clear – the Palace fills with tourists very quickly, and by getting there promptly we were actually able to see it when it wasn’t mobbed. It’s an impressive site, with some of the original construction supplemented by modern reconstruction.

Some of the locals actually live within the confines of the palace; people had set up house there before its historical (and touristic) value was truly recognised, and so there are homes and apartments dotted around the site. It’s now a UNESCO world heritage site, which is in part funding the reconstruction, and Malenka explained that UNESCO rules were that any reconstruction work had to be clearly recognisable as such. So, in the photo below, it is quite clear to see which is original tilework and which is modern

as it is with this mosaic.

I shan’t bore you with too many photos of the Palace – go and see it for yourself, and get a guided tour to give you some extra insight as you go round, is my recommendation. But there are some nice courtyards off the main streets

as a stark contrast to the crowded Hell that is “souvenir alley”, the corridor leading from the South Gate.

The sheer number of tourists has (unsurprisingly) had its impact. For example, there’s one square which used to have tables and chairs set out outside a restaurant, but now they are limited to setting up places on the steps.

Outside the confines of the Palace proper, there are some scenic corners

and you can see where building started by leaning extra houses against the Palace walls.

There is a large, sprawling and busy market with many opportunities to buy local produce (Jane bought some of the local tangerines which were, indeed, very tangy)

and the area around the Palace is, generally, very crowded.

That being the case, we decided to take up on a suggestion from Malenka and head over to a quieter aera of Split, towards the Marjan Forest Park (Šuma Marjan), which is on a hill to the north-east of the harbour.

(in the middle of the hill in the photo above, you can see the terrace of the bar ViDiLiCi where we stopped for a coffee and a beer). It’s a pleasant walk up a stepped road

and the terrace I mention above has a good view over the town

as has the walk back down towards the town.

All too soon we had to reconvene to catch the (somewhat knee-crunchingly cramped) tour bus to take us to the next stage of the day, in the Krka National Park, which held the promise of some spectacular scenery. So, to see this, read on, dear reader, read on….

Day 4 – To the woods! To the woods!!

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18th September – The tour buses came for us at 0830 and transported us to the start point of today’s walk. I was, as ever, grateful that they did the work to give us some altitude, as this meant I didn’t have to. As Željko had explained the day before, there would be a down side later, in the form of much walking down, but his view was that walking up 800 metres from Bol and then simply turning round and walking back down again was less interesting, particularly since that would be in full sunshine (and 30° heat) all the way. So instead we were dropped at somewhere in the middle of nowhere notionally called Gažul, which left us just a couple of hundred metres to climb before we had to make our way back down to our hotel in Bol.

Gažul was a slightly spooky place, practically a ghost village – a handful of derelict-looking buildings miles from anywhere. There were signs of returning population: the local rain-collecting cistern had been repaired and one or two buildings were showing signs of being brought back to a liveable state. Željko explained that the inhabitants would basically have abandoned the village and migrated to the coast to support the booming tourist industry. Now there was the possibility to repair the buildings, but most likely to rent to visitors rather than to live in.

The uphill part of the walk led, unusually, through woodland – and therefore shade!

Željko had described it as “basically flat”, and, after a little bit of climbing, it led gently up to Vidova Gora, the highest point on the island. A helpful sign set our expectations as to how long it would take to get there

and the route was, like all of the tracks we had followed in Croatia, very well-marked with waymarks in the trees and on the rocks.

Accordingly, after about an hour and twenty minutes, we arrived at the top. There used to be a restaurant here

but it was now closed (no beer for me, then!) and, in any case, Željko explained, despite it selling good, if simple, fare, the proprietor had been an eccentric veteran soldier with a short fuse and a shotgun. Probably best to press on to the penk itself, then:

where the view back towards Bol was spectacular, if somewhat hazy.

On the right-hand side of the photo, you can see the “famous” Zlatni Rat beach of Bol, with its little tip which sometimes points one way, sometimes the other. Vidova Gora has a sharp and steep drop over the edge – suitable for parasailing; we saw one chap turn up with a parachute and the sort of expression on his face that said he was going to use it – and various wags had decorated the preciptious edge with little rock cairns.

These serve no purpose other than to encourage other people to erect their own, apparently.

After a short break for lunch in the shade of a couple of trees it was time to head down to Bol – a long and rocky path which zigzagged its way down the side of the slope.

It was a long, hot and sweaty descent, tough, as the day before’s had been, on knees, ankles and feet (incredibly there was someone trying to negotiate this downslope on a bicycle!). But there were a couple of diverting moments on the way down, as the more eagle-eyed in our group spotted things worth stopping to look at, such as this praying mantis

and even a chance to see a cicada, which is a pretty rare thing (unlike hearing them, which is unavoidable).

When we finally got down to Bol, a process which took a couple of hours, Željjo pointed out a superb example of a 1960s Croation car called a Zastava, which had a back-end very similar to an old Fiat 500

although the front was different.

The company that made these was eventually taken over and made cars under the name Yugo, which people of my generation will recall as being alongside the old Škoda and Lada makers in terms of quality and reputation.

After the luxury of a well-earned shower, Jane and I set out on a mission to find pizza, which we found at an agreeable place called Skalinada. After that we went for a walk around Bol, which is small but beautifully formed.

and which has a small market

some strange mural work

and at least one unintentionally hilarious shop name.

There is a delightful promenade leading from the town to Zlatni Rat beach, pleasant and shady. We walked a little way along it until my need to get back to the hotel for a lie down imposed its imperative. A certain amount of drinking of gin and updating of blogs concluded the day’s activities, and we had to get to bed early because of a really early start the next day. You’ll have to read on to find out about that. My goodness, how the excitement mounts!

Day 3 (II) – Down, Down

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After all the borderline excitement, it was time to get down to the serious business of getting hot, sweaty and tired the day’s walk. I was relieved when the tour bus drove quite considerably up into the hills, as this meant that it had done much of the uphill work and thus I wouldn’t have to. We turned off the coast road at a village called Tučepi, and I was a little surprised to arrive at Gornje Tučepi as the start point. Željko explained that most villages had an upper (older) part and a lower part by the coast, set up as people migrated downwards to serve the tourist industry. “Gornje” means “upper” in Croatian.

Željko decided that our group needed waking up after a sleepy bus journey, so he took us to visit an older couple he knows who produce wine and spirits from locally-grown produce. So we all had a slug of liqueur to help us on our way.

(the husband is the chap standing in the corner watching Željko explaining to us what we could sample – cherry, walnut, prožek or herby grappa. The cherry liqueur was the flavour that was favoured, largely. We also took a peek into the room where the couple produced other things as well – wine, dried fruit and more.

And then we were off! The walk went up for a little way (boo!) before starting a long descent. I prefer going down to going up, but I have to say that my knees, ankles and feet were fed up with the downhill by the time we reached our final destination, Makarska. Here’s a video showing the profile of the walk.

We were in the shadow of Biokovo, the region’s tallest mountain, which stretches for many miles and which towers over the scenery as you walk along. The landscape was largely typical of this area of Croatia – rocky and scrubby, with Aleppo pine as the dominant tree (planted originally by the coast to support tourism, but now aggressively invading up the mountainsides). We eventually reached an area where there had been a major forest fire the previous June. This, in and of itself, was unremarkable, as summer forest fires are common here. But by laying waste to the pines, this one revealed something that many people had forgotten, which is the extent to which the area had historically been farmed using terraces. In this photo, you can see the burnt remains of the pine trees, and also the terracing thus revealed, which went a lot higher than had been prevously recognised.

Later on, we passed through an area of terracing showing how the pines had taken over.

On and down we toiled, passing some old fortifications which had been created by rock hacked from the mountainside

until we caught sight of Makarska, our destination for the day. The group was clearly awe-struck by the view

as well as, one surmises, taking a bit of a breather from scrambling along and down the scree which you can see our path led through. It really was quite hard going, requiring concentration to keep one’s footing as well as taking its toll on knees, ankles and feet.

So we stumbled and slid our way down into Makarska, and I have to say that two large beers disappeared really quite swiftly before we had to board a ferry in the rather attractive Makarska harbour.

An hour on the ferry took us to the island of Brač, where we would be for the next couple of days. We arrived in Saumartin, which, like so many Croatian places, is very handsome.

And then we boarded a couple of taxis to take us to Bol and our hotel for our stay on the Island, the Villa Daniela. As ever, there was good and bad news. The good news is that we had a room with a balcony. The bad news? We had to climb to the third floor (four stories higher than street level, actually) to get to it. The exertion needed to get us and the suitcases up the narrow stairs to the room justified the swift gin-and-tonic we necked before Željko took us to a very unusual restaurant, one that isn’t in the normal tourist directories. It’s called Kito, and is actually the catering facility attached to a camping site. But we benefitted from Željko’s contacts as he was able to get us a table for 13 in order to eat a traditional local meal called “Peka”, a baked, mixed-meat dish prepared under coals in a barbecue.

(the peka is being prepared in the cooking pots under the coals on the left).

First, of course, we had to try a few more of the local home-made liqueurs, again with Željko as host.

(lemon getting the thumbs-up this time), following which the group obviously appreciated the chance to sample this local dish

and the surroundings there are very nice in the dark of the evening.

So that wrapped up activities at the end of a long, eventful day. Once again, we stumbled wearily back to bed, to hope that a few hours’ sleep would repair our bodies to face the rigours of the following day. Stay tuned to find out whether this was the case (spoiler: not really!)