Friday, July 3, 2015

Day 9 Exploring old Split and ferry to Hvar

I am falling behind on the blog but I am going to try to catch up tonight (we are actually in Dubrovnik tonight).

Highlights of day 9 are visiting the main sites in Split including the cathedral, and the cellers.  Then we did a great city walking tour, hiked the hill overlooking Split, saw a few more sights and were off on the ferry to Hvar

Breakfast was from the grocery store and eaten in the patio of our hotel

We had to get up early to make sure we made it to the ferry dock to get tickets to Hvar since they don't go on sale until 7 am

Next stop was coffee in this place in the palace called No Stress cafe.  Notice how tired Zach looks. The Dioletian's Palace is the main part of old town.  It used to be a palace is 305 but is now a maze of little shops, houses and rooms for rent

After our rest we were off to the Cathedral of St. Dominus which was a redo of Diocletian's tomb.  The church is octagonal in structure and we spent much of our time in there dodging tourist groups from all over the world

There was a bell tower so we climbed it.  This one was built starting in the 13th century and took 400 years to complete

View from the top

Bells that thankfully didn't go off while we were up

Exiting the church we made our way to the Jupiter's temple/St. John's Baptistery.  This was a roman temple that that Christians turned into a baptistery sometime in the 6th century.

Final stop before the tour was the cellers which are all underneath the palace.  This place used to the town dump, but is now cleared out and is a mostly empty place to tour.  I guess game of thrones was filmed here

We didn't have much time for lunch so we stopped at Nona's fast food for some pretty good Calzones which we ate while overlooking the golden gate waiting for the tour

First stop on the tour was seeing a reenactment of the emperor coming out of something.  It was very crowded and somewhat cheesy but it is a tourist town.

Next stop was the church to learn more of the history

Roman mosiacs pretty close to the church

These lovely flowers are everywhere.  This is actually a private house inside the palace that was selling for 3000 euro per square meter

Venetian windows. The more windows and the more decorated the richer the owner at the time

We managed to sneak into the Split synagoge at the last minute.  It is the 5th oldest Jewish community in Europe, but most members died in the Holocost

Better view of the theatre from the Hapsburg times which was the end of the tour

Before attempting to hike we got 1.5 L of lemonade.  It was very hot.  This picture also doubles as the view of our hotel

View from the Marjan hill.  We didn't go all the way to the top but stopped at a 13th century church before turning around

That hike required some ice cream.  This was the best place yet called Lucas. I had apple pie and Zach had lavender honey

Our guide on the walk told us about the 3 person chapel hidden in the golden gate wall so our course we had to go see for ourselves

After some shopping we caught the ferry to Hvar.  The lines were long, the ferry was late and the sun was really hot waiting

Inside the ferry

Around 8 pm we finally made it to our place in Hvar.  Barko rooms.  The place was great and so very cheap only 35 euro a night for a large room with almost our own bathroom and our own balcony

The Hvar habor as seen on our walk to dinner

Town Cathedral

After our first choice was full we snagged the last table at Konoba Mengro.  It is a local place that only does local food (nothing from italy).  It was really good.  We had different gnochis that were both very good.  I love that even moderately priced places in Croatia mean you spend under $40 for an app, main course and wine for 2 :-)

Monestery and swimming beach on the way back to our place

We stopped at Nonica's to pick up dessert to go with our wine on the porch at night
Never enough sleep, but tomorrow we sleep in a little because we are doing a self guided biking tour of the island before heading to Korcula at night on the ferry

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