Day 15 - July 19 Split

 Our plan to beat the heat today was that we cancelled the (included, free) walking tour of Split we had booked on the grounds that we could do it ourselves with less frustration, and set out at 7.30am before breakfast. It was only a short walk from the wharf to the centre of the old city.

In Split, this means Diocletian's Palace, a walled district with a mix of Roman and medieval architecture that is now full of trendy restaurants and shops. We walked a little then I queued up for 20 minutes to get us tickets into St Domnius's cathedral - the oldest catholic cathedral anywhere. The wait was because the Croatians aren't very efficient and seemed in no hurry to open the ticket office.

Our tickets also included entry to the Crypt, to the Temple of Jupiter (later a baptistery), the Treasury museum (which was good quality but I didn't take any photos and only read a bit as I'm not that interested in medieval church history).

Peristyle Courtyard

Cathedral

Crypt of St Lucy

Temple of Jupiter/Baptistery

My ticket also included access to the bell tower. This involved climbing very narrow and steep stone stairs and then metal grill stairs to the top where there were great views across the city.



We then wandered around the palace precinct and stopped for a cold drink in Piazza del Popolo.

Golden Gate

By the time we'd done all of that it was getting pretty warm and very crowded, with long queues to the things we'd seen. So we walked through the entry area of the cellars out to the docks and so to the ship, getting back around 10am.

This gave us the morning to do some washing, then have lunch and an afternoon of rest. We're getting through a lot of books this trip, which is very enjoyable.

Our evening was pretty typical - we went to a restaurant where we ate too much. Then we went to the evening quiz in one of the lounges, where we did okay but not especially well. Then we went to the evening's entertainment in the theatre, but left fairly early on because it wasn't very good.

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