Adriatic: Split

July 9, 2017

We took the passenger ferry to Split, and were again crowded into the stuffy cabin. The main archtectural feature of Split is the Palace of Dioclatian which was competed in 305 C.E. Three of the outer walls (all except the west wall) underground vaults, and the central circular auditorium remain from this time. The medieval and renaissance Venetian cities grew within the walls. We climbed the central bell tower to orient ourselves, then went for a nice walk.

At 7:00 p.m. after signing  a waiver, we hopped in the city bus to take us to the launch point of our night kayaking tour, for which we were the only participants. Our guide, Mijo, met us at the final bus stop within a large park. We set out while the sun was still up and had a great view of the sunset. Mijo had rigged flashing lights to snorkeling masks which we wore around our necks so that we would be seen by other vessels, although we were paddling in a quiet part of the bay. 

The official kayaking itinerary including jumping off a cliff into the bay. We preferred to skip this part and we paddled by Marshall Tito's seaside villa instead. Tito was the communist ruler of Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death in 1980. Our guide had a very dim view of Tito who was quite authoritarian (1). He shared the Croat view of the "Homeland war," as Croats refer to the wars associated with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. He felt that the Croats prevailed (which they largely did) because they controlled the seacoast, were better airplane pilots, and had better morale than the Serb forces, which, in his view, had unclear motives for fighting.

We paddled back to the starting point at Bene beach under the rising full moon. It was very quiet at the beach bus stop, as our guide had cycled away. This was the last bus of the night, and it would have been a long walk back to town if we had missed it.

(1) I once chatted with a woman from Bosnia who called her husband "Tito" because he was so bossy. She had a more favorable view of Tito than our kayaking guide. In her view, unlike the Serbs and Croats in the post-Yufoslav period, Tito did not engage in "ethnic cleansing" nor kill people solely because of their ethnic background.

View of Western Split from bell tower. The night kayak tour was on the far side of the hill in the background 

Interior view of southeast corner of Diocletian's Palace

Exterior view of North wall

View through the Oculus of the Vestibule, designed for its acoustics.

East Gate of Diocletian's Palace.