Today was a transfer day from Hvar to Split where most of us would catch flights home. Since we had a "farewell dinner" the night before, it felt anticlimactic even though Matej and Mario accompanied us to Split. This gave us one more opportunity to say goodbye.
Because of the timing of the ferry, our luggage moved before we did. We had about two hours to sit on the veranda overlooking the harbor before we walked to the bus station where we took two vans driven my Mario's sister and her husband to the ferry in Stari Grad. The ferry took about two hours to get us to Split where we went to lunch.
Split is the second largest city in Croatia and it had the bustle of a city, especially once we left the old town later to walk to our hotel. Even in the touristy area near the port, it was not quite like the Hvar which was super cute or even Dubrovnik which was so highly polished.
This is what the view was like out of our hotel window.
A nice example of 1950s communist block architectural style.
After lunch we met Petar, a registered tour guide and a friend of Matej who gave us a tour of the old town section of Split. Here is Petar.
This included a visit to the interior of the castle that we passed through a few days ago.
It was hot and we were tired. Given choices, we went to the dungeon where it was cooler but there was virtually no place to sit while Petar went on about the construction. It was actually pretty educational except we were all so tired.
Here are some examples of the precision of the stone cutting.
This room contains some of the equipment used for making olive oil.
Here is Tom playing the part of an engineer looking at some of the pieces that the Romans constructed for transporting sewage under the city.
On our way out the castle, we stumbled across a Dalmatian a cappella group. Rick Steves said to expect this although these guys obviously do this regularly. They probably own this spot and they
were really tight. Stu and I both bought copies of their CD. If I can identify the track that they were singing on the CD, I might use that for the soundtrack of the video I hope to create from footage of our rides.
We made the long slog to our hotel. I think this is one of the first times I felt that VBT did not do a particularly good job with logistics. It would have been nice if the hotel either was closer to the port or if they could arrange a transport for us. It wasn't a long walk but at the end of a long and hot day and a long and hot week, we were all pretty tired.
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