A walk in the park

A walk in the park

First stop was the farmer's market which is only a couple blocks from my hotel.  Seemed like a step back in time with lots of grandmother types offering their garden produce for sale.  Felt like I stepped back into a loosing socialist system as I walked the aisles with carrots, lettuces, apples, etc and sweet strawberries to get my lunch for the day.

I needed to get a good stong walk in today as tomorrow will be a day of city walking and neither Trogir nor Split have that much history for you to walk around.  Things just were not that spread out in ancient times. Headed over to the beach area in hopes of finding the trail to the top of the park. On a peninsula next to the city, there is ae huge park, Marjan, with a lovely beach at the bottom. While the water is a pretty color, the beach actually looked a bit like beaches we would see in old Soviet films. The Croats have not quite figured out how to turn it into what we Americans consider a beach. A few people were on it and apparently sunscreen and skin cancer do not translate into Croatan because they were all dark and baking. I ran out of beach before I found the trail so I headed back and finally stumbled upon it after wandering around terraced neighborhoods many of which had climbs to dead end steeets.  I could see the flag flying from the top, just could not find the route it.  It is a big upward route around the top of the peninsula (178 meters) with spectacular views of the city. There are well preserved remains of a few old small churches and hermitages from the middle ages. I walked out to the end of the penisula and ate my farmer's market lunch of croissants, veggies and fruit. It was very good.

 On the walk back I finally found the top viewpoint and the huge flag on the top from which the views were awesome in every direction.  Headed back into town to do the Cathedral tour, the basilica, (very Baroque), the treasury with lots of silver and elaborate mantles, Jupiter's temple, with the oversize statute, the crypts-cool and cold and the bell tower were all part of the $7.00 ticket.  I made it up 75% of the way before I freaked from the open heights. The fort in the park was higher with better views anyway! 

We are coming up on the town holiday for Split - it will take place May 7th, after we leave. In preparation there is a music festival in town - lots of singers and dancers. After dinner, we could walk through the old town in search of the performances.