Sunday July 12th, 2015
We land in Split and rent a car. We go straight to our hotel where we leave the luggages and the car and we begin the tour of the city. Our hotel is located at Trg Republike, one of the most beautiful squares of Split, with Venetian houses.
We walk along the “Riva”, the wide pedestrian promenade. Little later we find the Hrvojeva kula, a tower, and from here we enter the center with its narrow streets. The center of Split is occupied mainly by Diocletian’s Palace: it is not a palace as we imagine it usually, as there are almost solely the exterior walls and on the inside, with the time, some buildings were built. We cross the Narodni Trg with the Clock Tower to reach the cathedral, preceded by the peristyle: a series of columns that were part of Diocletian’s palace.
Then we enter the cathedral and as first thing we climb on top of the bell tower, the view from the top is really nice. Then we visit the cathedral inside and the crypt. Nearby, outside the entrance of the church there is the Temple of Jupiter. Then we go down in the basement of Diocletian’s Palace, the best preserved part , where there are numerous souvenir shops. We turn a bit in the streets and we see other parts of the palace and then we return to our hotel for a short break.
We visit the nearby church of Sv. Frane with its cloister and then we climb the Marjan hill, from where we admire the view of the bay, and we also visit the near Jewish cemetery. It’s almost evening, so we decide to spend the last hours of the day in Trogir, a town few kilometers away. Even here we walk in the streets of the center with several buildings and we reach the main square with the cathedral, the clock tower, the Loggia and the Town Hall. Before dinner we still have time to walk along the sea till Kula Kamerlengo, a fortress.
After dinner we walk a bit before returning to the hotel.
Monday July 13th, 2015
We spend the whole day to Plitvice lakes, natural park and UNESCO heritage.
There are 16 lakes connected by numerous waterfalls. Although the day is not the best (it’s cloudy and occasionally gets to rain), the landscape is beautiful. The largest lake, which is immediately reachable from the entrance, is crossed by a boat that takes tourists to the opposite side. We follow two routes, the larger ones (about 16 km), so we can see all the lakes. At the two ends of the path there are shuttle buses that bring back near the entrance.
After the visit, we return to Split (more than 200 km away) pretty tired, so dinner and back to the hotel.
Tuesday July 14th, 2015
Today we move to Dubrovnik, but we will make some stops on the way. First of all we stop in Solin (ancient Salona), ancient Roman city of which you can see the ruins. Even if it is morning, it’s already hot.
The we drive along the Makarska Riviera and stop for a coffee in Makarska. Continuing, we reach Bacinska, with numerous ponds. We leave for a short time Croatia and we reach Neum, in Bosnia. You have to cross the border between Croatia and Bosnia 2 times, if you go from Split to Dubrovnik by car. Back to Croatia, as we arrive in Dubrovnik, we settle in the apartment that we rented and we walk a bit in the old town: the Great Onofrio Fountain, Sv. Franjo with its beautiful cloister and the Placa Stradun, the main street, up to the square Luza, surrounded by numerous historical buildings.
Then we visit also the church of Sv. Dominik, even here there is a cloister, and the small harbour dominated by the fortress. By car we reach the top of Mount Srd (there is also a cable car at the top), to admire the view at sunset. The road is a bit tight, and when we cross some machines it’s a little hard to get through.
We go down, we have dinner and take some pictures.
Wednesday July 15th, 2015
As we wake up, we decide to walk immediately around the walls, hoping that it won’t be too hot. We take a lot of pictures, we stop often along the way and at the end it takes us longer than expected.
So back to the center of Dubrovnik and we reach Lapad, where there is another harbour and some beaches and then we go to Cavtat, a small village few kilometers away where we spend the last hours of our trip before returning to the airport.
