Split, Croatia

Split was one of my wife's favorite stops despite the fact that it rained most of the day and we got soaked. We got so wet that we went back to the ship for dry clothes and then right after warming up in the hot tub, went right back out to get wet all over again. The town has remnants of this old fortress that has now become a shopping mecca. Even the cellars of the fortress have all manner of vendors in them. Every alley (and they're everywhere) has loads of shops, restaurants and bars down them.

We set out early in the morning before the rains came. There were these huge open areas where everyone from the countryside brought their fresh produce, nuts, homemade booze, olive oil, etc. and sold in this large open air market. That's when we discovered that we weren't in Euro territory anymore. So we hit the ATM and took out 140 Kuna which is the Croatian currency although we had no idea what that equated to. We soon found out that an entire pizza went for about 75 Kuna so now we had a rough idea. We bought a soccer jersey for Joshy at a cost of 70 Kuna.

Later, when the rains really came down, we settled into an open air tavern that overlooked the open air vegetable market. There were these tent like awnings over everything so even though it was pouring business continued unabated. The bar we were at only had a counter for placing your order and then you went outside and sat at tables under the awnings. Later, we found an Irish bar and stopped in for a Guiness to get out of the rain. This one actually had an interior and places to sit although everyone seems to smoke over there so staying long wasn't in the cards. Then we stopped at this underground mall for some Croatian pizza and beer. It was delicious.

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