In My Life: Split, Croatia

Our day in Split was another busy one. There was lots to see and we had a tour booked, so we were up pretty early to get all ready to go and meet up with our tour guide. Split is a tender port. That means the ship "docks" in the middle of the water (because the port isn't big enough for it) and then you ride little boats into the actual port. For this port, they used the ship's life boats for our tenders. It was comforting to find out they were adequately sea-worthy and could comfortably hold a large number of people in the case of an actual abandon ship problem.

Stella enjoyed the tender ride quite a bit. I think she was convinced that we were finally riding the "big boat" that we had been talking about for weeks.

We got to the port and met up with our very nice tour guide who went by Lily because she knew we wouldn't be able to pronounce her real name. We got on the bus and I stifled my laughter when I saw the child seat for Stella. We told them she was two. They gave us an infant seat.

We crammed Stella into it and she was a good sport. She never complained. She just kicked the seat in front of her incessantly. There were a few people that we didn't know who joined us on our tour. One of them chose the seat in front of Stella. Poor guy. Good thing we'll never see him again.

After loading up onto the bus, we headed off to Krka National Park. Lily told us all about Croatia on the drive there. We got to the park and did a very easy hike through the beautiful scenery there.

Stella particularly loved the trees.

After seeing Krka National Park, we loaded back onto the bus and headed to Trogir, a very old city in Croatia. Up until then we had been lucky with the weather. While it had been cloudy much of the morning, we didn't get rained on. It rained on our drive to Trogir, but stopped when we got there. We headed into the city while Lily told us all about it.

Sometime during our stroll through Trogir, the rain started up again. This proved a dangerous situation for me since I was wearing flip flops with zero traction. See those cobblestone streets worn very smooth by years of visitors? They're super slippery when wet. I was slipping and sliding all over the place! We quickly finished in Trogir and opted not to stop to eat lunch since we were a little behind schedule and wanted to get back to Split in time to see Diocletian's Palace. On the way back to the bus, Mr. Frisby and I and Tracy and John ducked into a bakery that we passed so we could pick up a snack. We bought a large loaf of bread and a few other things and then ran to the bus. I think the others were a little annoyed that we had held them up a few minutes, but we were quickly forgiven when we shared the delicious bread.

We then drove back to Split and headed to Diocletian's Palace. Somewhere along the way, the lack of traction on my flip flops and the slippery cobblestones got the best of me and I went down. I didn't go down hard, so the only thing hurt was my pride. I was at the back of the pack, and thought nobody would really notice, but word spread through our group like wildfire. I assured everyone that I was totally fine, but our tour guide was worried. She looked at me when we got to the palace and with a very worried look on her face, she said, while shaking her head, "oh, you are not well." I tried to assure her that, really, I was absolutely fine. I don't think she believed me. Oh well. Our tour guide gave us a brief tour of Diocletian's Palace and then we were free to roam Split as we pleased until it was time to board the ship again.