Day 28 (Half way) 13 June 2023 Split

You guessed it, another slow start and an equally easy day.
We headed off this morning to see the Green Market and the Fish Market. The Green Market is 5 minutes from our hotel and is an area filled by small stall holders, each selling a small variety of fresh produce. And their produce looked incredible, so fresh and vibrant. We walked around for a while looking at what was on offer, got an idea of prices and just took it all in. Deb wanted to look for cheeses, we were told this was the spot to check out the best local cheeses. It all looked good, as we passed one stall, the woman running it saw we were interested and offered us a tasting, fresh off the rounds. It was very good.

We then meandered through the old Palace and made our way to the Golden Gate (the main north gate) and followed a few short narrow passages, climbed some stairs and made our way into a very narrow chapel built into the north protective wall of the Palace. It was the Church of St Martin, it was built in the 5th-6th century, and has been remodelled many times since then. There is a valuable Early Romanesque Chancel screen from the 11th century preserved in the church that tells of the dedication of the church. Since the 14th century there has been a Dominican Convent next to the church and the nuns tend the church. We saw a couple while we were there.

Then back into the maze that is the Palace streets and lanes. We found the Temple to Jupiter, one of the best preserved features of the original Roman Palace. We made our way to the Basement roof area, and looked at the basement windows from the outside, some old in situ remanent Roman mosaic tiles, the inside structure of the south wall and some preserved but decaying original Palace internal walls. As we walked back we could hear some choral type music, it didn’t take long before we found four a Capella singers singing inside the vestibul, a round silo shaped space. It was very entertaining.

From there we went to find the Fish Market, I thought we had found it, but when I saw where we were I put the smell down to the Sulphur springs. We walked on. I eventually consulted Dr Google and it turned out that I was correct the first time. The Fish Market was right next to the Sulphur springs area!! We were a little late getting there, and just under half of the stall areas were still selling their seafood. There were some familiar looking fish but there were a lot more we couldn’t recognise. It’s always fun visiting the fresh food markets and seeing the locals get on with their lives.

We walked back to our hotel along the waterfront. There was a huge Virgin Cruise ship docked in the Port, it dwarfed everything around it. No wonder there were so many tourist groups in the Palace.

Later in the day we walked through the old Palace and up to the Spalato viewpoint, at the edge of Park Suma Marjen to get a view over the city and harbour. It was a nice view (although a chainsaw taken to about 6 pencil pines would have made it better). From up there you could see over the top of the city and the old Palace out to the mountains behind and over the harbour and out to the islands in the Adriatic. We got some nice photos.

From there we walked back down the hill to a restaurant our city guide had suggested to us. It took a little finding, up a side street but was worth the effort. It was a traditional style seafood konoba (Croatian for Tavern), called Otprilike Ovako. All main meals were seafood, no steak here unless its tuna! We had Friskka Morska Riba, basically it was a hearty family fish stew with some vegetables. It was delicious, a bit too much for us to finish.

When we were done, we walked back to our hotel via the waterfront. The huge Virgin Cruise ship was still in Port but most, if not all, it’s passengers must have been on board as the area was fairly quiet, busy but not over the top. The end of our last full day in Split.

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