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Wednesday 19 April 2023

Wednesday 19th April – Split.

 Another easy start to the day, plenty of fuel in the form of breakfast, and we were off the ship around 10am ready to investigate the charms of Split.

I had done a little research before we came away, and I had worked out there were some key places to visit, but I didn’t really understand what I’d read.  Once we’d walked the 10 mins or so from the ship to the old town, and then walked through the Brass Gate, it began to make sense.

The very unassuming Brass Gate between these two buildings.

The Roman Emperor Diocletian was from Croatia. He’d was a good emperor, and also did something very unusual for an emperor, he retired.  He planned it years before and built himself a massive palace to retire to in what is now Split. It was finished in 305 AD, and he lived there for 11 years before he died.  A good deal of that palace is still standing, with much of the old town built into it.  The Brass Gate that we’d just walked through was one of the doorways into the palace.  

Actually, the Brass Gate leads into the basement halls of the palace.  It’s a huge area, quite an amazing space with loads of rooms large and small that just seemed to go on one after another after another. For €7 each we could go have a wander, so we did.


From there we went on into the rest of the palace grounds.  First there was more of the basement, where all the souvenir stalls were set up.  There was some really nice stuff, but I don’t understand why rucksacks made in Nepal were being sold on craft stalls in Croatia?


Onwards and upwards to the ‘Peristil’, a central courtyard in the palace grounds. As we pottered around we came across an operatic trio making use of the acoustics of one of the remaining roman rooms.  An awesome sound!




For €12 each, we could visit the Cathedral and the Bell Tower with the Treasury Museum thrown in for free.

The bell tower is relatively modern, with very high steep steps at the bottom before opening out to the space you can see in the photograph below.



The Cathedral is definitely an old roman building that had been converted.  The carved lions at the entrance, the huge marble pillars and the hunting frieze circling the ceiling were among the many clues.  And to think the original building dates from 305 AD!

The rest of our time there, we simply explored.  We passed Jupiter’s Temple, walked out of the Iron Gate, bought lunch from what seemed to be the Croatian equivalent of Greggs, took photo’s of the Gold Gate and wandered back into the area of the palace through the Silver Gate.  All in all a good day’s wandering.

 

Peter dwarfed by the statue at the Gold Gate

And that was Split. 


Tomorrow we are in Rovinj, (pronounced Ro-VEEN).  No research done on this one, so I haven’t a clue what to expect.

Tuesday 18 April 2023

Tuesday 18th April - Dubrovnik

We were looking forward to this port, me because I’d heard it was a brilliant place to visit, and Peter because he’d been before and really liked it.  He told me it was a brilliant place to visit.

And then of course, there is Game of Thrones.  We were both avid followers of the series, and with Peter being a bit of a groupie regarding anything to do with filming, Dubrovnik promised so much.

We docked in the port, surrounded by hills and mountains on land and islands out to sea. It all made for a gorgeous view as we stepped out onto the balcony this morning. 

We didn’t rush, making sure we had a good breakfast, and caught the 10 o’clock shuttle bus which took us the 3 miles or so to the historical centre of Dubrovnik.  The old town is completely walled in, full of narrow and angular streets that criss cross in all directions, climbing up and down on steep sets of stairs.  Not a place for a car, van or lorry.  Again, after a little online research before we came away, we had decided our aim today was to walk the city walls. The shuttle bus stopped just outside said walls, so we headed straight for the entrance gate.


Our first shock came when we realised that in order to walk the walls, we would have to buy tickets at €35 each!  We were astounded.  But tickets included access to all the museums etc within the walls, and it’s not as if we come to Dubrovnik every day.  We paid the €70, got the tickets and set off.

There are a LOT of steps up and down the walls, and it’s a good trek to go all the way round, but we loved it. I remarked to Peter that many places that we visited had one or good views to enjoy as you walked round, but here, everywhere you looked from those walls was a view.  It was stunning.




I loved looking inwards from the walls, at the narrow stair ways and alleys running throughout the old town.  The tiles on the rooves, the chimneys, ruins of old buildings, cafes, gardens and churches.  They all made up the fascinating landscape of the city.  Although the it was expensive, we were very glad we’d opted to pay the price and do the wall walk.  It was brilliant.





We came to the last tower - here's Peter, I made him stand while I took the picture of the backdrop.


And it turned out it was the one from the Game of Thrones scene where Daenerys can't get into the tower where her baby dragons have been locked away (second series I think). I remember her walking around it, and there wasn't an entrance.


In reality, of course there is an entrance, and quite a lot stairs to the top to give excellent views.


And finally, we'd done the complete circuit. So we descended back into the old town and then wandered up and down the streets and stairways to find a couple of locations where GoT scenes had been filmed, one of the most famous of which was the Jesuit Staircase, where Cersey had to make her Walk of Shame.


As we wandered we came across an art type museum covered by the Dubrovnik pass, so we decided to pop in and have a look.

But our tickets weren’t right?  We were told we couldn't go in? Apparently there are two types of tickets: the Dubrovnik pass, at €35 which allows access to the city walls, visit Fort Lovrijenac and all the museums etc, and the city wall tickets, at €35 only allow you to walk around the walls and visit the fort.  But that wasn’t explained when I bought the tickets, and the guy in the ticket office never asked if I wanted one or the other.  So if you are reading this and plan to get tickets yourselves – check first!  I suspect that you can only buy the Dubrovnik pass online.

Anyway, feeling a little miffed, we consoled ourselves with an ice cream as we made our way towards the town gate.  And what an ice cream!  We certainly weren’t short changed there.  Two scoops equalled a mountain, and it took us a while to eat it all.  It was really nice too.

Out of the gate, we made our way over to Fort Lovrijenac.  Oh my!  More steps, up and up and up.  But once we reached the top and got inside the fort, we found ourselves looking at more GoT film locations, and even better, more views.  The top of the tower at the fort must be nearly as high as the highest point of Dubrovnik old town walls.  Looking over, we could see the rooves of everything inside. Fantastic.


Then it was down, down, down all the way to the gorgeous little bay used in so many GoT scenes and then on to the shuttle bus back to the ship.


A brilliant day, and somewhere we would be very happy to visit again, which is really good, cos we are coming back in October. 

Tomorrow we are in Split.  I wonder how that will compare.

Monday 17 April 2023

Monday 17th April, - Another Sea Day

 Another day at sea, another two art classes in the Coast to Coast restaurant, and all is smooth and well.   A few notes for the day:-

Peter decided to help me out with my blogging problems and quietly sorted me out with a Wordpress one, tied in with his website at the moment.  No doubt he will tidy that up at some point too.  I didn’t want him to have to sort out the issue  (which was the blogspot doesn’t work on Saga Wifi), but he did anyway.  He may regret being such a nice, helpful husband after a few weeks of me pestering him to show me how to do this, or fix that, or change the layout of this.  But I’m grateful and am now happily posting my daily cruising diary.

Apparently a bee-eater landed on board.  I didn’t get to see it though.

I heard the first person ever today tell me that they weren’t happy with the cruise.  I was really quite surprised, as everyone I’ve spoken to only say’s good things.  It seems that this particular lady usually travels with a company called Regent, who are 6 star, and is extortionately expensive I understand.  She was happy with Peter’s classes though.  Phew!

Another thing to mention is the water on the balcony.  We seem to have a problem when it rains, as there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for the water to drain to.  The steward has dried it out a couple of times now, bless him.  Another reason this cabin has been given to us and not paying passengers at a guess.  We are not complaining though, it is still so nice to be on the ship.  

It is formal night again, the second of the four.  I made do with a dressy pair of trousers and top, Peter wore his blue suit again, and felt under dressed again.  We were seated with an accountant and his wife at dinner, and it turned out we had a great deal in common, (who would of guessed that?)

We retired to the cabin after that, tomorrow is a busy day.  We visit Dubrovnik, one of the ports we have been really looking forward to, I hope it doesn’t let us down.