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| Trogir, Croatia, a small island around 30 minutes from Split. |
Split was the first of two ports of call from the last cruise that are repeats. The second is Corfu, Greece, which is a few days away. Going back to Split is never a bad thing. It’s a place we could enjoy visiting over and over again.
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| Sunrise arrival for our second visit to Split on this adventure! |
Our first visit was on a Sunday, and it was very overcast with a little light rain occasionally. On this second visit, it was blue skies and sunshine. It also happened to be a national holiday known as Statehood Day. On May 30, 1990 the people of Croatia elected their first democratically elected multi-party parliament, which paved the way for them to declare independence from Yugoslavia a little over a year later. I would imagine their Independence Day (June 25) is a much bigger celebration, but the waterfront promenade was quite busy and festively decorated with Croatian flags flying proudly.
We had some shipboard credit that we needed to use so we booked an excursion that seemed like a good one for us. It included a short (30 minute) drive to the small island town of Trogir (pop. 13,000). There was a walking tour around the town’s historic city center. We’re not real keen on walking tours but the tour guide was good and it was less than an hour long.
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Trogir is connected to the mainland by two bridges. This is near the older, smaller bridge. A new, multi-lane bridge has recently been added.
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| The entrance to Trogir’s cathedral is said to be the grandest in the whole country. |
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| The church tower took close to 300 years to complete due to the turbulent times. It has three different styles of architecture. Venetian, Roman and Gothic. |
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| The entrance into the old walled city of Trogir. The gates were locked at night in the olden days for security reasons. Our guide told us that the area on the right was a covered area where those that didn’t make it back inside before the gates closed could sleep. Thoughtful! |
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| A nice promenade along the outside wall |
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| Laundry Day! |
After the tour we had a few hours of free time at a very nice local beach. We had packed our bathing suits and the crystal clear water looked tempting, but it was too cold for a couple of Florida natives. We found a nice table in the shade where we sat and contentedly stared at the water until it was time to split back to Split.
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| The beach was pebbles not sand. We were told there are very few sand beaches in Croatia. If the water is as clear as this beach, who cares! |
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| A nice place to spend some time |
It was a long port visit so we still had time to grab a bite to eat on the ship after our tour ended. Then we headed out to stroll the busy waterfront. We got back just in time for what has become a ritual, our sunset sailaway Scrabble game. I actually won a game last week!
