From Vodice to Trogir

Day's Summary
"Drove to Sibenik where we parked a bit away from the old town and cycled in along the waterfront to find an amazing town of very narrow shady stone paved streets and stone buildings. Went to the castle on the town's high point and then went to the cathedral and had coffee on an outside terrace. Cycled back to the camper and made a shopping stop and had lunch at a new town shopping centre. Then drove along the coast to Trogir where we found a campsite before cycling into Trogir old town which was on an island and spectacularly visual but unfortunately very upmarket and expensive. Went back to the campsite for supper at the restaurant there before riding along the promenade as the sun set."

We were now starting on a new phase of the trip. When we started thinking about the camper trip our objective was the Croatian coast. This had changed a lot and we had got to see much more than we could have expected, but the coast was the original destination. We were now close to one of the specials. Sibenik was described in our guidebook as "without doubt one of the most beautiful towns in the whole of the eastern Adriatic." It was only 14 km down the road and as usual we consulted Park4Night for a place to leave the camper. This time it didn't get it right and put us in a place that was too small. A local girl pointed out a large vacant area where campers often stood. There was a tourist bus parked there waiting for his tourists to finish, but this was also quite isolated. We took the bikes off and started into town and then saw what looked like the ideal place in a free parking area. So we moved the camper and then headed off to the old town. Our route took us right along the edge of the water past fishing and leisure boats moored stern on as is always the case in the Mediterranean. We soon realised that Sibenik was going to be very special, with lovely local vernacular buildings cascading down a steep hillside. The view was a little spoiled by a very big crane working from the waterfront road, which certainly interfered with taking photographs. Further along there was a very ugly modern building right on the waterfront.

We rode the full length of the harbour, made a little kink and suddenly got into a busload (or two) of Chinese. As usual they didn’t seem to realise they were in everybody’s way as they walked around in their typical fashion. It was soon obvious that the old town came to a sudden end so we turned back and found a pole to chain the bikes to. There were bicycle racks, but they were taken up by hire bicycles. The town itself was amazing. I had always known about towns that had streets designed to accommodate the width of a donkey, but Sibenik was the first town I had been to that had narrow streets in such profusion. There was a remarkable unity to the town as well. The mostly stone walls, with some plastered buildings that were brightly painted, red tiled roofs and vertical windows were the essential ingredients of the delightful mix. A church would be identified by a slight setback or an elaborate doorway. Public spaces became more dramatic, as at the very special cathedral dating from the 1431, and the city hall. And as the town cascaded down the hillside everything was connected by staircase after staircase. We walked up the hill to the cemetery that was almost on top, and the castle that was right on top. I didn’t go to the castle as it was quite expensive, but Marianne took some wonderful photos of the town from the ramparts. There was a second castle further inland.

The cemetery was also very interesting and also afforded good views over the town. We found a lovely outdoor café for coffee right at the entrance to a church, which we only realised was a church when we went in to see what others were going to see. The space the café was using for its outdoor tables was actually the space outside the church. We walked many of the streets and mostly managed to get away from the tour groups that were concentrated near the cathedral, on the waterfront and in the lower shopping streets.

It was all too soon time to move on and went back to the bikes, found ice-creams, and then rode back to the camper which we found was parked next to a gym with lots of pretty girls in their gym outfits coming and going.

We drove up to the main road above the old town that lead to the new town and turned off to a very modern shopping centre. We couldn’t get into the parking area because of a low barrier at the entrance so drove down to an outside parking area where we parked next to a Slap Tours tourist bus. We stocked up at the supermarket and then found the McDonald’s where we had lunch. I got totally disorientated going back to the camper, mixing it up with a delivery van, but Marianne went the right way. We retraced our route and found that the road became one way after the turn into the parking that was too low for us. So I had to reverse down again. Fortunately there was nothing behind us. Then we had to find our way out through some back streets, but soon got on to the road south.

The road towards Split was very special. It mostly hugged the coast and we got to see why Croatia is a land of islands. It has 1244 islands of all sizes, but only 48 are inhabited. But there were always a number of islands visible when we were next to sea. We stopped a couple of times to take photographs. There were also many marinas along the way and lots and lots of yachts.

We got to Trogir at about 16h45 and decided that it might make more sense to stop there than to continue to Split. We turned into Kamp Seget and discovered a lovely campsite right at the water. We managed to get into one of the front sites and lost no time in getting the bikes off the car as the town of Trogir was apparently also very special.

It was a short ride along quite a busy road to the old town which is on an island. We crossed a short bridge of about 20m and then found ourselves in a mass of noisy youngsters who were “invading” the old town. They had apparently just finished school and were celebrating. We rode away from them, stopping at the St Marc’s Tower which had been part of the walls of the old town. It was now adjacent to sports fields. The youngsters simply disappeared. We continued past more old fortifications and got to the harbour where there were a number of very fancy rich people’s “yachts”. Trogir was certainly very upmarket and restaurant type things were very expensive. But the interior of the old town was very beautiful with very narrow streets and stone buildings. We had a good look at the town square with the city hall, town clock tower and St Sebastian’s church. This was quite busy with lots of restaurant chairs set out set out for later. The prices were a bit high for us so we did a bit more town exploration. There was another bridge going to another island that made up the other half of the island Trogir. It was a big island and we would have loved to go exploring there on the bikes. We later found out that there were a number of campsites there as well.

It was now time to find some supper and we decided to go back to the campsite where the girl at reception had told us there was a good and very reasonably priced restaurant. This proved to be true and we had a lovely meal there.

There was still time to go for another ride so we tried to ride to the old town along the waterside. It was very interesting, as we rode past local fisherman’s cottages with locals sitting outside, a super fancy yacht club, a large yacht repair yard and a marina. The route would have continued if it was not for some construction work where the site was completely fenced. We went back past the campsite and then rode past the campsite along the promenade for about three kilometres. There were a number of people walking and the highlight was a company of cats that were very keen to be cuddled. Then it was back to the camper, showers and to bed. The Croatian coast was starting to grow on us.

Geschreven door Leartravels