Trogir to Split and starting north

Day's Summary
"Drove the short distance to Split and found a free parking area from where we cycled to the old city. Went into what had been Diocletian's Palace and spent some time exploring the ancient streets and squares. Had coffee in the "palace" and then went into the adjacent old town. Decided to go up onto the Marjan peninsula and pushed and rode to the famous terrace of the Caffe Vidilica which did give marvellous views of the city. Then we rode to almost the end of the peninsula before a fast ride down back to the camper. Leaving Split we headed north, starting off on the excellent motorway and then going on to the more minor coastal road which certainly wasn't going anywhere fast. Stopped at a pizza restaurant for supper and then wild camped tucked away on a piece of the narrow old gravel road."

Trogir had been a fun stop and Camp Seget a lovely place to spend the night. It would have been fun to spend more time there, but the days were passing much too quickly and there was lots more that we wanted to see. We had already crossed Dubrovnik off the list as being too far and too touristy for the time we had left.
It was a short drive to Split, about 16 km, but the road was quite built up with industry and decentralised shopping centres. We did drive through the town of Solin and this with Trogir and Split was well on the way to becoming a metropole.

Split proved to be very big. Park4night had identified a free parking area quite close to the centre, but it was a difficult city drive to get there including going through a tunnel. When we got to the parking it was almost full, but we managed to get the camper into the last space, conveniently at the edge with place to manoeuvre for getting out.
We got the bikes down and after a quick snack set off for the old town. It was a bit tricky at the start and we needed to ask directions, but the route soon became obvious. A wrong turn took us to a yacht club and we had an uphill pedal to get back to the road, but we were soon cycling along the waterfront and got to the famous palm lined boulevard between the water and ancient old town. Marianne managed to get a tourist map from a tourist tuk-tuk driver and we found a pole to secure our bikes to. Split’s main feature, the Palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian who reigned from 284 – 305 AD was first on the list. Much of this ancient palace still remains and it has become an integral part of the Old Town. The palace was abandoned at the end of the Roman era and then occupied in around 700 AD by people from the nearby town of Solin when they fled the Avars (Christian barbarians from the area which is now Bulgaria). A town was created in the ruins of the vast palace and this has remained virtually unaltered to this day. At this stage my camera battery went flat, and when I replaced it the other battery was also flat. Somehow they had got mixed up in charging. I was forced to use my phone so had no great expectations. We were quite surprised that it was possible to enter the palace without payment, but soon discovered that it was simply a part of the town, containing mostly shops on the ground floor, but also houses, churches and many of the other functions that make a town. We had seen many Roman buildings before, but these were neither ruins or museums. This was a living building that has been lived in and used for almost 1300 years. It was a remarkable experience to wander through the ancient walls and touch stonework and brickwork that had continued to fulfil its function for so many years. We went to the peristyle, the central courtyard, which now has churches fronting onto it. (Diocletian was notorious for his persecution of Christians) It was full of tourists, as was most of the palace, with a few "Roman soldiers" for effect. It was still possible to get a feel of the spatial quality of the square, with its Corinthian columns supporting arches on two sides.
After wandering in and out of narrow streets we went out on to adjacent streets to try get photographs, but it was difficult to get more than snippets. There were market stalls along most of the palace exterior walls, lots of them selling clothes. They certainly didn’t seem to be aimed at the tourists. At the back of the palace there was an enormous bronze statue of Grgur Ninski. (A 9th century bishop who campaigned for the use of the Slavic language) We went back into the palace walls and found a coffee shop with reasonable prices. We also met our first South African tourists, a group who were doing the typical Croatia thing by bus with a next stop in Dubrovnik. The woman I spoke to was ex UPE and had questions about what had happened.
After coffee we left the palace and wandered through the Pjaca square, taking pictures of the palace clock and the richly classical buildings around the square, and through the fish market before getting into the street where we had left the bikes. It was a short walk back to them and after finding ice-creams we explored more narrow streets and the Trg Republike.
Marianne wanted to go to the Marjan Forest and we set off up the hill flowing a few signs. The normal route had only steps and they were too steep and we managed to find a very steep cobbled path (also with some steps) with a bit of local help. This route was a bit more bike friendly, but it was still hard work!. The steep route leads to the terrace of the Caffe Vidilica, which did have the wonderful views over the town described in the guide books. But we were not on top yet! The top of the hill was still a long way off and it was a steep climb on a wide gravel path, especially for Marianne who had virtually no gears. There was a tiny chapel along the way where we caught our breaths, but eventually got up and then had a lovely ride down on a tarred road, stopping to watch some youngsters who were trying rock climbing with guides. Fortunately they were protected by top ropes as they fell off every now and then. It was a fast way down, especially for Marianne with her back pedal break bike. At the bottom there was a tap with good water where I had a drink, and then we had a short ride back to the camper. Someone had squeezed his car in the place I had left for manoeuvring to get out, so it was a bit more difficult, but I got out after much manoeuvring.
We had now got to the end of our southern exploration. From here all our driving would be going north. It was quite a sad feeling, almost like "the going home" feeling at the end of a long trip. The three weeks in Holland was going to be a bit of an anti-climax maybe. So we retraced our route through the tunnel and soon afterwards I almost made a serious driving mistake, misreading the lines and so changing lanes going round a corner. Marianne’s shout alerted me just in time to miss the car that I was crowding.
We had to got onto the high plateau of the Velebit Mountains (part of Dinaric Alps) again and this meant that many tunnels awaited us. Once on the motorway, we made good progress towards Pula, which we had decided was a special because of its almost complete Roman amphitheatre. The motorway was superb, mostly three lanes in each direction, with tunnels and superb bridges spanning deep river gorges and coastal inlets. We stopped at the lookout over the Krka River, part of the Krka National Park, and enjoyed views of the marina tucked away further up the river. We wished we had time to visit this park too. Sibenik, which we had enjoyed the day before was very close as the crow flies, but way down at the coast. It started to rain while we were at the lookout, but it fortunately didn’t last. Just past the turnoff to Zadar (which we didn’t get to) I thought it would a good idea to take the coastal road as there would be more to see as it seemed to follow the coast. This proved to be very twisty and quite slow and I found it really difficult to drive. Marianne was grumpy as she was sitting on the wrong side to take pictures of the lovely coastal scenes and there was never a place to stop to take pictures. We passed a couple of campsites that proved very difficult to get to – very steep tracks down to them. Then the drop down next to the narrow road became so steep and there were no more campsites.
We now had a crisis. We had read that it is illegal to do wild camping in Croatia, but if there are no campsites? It was also supper time and we needed to find a place to eat. To our relief we came across a very nice pizza place, ordered, and asked the owner about campsites. There was indeed nothing for a long time, but he said we might as well spend the night in his parking area. Lots of campers did and he was not aware of any ban.
We enjoyed our meal and decided to carry on and wild camp in a more private place. This came in the form of a stretch of the old road we could turn onto and we stopped virtually on an old bridge. It was nicely tucked away, but the locals obviously used the bridge as a dumping site and the river bed was filled with all sorts of trash. There was also a gravel road heading up to the mountains, but although we walked up it for about two kilometres there was no indication of where it went. The views across to the island Rab were magnificent, but it amazed us that there was absolutely no vegetation on the landward side of the islands. It reminded us of St Croix here in Algoa Bay. It was very peaceful there and there was almost no traffic during the night and we slept well.

Geschreven door Leartravels