Split and Hvar

Heading south along the dalmation coast first stop Split. Split is the second biggest town in Croatia (behind the capital Zagreb) and the biggest town on the Adriatic coast. The drawcards to Split are its Stari Grad (old town) and that it is a ferry point off to a lot of the Croatian islands.

As we like to do we got picked up by a little old lady at the bus stop who let us stay at her place for a nice cheap price. We were with an aussie bloke we met in Plitvice, so we spent the rest of the arvo walking around the old town with him and having pivos (beers) along the way.

Split has a lovely Stari Grad that is dominated by Diocletians Palace, which is a palace constructed by the Roman Emporer Diocletian as a retirement palace. The palace is now world heritage listed and is a maze of little streets with cafes, restaurants and shops within the palace walls.

Its a place you can easily spend a day just walking, eating and drinking. Besides doing all the lazy things that involve sitting around, the old town is really a very intertesting place and is well worth a visit by anyone making the trip to he Dalmatian coast.

One night in Split to start then we headed for the ferry and off the Croatia's 'island of choice' - Hvar (thanks Lonely Planet). Hvar claims to recieve the most sun of all the Croatian Islands at 2724 hours of sunlight per year, what a stupid statistic this is? Anyway were on the ferry and away.

On Hvar we stayed in Hvar Town, which is one of two main main towns on the island. Hvar Town was magnificent and you can quickly see why it is 'Croatia's island of choice'. Beautiful old buildings, lots of restaurants & pubs and beaches are only a few minutes walk out of town.

Again no sandy beaches here, but the rocky ones did the job, really starting to win us over with their rocks.

The main harbour in Hvar is filled with huge boats i'm sure with lots of 'fat rich pricks' inside (thanks 12th man). Its great to sit there and watch someone opening the back of the boat by remote control to find jetskis and rubber ducks hidden beneath. We were there in shoulder season and some of the boats were impressive enough, i can see why people say that this place goes off in peak season when the high rollers cruise in.

We had three nights in Hvar (planned to be two but missed the morning ferry), then headed back to Split for one more night and a bit more exploring through the old town. Off to Bosnia and Hercigovina tomorrow.