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| view of Split from the bay |
The drive from Zagreb to Split is through the mountains and down to the Mediterranean. On the way, we stopped at the beautiful Plitvice Lakes National Park for a several mile walk along the lakes and waterfalls and through a thick forest rich with red and yellow fall colors amidst the pine trees. It was very crowded with tourists and Croatians, which curbed the appeal a bit but we enjoyed the walk nevertheless.
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| basement of Diocletian's Palace, Split |
Split's lovely old city dates back to pre-Greek times, but the highlight today is Diocletian's Palace, built by Diocletian in the 4th century AD for his retirement. It is really a huge fortress filling a good portion of the old city. It wasn't excavated and partially renovated until a few decades ago. Today, you can enter through the old basement, though it has been occupied continuously since the 7th century, which was filled with trash and petrified human waste until it was cleaned out by the citizens. Must have been rather disgusting, but it did seem to preserve a magnificent substructure of giant arches and long corridors. Diocletian's mausoleum became a Catholic cathedral in the medieval period. Today, only about 100 hardy souls reside inside the palace, in the midst of restaurants, tourists shops and, during the high season, hordes of tourists.
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| cave for hiding warships--Vis |
We spent yesterday taking a speedboat to the islands of Vis and Hvar to check them out for a future trip with a group. Croatia has over 1000 islands off its coast, mostly tiny, but quite a few that are long, narrow, mountainous and very rocky. Today, the larger islands live on tourism, vineyards and wineries, and olive production. The steep mountainsides were terraced millennia ago for vineyards and, later, lavender and olive orchards. Today, many of them are returning to viniculture. The huge piles of rocks and endless stone walls prove the unbelievable effort farmers made to clear enough limestone rocks to allow them to farm. Many of their old villages are empty today because it is much easier to make a living off of tourists than agriculture.
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| Vis |
Vis, far out in the Adriatic, was a military island until 1989. During World War II, American and British airmen flew B-17 bombing raids over Italy and Yugoslavia from a small airbase cut into one of the valleys. Our guide stopped to show us poignant monuments to the Americans and British who died helping to free Yugoslavia from German occupation.
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| Hvar's old city |
Marshal Tito used Vis as a base for the resistance to the Germans during World War II, an effort he led. He holed up in a cave on Vis when necessary and cut giant tunnels into the rocky promontories jutting out into the sea to hide warships. After he became the dictator of the former Yugoslavia, he turned the island into a military base, so no one but local islanders could live or visit there. Vis has only been developing its tourist industry for the last 30 years, so the infrastructure is small. Yesterday, all the hotels had already closed for the season and only a few restaurants remained open.
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| Hvar's main piazza |
But, we toured part of the island in a ratty old Land Rover with a guide who talked non-stop and showed us the old airfield and tunnels along with vineyards and olive orchards.
An hour's race in our speedboat over rather rough seas took us to Hvar (pronounced Hwar), another rugged and beautiful island of rugged mountains, deep coves, several villages and towns (in addition to Hvar) and 15 wineries. Hvar, too, has steeply terraced fields surrounded by huge mounds of limestone rocks. Most of these are fallow because a fire destroyed the vineyards. But, some are being replanted with grapes.
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| Count's lion--Hvar |
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| islands in the Adriatic from a Hvar mountaintop |
Both Vis and Hvar date to Greek times, but the ruins are mostly from the Roman era. Their old cities are beautiful medieval towns built of bricks carved from the limestone mountains. They are both on gorgeous bays of clear turquoise water with steep, stark mountains rising above them. Both have castles high on the mountaintops. Hvar has a much more developed tourist infrastructure because it has been a mecca for travelers for decades. The views are spectacular no matter where you go. We drove up over the mountains from Hvar to see more of the island and to take in its magnificent views out over the countless islands and back to the mainland (lost in haze).
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