Split

18/09/2008
We finally arrived in Split at 6am, feeling like we had a night on the tiles - hungover and furry mouthed. We arrived at Dioclecijan Apartments to find door locked and no key. After some deliberation we decided we would call Thomas at 7 am as he said he had little children and did not want to be up at 6am.
We went back to a park we had passed and settled on a bench, We noticed we had a couple of other "roomies"who had spent the night. One woke up, got a surprise to see us sitting there, then very neatly folded up his bed and sleeping gear and packed it away between a wall and the bench he had been sleeping on. Must be a regular!
Come 7am I rang Thomas - who I obviously woke up... and explained we were locked out and couldn't get to our key. He said the other tennant must have locked the door. He didn't live on the premises and drove over to let us in. Our room was very small and we were quite disappointed which must have been obvious by the expression on our faces. He obligingly offered us an upgrade to a much bigger apartment when the other tenants leave later in the day and "Shirley" has cleaned it. We could use the current room to have a sleep for a few hours. Of course we accepted... he deserves a gold kangaroo!!
At 10am we were absolutely starving as we hadn't eaten since the rolls we took to eat on the bus. The "Black Cat Bistro" was just across the road and served an english breakfast, which was more than substantial.
We ambled off to Diocletian's Palace which is the centre of the old town and about 5 minutes walk from our "sobe" (room/accomodation in Croatian). The Roman Emperor Diocletian built this enormous retirement palace which sits on the harbour in the heart of Split. Huge sections of the palace still exist which have been modified by medieval and modern developers. There is plenty to see and lots of atmosphere wandering around the palace, various temples, cathedrals and the market of course.
We fronted the tourist office to pick up a map and see what information they had. They weren't very helpful - so we did our own self guided tour to get orientated using our book.
We then went to the ferry office (planning our escape once again!) - they weren't very helpful either! Can't book, turn up on the day and hope you get a ticket. What a pain! We were thinking of staying overnight in Hvar but ferries seem a bit iffy so may go straight on to Korcula.
Went back to our sobe and found "Shirley" was actually Thomas, just finishing the cleaning so we swapped rooms. This is a nice apartment lots of room with cooking, facilities and will sleep a couple of extra people.
There is a yacht regatta on so this afternoon we watched the races on the harbour for awhile and UNESCO getting ready fo the "Year of the children" event tomorrow - they were getting frustrated with the tourists - like us - walking through the area, while they were trying to lay out letters but it was not cordoned off.
Seeing breakfast was so nice, we went back to the "Black Cat"for dinner and that did not disappoint either - Lasgne and Tiki Masarla. Then headed down town for a gelato. Had an early night and slept like logs.