From the moment we walked off the plane, we were in shock. The drastic difference between the bustling, dirty, crowded city of Rome we had just left …arriving 1 hr later to an empty, brand new, clean airport in Split…was mind-boggling. We have really enjoyed the past few days by the ocean in this little city of 200,000. The entire country of Croatia has less than 4 Million people…and most live in the capital city of Zagreb…but this small seaside town is just the perfect size to be cozy & comfortable.

History shows Croatia has existed like a soccer ball..tossed around between countries for over 2000 years. It was originally ruled by the Greeks, then the Romans took over til the 5th century when the Roman Empire collapsed. Hungary took over for a few centuries, but after WW1 Yugoslavia took control. In 1991, with no official army, ordinary Croatian citizens joined together and began fighting for their independence from Yugoslavia ….and by 1995, they had succeeded. When I decided to take this trip and was looking in my 1000 Places to See Before You Die book that my grandmother (a European history professor at UT) gave me and I use as my travel Bible….Croatia wasn’t even listed. That tells you how old my book is! One man summed it up… “in my lifetime, I stood on my front steps and lived in 4 different countries.”

I’ll try to highlight a few things we saw and experienced, but hopefully not bore you with too many facts….

• Diocletian’s Palace…an ancient palace built for the Roman Emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century AD, (YELP… 1800 years ago…go figure!). Today the palace grounds form about half of the old town section. They call it a palace but it reminds me of a fortress. It’s massive. Half of it was used as the Emperor’s residence and rest was for military personnel. It took 10,000 slaves 10 years to build it. Today over 3,000 people still live in SMALL apartments inside the walls.
• Food and wine tasting …local foods we sampled were octopus stew, fresh oysters, cuttlefish black ink risotto, lots of different cheeses, prosciutto, lots of olives and bread, anchovies in olive oil, gnocchi, and OF COURSE, lots of pizza, pasta and wine. Everytime they drink wine they bump glasses and say “Živjeli” (pronounced Gee v Lee ) and it means “cheers” or “To Life”. We were fortunate to visit a very tiny family owned winery, Perisin, a short distance out of town located in a small fishing village on the coast. The son, Ivan, age 26, was basically a one man show …sadly due to his Father recently being diagnosed with melanoma. The good news is there’s only 12 wine producers in this region (all much older than Ivan, so they all help each other during busy harvest times. They produce only 1,000 cases of wine annually (12,000 bottles) so it is all kept for local consumption…that’s the BEST! It was actually one of my top 10 favorite wine tastings and visits of all time. Very personal, just the 3 of us, and not only was Ivan extremely knowledgeable, he also had a great sense of humor (or maybe funny partly due to the excellent wine he produces). Obviously, we bought several bottles of wine. Just saying!
• Krka National Park– AMAZING waterfalls! This is the oldest and largest national park in Croatia. It has seven waterfalls and is located about an hour out of Split. Our lunch while visiting the park consisted of fries, gelato, and of course, local red wine. And on the way back to Split we were privileged to see the road thru the mountains that Napoleon built. How cool is that?
• Restaurant Dvar – Oceanside restaurant serving fresh oysters and other yummy seafood dishes.

Moving on…heading to the small island of Hvar via ferry. Looking forward to a sea view from our window.