Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Split ~ Palaces, Wedding Anniversary & Incredible Biking

 Split ~ Palaces, Wedding Anniversary & Incredible Biking 



The next morning we take a 2-hour ferry to Split, a shipbuilding city sitting on a peninsula and the 2nd largest city in Croatia (population 178,000). At the top of the city harbor is the Old Town made up of Diocletian’s Palace on one side and a medieval town with a maze of streets next door. 


Judita Palace

We check into the Judita Palace, a lovely small hotel situated in the center of Old Town. Our rooms are amazing, unique and the staff extremely helpful.  

We have lunch at Kanoba Marna, a small hole in the wall restaurant with 5 tables. The waiter starts by showing us a platter of the various fish available that were caught that day. John chooses dogfish and Seth sea bass while Laura and I share shrimp and salad. 



Next we meet Lana who takes us on a 2 ½ hour tour of Emperor Diocletian’s Palace, a fourth century Roman ruins.

Roman Emperor Diocletian
 Diocletian was born in this area when it was part of the Roman empire and rose to become the Roman Emperor. He built an enormous waterfront palace as his retirement home.  

Lana shows us map of palace as it used to be

The most interesting part is the labyrinth of mostly intact cellars that supported the palace. We admire the amazing stonework and circular brickwork. 





Peristyle Square
Above this is the Peristyle square and Mausoleum where Diocletian was originally buried. 



There are amazing red granite pillars and black sphinx from Egypt collected by Diocletian in his retirement years. We run into cappella singers, who are outstanding. 


We enter Diocletian’s mausoleum which was later converted to the Cathedral of St. Dominus, an octagonal structure. Interesting transformation for Diocletian who had a legacy of torturing and executing Christians.

Inside Mausoleum
Rubbing the toe and making a wish


There are pictures to be taken everywhere ~ one turns around and
sees something else to try to capture in one's memory.




Cardiac Lane

Anniversary Dinner
Dinner that night is our 43rd wedding anniversary and we eat at the Dvor Restaurant outside along side the Adriatic Sea with another amazing view. 

The sun sets and I wonder how it is that 43 years could possibly have passed by so quickly ~ but our life is but a speck in the history of this land. Afterwards we walk through the Peristyle Square, which is all lit up, and musicians are playing.  We dance for a while and arrive home to find that Seth and Laura have put a bottle of champagne, beautiful orchids and a bouquet of chocolate in our room.  Who could ask for a better day?





Biking Dalmatian Hinterland



The next morning at 9:30 we meet our guide, Dom, for a bike tour of the nearby mountains. After taking a jeep ride to the top of the hills we are given great mountain bikes. We bike down hillsides enjoying the fields, landscapes and views. I was a little worried about my biking skills and especially the speed of going downhill but our guide coaches me to go slowly and keep to the side of the road.  He seems confident in my ability despite the fact I am wearing entirely wrong shoes for this activity (Birkenstock sandals!) He tells me never to travel without proper shoes again.  There are not too many cars to worry about and we all love this ride. It is my first hilly ride since my bike accident and while I had a bit of stress about my riding ability I discovered that I could still remember the gearshifts and brake methods.  It was good to be biking again although my butt was not in the best shape for this event.  Next time I will train first! 



We ended up in a tiny chapel perched at the top of a hill for a picnic lunch consisting of Dom’s home made sardines, olive oil, tomatoes and local bread and cheese and peaches for dessert.  Okay I think I will do this on Vashon but could add some fresh crab from Puget Sound.





Reflecting on the beauty 


We end up at 4 pm at a lovely bar also positioned with a great view of Split.


We walk back into town content after our more physical adventure that allows us to eat more that evening. I conclude it was a breakthrough experience.  

We eat dinner at the same restaurant where we had lunch the prior day because John and Seth are hoping to have scorpion fish.  Unfortunately they had no scorpion fish left but they both shared a fish platter with many kinds of fish (hake, prawns, dogfish, sea bass and tuna).  

No left overs! 

We saunter back through the Square again to listen to music.  We are reluctant to go back to our hotel as this is our last night here and we will miss not only this magical land but also our time with Laura and Seth. What a great experience to travel with one’s children as grown ups.  The best gift ever.


The next morning Seth and Laura rent a car and drive us to the Ian Mestrovic Gallery on their way to visit National Park Kraka and waterfalls said to be one of the most beautiful nature spots in Croatia. We wish we were going with them. 


Ivan Mestrovic Gallery contains 86 sculptures in bronze, marble and wood.  I take pictures of 2 of them on the garden which represent how I feel about this trip. 










Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Foodies Arrive at Stari Grad on Hvar Island




Foodies Arrive at Stari Grad on Hvar Island



We check into Apolon Hotel, which is an old priest’s house that has only 7 rooms and is decorated in a mix of traditional and modern styles. We sleep in the priest's room so expect to receive some
spiritual input.
Our room 


The hotel is situated on the pier which has huge and expensive sailing boats have docked here for several nights. 



We saunter around this charming and peaceful small town and eat dinner on the balcony overlooking the harbor. 


We determine this is the best meal we have had yet ~ starting with shrimp macaroni hors d’oevres followed by John having a half kilo of fish served in a huge frying pan, Seth having lamb (to die for lamb), and Laura and I having shrimp risotto.  We clearly have once again ordered too much food and sadly no room for desert.




Lamb
1/2 kelo fish
The next morning we meet our tour guide who drives us around the hills and villages (e.g., Jelsa) of Hvar Island. We learn about grape harvesting, olive growing and lavender farming. The winemaking industry on this island was nearly devastated in 1910, when a phylloxera infestation decimated their grape plants.  Now the focus is on quality of wine rather than quantity as many of the wine makers fled to other countries. 



Also the business of making oil has suffered because our guide tells us that the heavy rains the year before reduced them to 10% of their usual production of olive oil.

Verboska




We arrive in Verboska a small, quaint village and walk around learning more from our guide about local history. 

John joins the men's group
Boys learn early to relax 

Are they mindful?



Originally this was the Island of Lavender. Everywhere we stop for amazing views and notice that the hillsides are striped with outlines of rock terraces which traditionally were used to separate out people’s land being used for growing grapes or lavender. 

Rock terraces separate lavender and grape growing plots






This lavender was mostly exported for industrial use in Germany and the UK and dramatically improved the quality of life in Hvar for awhile. However, periodic forest fires over the past 3 decades have burned up much of their lavender crop. Moreover the hard manual work of hand picking and harvesting both olives and lavender has been become replaced with the less physically difficult tourism work that is more lucrative. Nowadays lavender is produced for the sake of tradition. Laura and I try to convince John and Seth of the medicinal value of lavender for relaxation, mindfulness and treating muscle aches but I don’t think they are convinced. They want the data! I wish I had planted more lavender in my Vashon garden earlier this spring and plan to add some when I return.  

Hvar Town







We stop in Hvar town and our guide shows us where his family home is and where he and his brother ran a wine bar until there was too much sibling rivalry and discontent. They now live together with their families but have rented out this space to another wine bar merchant.  Laura and I wish we had more time here to poke about in stores, explore small side streets, see the Franciscan Monastery and have a painless smile makeover.  However, our guide says we are late for lunch and must head up the mountain hillside.  

After a winding road and walk up a trail we are greeted with a 
lovely small family restaurant in a private olive grove with an amazing background of Adriatic Sea and Stari Grad city where we have a private lunch. 








We watch the cook as he fries peppers and fills them with home made cheese. After this he barbecues chicken and veal on his large and hot stove. 





Of course there is no air conditioning in this basic shelter and the temperature is in the 80’s or 90’s outside but with the hot stove on top of that I don’t know how he cooks in this temperature.  We are the only guests here except for his wife who greets us holding her 5-month-old baby.

View from family restaurant 
Back at the hotel by 3 pm Seth and Laura go swimming and we walk about this quaint and sleepy village. John moves the time later for our next meal so we can be hungry enough to enjoy it. I think about how much weight I am gaining. Funny how on holidays one thinks about and enjoys meals so much more. We stop in the village for drinks and Laura and I buy lavender from some girls selling on the town square.

Girls sell us lavender 

Going out for Dinner on a Vespa

 At 8 pm the hotel manager takes me via Vespa while the others go in a car to another amazing traditional family home restaurant in the country called Konoba Kokot. This restaurant almost equals our oyster island restaurant for heavenliness, peacefulness and isolation.  It is set in the family’s back yard under an ancient almond tree with a view of lavender and the owner’s garden. 

View from our dinner table
The cook’s three children and his wife are also having dinner at a table nearby. We start with a rakica drink and figs.  The drink is like grappa but with a sharper taste and quite delicious when paired with figs. We are also served several types of homemade goat cheeses along with crepes filled with melted cheese and asparagus. This is followed with peka… the local Croatian dish that is baked for hours on a large furnace heated with wood. 


Preparing Peka

Peka ~ local Croatian Dish
It is moist and delicious and while you think you can’t eat any more it is seems necessary to do so. Of course, there is ever flowing homemade red wine.  I wonder how I can possibly stay seated on the Vespa to get safely home ~ luckily the manager arrives to pick us up in a car that fits all of us.