2012-04-30 Trogir, Split, day 30

There are buses that leave from Split every 30 minutes to go to the city of Trogir, and the center of the city of Trogir happens to be included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, so I thought I might as well go see that while I'm in Split!

I arrived in Trogir at 9 o'clock and started taking plenty of pictures immediately:

By the time I was done it was time to have lunch! I stopped in a very cute restaurant:

And had this meal which is beef in a wine sauce and gnocchi. Apparently it's a specialty dish in this part of Croatia:

Very good but this one was way too expensive compared to what I normally pay. The small city center in Trogir was getting more and more crowded every hour that went by so I'm guessing they boost their prices because of the tourists. The waiter also told me that water was not 100% safe to drink in Trogir, I'm not sure whether it's true or if he told me that so I would order something that costs money but I ordered a lemonade, not taking any chance!

I was planning on spending the whole day in Trogir but after lunch I was pretty much done! So I took the bus back to Split but I ended up in a city bus instead of the usual long distance buses. The bus dropped us at one of the cities bus terminal which was not on my map. I was so lost, I had no idea where I was!! Fortunately 3 young ladies were able to tell me how to come back downtown and it was close enough to walk. But really, none of the guides that were suggesting Trogir as a day trip informed me that the bus back would bring me somewhere different!

I had more time than expected in Split so I took that opportunity to climb up the bell tower of the church in the middle of the palace:

And as if this was not enough climbing, I decided to go check out the "best view of Split" which is located at the end of 250 stairs.

It's true that it's nice but you have to work for it! After this I was done for the day :)

I thought there were too many tourists in Split yesterday... But I didn't know what was coming!! If you remember, yesterday I showed you the huge sculpture of George of Nin and there was nobody around. Here's what George looked like today:

At least the nice thing is that I came accross a group of tourists from Québec so I said "Bonjour" to them!

Now, let me tell you something insane! I turned on the TV when I started typing today's blog post and the news were on. They were talking about Plitvice Lakes where I was on April 26. On the news, they showed a building completely destroyed by a fire. Obviously I didn't understand anything so I searched for the same news online. Apparently one of the restaurants of Plitvice caught on fire, it happened this morning at 6 AM. I did not eat at that restaurant and I don't recognize the place from the pictures but it's weird to think that I was there very very recently.

But what's worse, is that at the very end of the article, there's a paragraph that says "this is the second tragedy in Plitvice in less than 24 hours. The fire happens after the murder that took place in Plitvice the day before". A MURDER!!! So obviously I clicked on the link for that article too and from what I can understand from Google's translation, some of the visitors actually witnessed the murder... Can you believe?? If it had happened 3 days earlier I may have witnessed a murder!!!

In case you want to read the articles, here they are:

In English:
Fire
Murder

And for those of you who understand Croatian:
Fire
Murder

Scary!

2012-04-29 Split, day 29

I am currently writing this blog post from my APARTMENT!! I have a HUUUUUGE place to myself!! I'm not 100% what happened but apparently they overbooked the hostel so they placed me in this apartment but I'm still paying the same price I would be paying for a simple room. Awesome!

We are in the city of Split today, you and I will be sleeping here for the next 4 nights. Split is the second largest city in Croatia and it is, from what I can see, a very popular destination for tourists! I can understand why as the old city core is surrounded by walls, such as these:

And there are 4 doors to get inside such as this one:

But these are not normal walls, this is actually a huge palace that was built in the 4th century by Romans. From Wikipedia: "After the Romans abandoned the site, the Palace remained empty for several centuries. In the 7th century nearby residents fled to the walled palace to escape invading barbarians. Since then the palace has been occupied, with residents making their homes and businesses within the palace basement and directly in its walls. Today many restaurants and shops, and some homes, can still be found within the walls."

I really like the idea while walking in the streets that I'm actually walking inside a palace.

Here are a few more pictures from Split:

And here we have a statue that I have seen on a smaller scale in Varaždin! So nice to recognize something I have seen before! This one is really big:

Since it is not quite clear from the previous picture how big it is, I took another shot along with a tower so you can have a comparison point:

Apparently rubbing his toe brings good luck so I made sure to touch it in order to have good weather for the rest of my trip!  I have sure been lucky these past few days with weather as high as 20-something Celsius!

Well, I have found an interesting Croatian TV show and I would like to watch it so that's it for today!

2012-04-28 Krka, Šibenik, jour 28

Departure at 9 AM this morning for Krka, which is another National Park very similar to Plitvice Lakes with countless waterfalls and plenty of lakes with magical colours!

I am sorry that I don't have anything new to present you today, everything in Krka was highly similar to what we've seen in Plitvice but hopefully you will forgive me. 5 minutes after arriving in Krka I already thought it was worth my money so obviously I had lots of fun, which is what matters right?

Ok I will stop talking about it and actually show you what it looked like!

I paid for a boat ride that had two stops in different parts of the park. The boat ride was lots of fun because we went through a canyon!

I asked someone to take a picture of me hoping she would put the canyon in the background but she didn't... oh well!

We stopped on one island called Visovak where there is a Franciscan monastery. The island is not very big (162 meters by 100 if I remember properly). There are 3 monks that live and take care of the island as well as 8 novices. Visovak was first populated by Augustinian monks in the 14th century. They fled due to the Turkish invasions and later on, the Franciscans took over. The island used to be made of rocks only but the monks brought soil from the continent and today it is beautiful with big trees, a monastery and a museum.

On the boat, I noticed I was sitting next to a guy who had a Canada flag on his cap, so I said "Canada?" and he answered "yes" (in French) in one of the rudest tone I have ever heard. Since I was already started I said "oh me too" and he didn't say anything, so obviously he wasn't looking to strike up a conversation with me therefore I did what I should have done at first, I shut up!

However, someone else heard me mention that I was from Canada and later on he approached me and he said (in French, he was from France): "My wife is from Vimy!" I must admit that I really had no clue whatsoever why he was giving me that information... He obviously saw that so he said "Well you're from Canada... my wife is from Vimy!" I know I may sound stupid to some of you once again but apparently there is a Canadian War Memorial in Vimy, actually here's a sample from the Wikipedia article about that:

Set on the highest point of Vimy Ridge is the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, the largest of Canada's war monuments. In 1922, use of the land for the battlefield park which contains the memorial was granted, in perpetuity, by the French nation to the people of Canada in recognition of Canada's war efforts. 250 acres (100 ha) of the former Vimy Ridge battlefield is preserved as part of the memorial park which surrounds the monument. The grounds of the site are still honeycombed with wartime tunnels, trenches and craters, closed off for public safety. The memorial took eleven years and $1.5 million to build and was unveiled on 26 July 1936 by King Edward VIII (prior to his abdication and in his capacity as King of Canada), in the presence of President Albert Lebrun of France and 50,000 or more Canadian and French veterans and their families. The memorial site is tended by Veterans Affairs Canada.

Did you know that?? Am I the only ignorant person here? It's OK, next time someone approaches me about their wife being from Vimy I will say "Oh really? The city where there is the famous Canadian War Memorial!"

On the island with the monastery, I had helped a French family understand the English guide so when it was time to grab lunch at our next stop, they invited me to join them which was quite nice! I didn't eat alone! Tourists are not that annoying after all ;)

I did a lot of walking today so while I was waiting for the boat to return us to the park entrance, I deserved a break. I was sitting on that quay:

with my feet in the water!!

First time this year, woohoo!!!

2012-04-27 Šibenik, day 27

We are now in the city of Šibenik! In Croatian, when you see a "s" with a backward hat (like this: š), the letter is pronounced like "sh" in the word "shore". Therefore the pronounciation of Šibenik in English is Shibenik!

One of the first person I "met" in Šibenik is King Krešimir IV:

I was quite happy to finally meet him as he seems to be very important in Croatia since he has a trg or a street with his name in every single city I've been to. So we hear of Krešimir IV all the time, but no mentions of number one, two and three so I don't know if they ever existed but they were not much remembered!

What I was excited to see in Šibenik was the cathedral! As I said yesterday, Lonely Planet informed me that it was one of the nicest in Croatia. And I hadn't really looked it up on the Internet first so I didn't know what to expect. Here is what I saw:

I was a tiny bit disappointed... Have they not been to Osijek? And Zagreb? Their cathedrals are 10 000 times nicer!! (I have pictures of both of them so feel free to refer to the posts from these cities to compare yourself).

Not that big a deal, it didn't ruin my day, but I definitely will not trust Lonely Planet's every words anymore! However it may be worth mentioning that the cathedral in Šibenik is one of the UNESCO world heritage monument.

Šibenik has its own castle right in the middle of the old town and here are some pictures that I took of the castle and from the castle:

Ever since I reached Pula, every single city I have been to has been invaded by annoying tourists. Personally not an annoying tourist, I would describe myself as an enhancement to the cities I go to haha! I don't know if it is because we are getting closer and closer to May or if it is because I am now on the coast where tourists are more likely to come, but I must admit that I miss the time when I was the only person walking around with my map looking lost. Tourists get in the way when I want to take pictures. But also, cities that are more likely to be visited by tourists make you pay for everything. The cathedral in Šibenik is the very first Cathedral I had to pay to get into. I also had to pay to get to area where the castle is... Not a huge problem of course but I thought I would share that thought with you in case you consider travelling to the coast of Croatia!

I walked around Šibenik all day and got to see almost everything there is to see

I believe I mentioned before that Šibenik is also on the coast which means it has it's area by the water:

And I've seen real life swans for the very first time in my life, so cool!!

I saw one more event that is worth mentionning, there was a wedding taking place by the water! Actually what I saw was the whole wedding crew walking to the church. I'm not sure whether this was a typical wedding or not but there was someone walking at the front waving a Croatian flag, then the people getting married, then a guitarist and a guy playing the accordion, and then the rest of the people, and everybody was singing.

Tomorrow I was going to go to the few places here and there that I haven't seen today but someone suggested an activity to me and I think that is what I will do instead. You shall see tomorrow! :)