Split Time

The road along the coast with the islands of Croatian in the distance.

The first day trip that Anne and Mark took from their home base in Dubrovnik was to another city in Croatia.  The name of the city is Split.  Readers of this blog might expect this blog post to be little more than some photos and a series of puns playing on the name of the city.  Mark would love nothing more than to do this.  Unfortunately, Anne has placed a ban on puns.  So there will be no fun with puns.  However, with a name like "Split," you have to do something to mark the occasion, right?  So, for the remainder of this post we will pay homage to the city's name by promising to unnecessarily split the infinitives used in this post.

The trip from Dubrovnik to Split is a fairly long one.  Anne and Mark decided to actually take a bus.  Even though both Dubrovnik and Split are located within the nation of Croatia, the geography of the region is such that Anne and Mark had to purposefully make two border crossings on the way there and two more on the way back.  For historical reasons that Anne and Mark did not fully comprehend, a small part of land belongs to Bosnia, even though Croatia is on both sides of it.  

The arrow points to the piece of land that is Bosnia that Anne and Mark had to cross.  Even though it has sea front, there is no port there, so Bosnia has coast line but is essentially landlocked for shipping purposes.

When Yugoslavia existed, the areas that are now Bosnia and Croatia were parts of that nation.  The infrastructure of Yugoslavia contained a major highway that followed the coast and that highway is still in use.  Now, however, that highway goes from Dubrovnik (in Croatia), through Bosnia for about a 30 minute drive through only one small town called Neum, and then back into Croatia.  

After a few hours on the bus, Anne and Mark were able to eventually arrive in Split.  There are several things that the city is known for, none moreso than Diocletian's Palace located there.  Diocletian was a Roman big shot who decided to expertly build a palace in Split while he was ruling the surrounding area.  Like many ruins from Roman times, much of this palace is well preserved.  Upon initial inspection, however, Anne was unsure whether this was a good thing.

Smells ike we're touring a garbage dump.

The brochure said that visitors should make a stop at Diocletian's cellars.  When Anne and Mark think "cellars," they think wine or storage or perhaps, since this was a Roman palace, some sort of prison set up.  Nope.  Upon inspection, Anne begins to olfactorily sense that the cellars were used for several purposes, including a garbage dump.  The ceiling contained holes that connected to the surface level.  Diocletian and his contemporaries would dump their trash in the holes and eventually, they filled up much of the cellars.  Some of it has since been excavated and the experts consider this to archaeologically be a treasure trove of information.  So keep that in mind - some day some archaeologist is going to scientifically dig through your trash to approximately figure out how you lived, so leave trash that represents you as you want to appropriately be represented.

Anne and Mark then endeavored to boldly explore the remainder of the ruins of Diocletian's Palace.  In the photo above, a headless sphinx guards the entrance to Diocletian's Temple to Jupiter.  As often happens over the years, the buildings get changed from one use to another as the ruling party changes and the dominant religions change.  Jupiter's Temple, for example, was converted into a church dedicated to John the Baptist (at which point the sphinx makes even less sense, but to each their own).

Speaking of sphinxes (is that the right plural?  I do not think I have ever had to properly refer to more than one sphinx before in my life), there were a bunch of them in Split.  Diocletian had been in Egypt for part of his career and really dug the motif, so he brought 16 or so sphinxes with him when he left.  Many of these are on display throughout the city, and many of them (like the one outside of St. John's) got defaced or otherwise damaged.  The sphinx in the photo immediately above was outside of the main temple in town and has remained remarkably well intact.

Before moving on to happily discuss some more of the nice parts of Split, it is time to necessarily deal with some ugly business.  Anne and Mark have not encountered many unpleasant people in their travels.  Sure, there was the Goonies lady in Venice and that mean Bren girl who was trying to nefariously drop coins into some guy's Speedo on the beach, but most people that Anne and Mark have encountered on their travels have been pretty friendly.

Then there is this Jack Hole (pictured above).  Mr. Hot Shot Purple Shirt (pictured above) is in charge of the mausoleum of Diocletian in Split.  The mausoleum has been converted into a church (Cathedral of St. Dominus) and is one of the main attractions of the city.  Anne and Mark arrived to respectfully visit the mausoleum/cathedral at about 12:15.  The sign posted there said that it closed at 12:30 (Anne and Mark never did get a good reason as to why it closed that early, but that is beside the point).  As they approached the entrance, Captain Fun Hater (pictured above) started yelling at them in Croatian.  He also was physically escorting people out of the mausoleum/cathedral.  Keep in mind, this is still before the posted closing time.  AND keep in mind - this is Europe.  Nothing runs on time in Europe.  Being late is expected.  So this guy decides to go rogue and shut down the mausoleum/cathedral early?  For shame.

Do not get us wrong, Anne and Mark had no strong desire to definitely visit this site prior to learning about it when they got there.  I mean come on, when you've seen one 4th century mausoleum converted into a cathedral, you have seen them all.  But why would you shut this down early, Jerky McJerkerson?  Some people are probably visiting Split for the one and only time in their lives and some people probably really made the trip to individually see this particular site.  The least you could do is keep it open for the time you said you were going to actually keep it open.  So, Captain Purple Shirt McJerkerson Fun Hater, congratulations, you are officially named the Jack Hole of the trip!!!

I am sorry you had to unfortunately witness that ugliness.

Anne and Mark did not let this one Jack Hole Croatian dude ruin the day trip.  Instead, they rallied and toured the remainder of the city.  Just outside the gates of the palace, Anne and Mark saw the statue of Gregory of Nin ("G of N" to his friends).  G of N was a bishop and is a big deal in this area.  The locals say that if you rub G of N's big toe, you will have good luck or a wish will come true or something (Anne and Mark did not get adequate clarification on the details of the toe-good fortune connection).  Due to some traumatic experiences, Anne is generally opposed to gratuitously touching other people's toes, so Anne and Mark skipped this opportunity.

Later, Anne and Mark went on a walk through the old part of the city and saw some of the artwork there.

This statue was done by some artist, who apparently had some issues he needed to artistically resove.  First, there is the small motif in the wall about 5 or 10 feet above the statue showing a man and woman arguing.  Weird.  Then you have the statue.  Very nice statue of... well, we really do not know who it is.  Not sure it that nice, either.  But look to the bottom of the statue, next to the figure's left leg. See it?

It's like a little dude hiding behind the figure.  What are you doing back there, little dude?  Do not be afraid.  Actually, according to the guidebook, the guy who paid for the statue wanted a statue of the saint or the bishop or whomever that statue is supposed to be.  This patron, however, also wanted to be remembered and demanded to be included in the work.  This creepy little guy is the result.  Was the patron happy with this?  No word on that.

After a good day of touring the palace and the old town, Anne and Mark spent the remainder of their time in Split down by the harbor enjoying a cold, locally-produced beverage.

Ozujsko, anyone?

All Around Town

Cruisers mill about on the Stradun.

Anne and Mark took several day trips while they were staying in Dubrovnik, but also spent a significant amount of time hanging around town.  Dubrovnik is quite the tourist destination and on a couple of the mornings Anne and Mark were in town, so were the passengers of a cruise ship.

Anne and Mark sat at a cafe and sipped coffee while the cruise ship passengers milled about.  They might even had appeared to be real Europeans except for the fact that Mark is roughly the size of 3 typical Europeans (Mark is sometimes mistaken for a street gang).  And even though it was late in the season, the street performers came out to ply their trade.  There was a parrot trainer guy right near our cafe.  For some reason, the parrots were trained not to fly or talk, but to walk around.  Interesting act, I guess.  There were also some other street performers, but they were clearly just going through the motions (not worthy of a photo on this blog).

What are you looking at?

After finishing their coffee, Anne and Mark sprinted to all of the other sites in town (it turns out that the coffee was actually espresso, so Anne and Mark sustained a significant caffeine buzz, which may explain the sprinting).  Just outside the main gate to the city (called the Pile Gate), there is a statue of St. Blaise.  Blaise is the patron saint of Dubrovnik and is usually portrayed with a model of the city in his left hand.  (And he is portrayed EVERYWHERE.)  The story is that St. Blaise warned the city of an impending attack and allowed it time to prepare to defend itself.  The attack was rebuffed and Blaise was declared to 'the man.' 

St. Blaise watches over the main gate to Dubrovnik

After the cruise ship crowds started to head back to their floating buffets and $50 pitchers of Sangria, Anne and Mark ventured further away from the main drag.  A friend who had previously visited Dubrovnik advised them to seek out the Hole in the Wall.  It turns out that this was great advice (thanks, Paulin).

Keep it short and simple.

The signs made it pretty easy to find.  When we found it we realized that this place was called the Hole in the Wall because... well, because it is a bar that you get to by going through a hole in the city walls (we probably should have picked up on that a bit sooner, I now realize).  The bar is actually set up on the outside of the walls.  And because of this, the unobstructed view is fantastic, or as the sign says, "the most beautiful."

Anne heads to the bar with the city walls behind her and the Adriatic in front of her.

After trying a local drink and soaking up the views at this establishment, Anne and Mark next ventured to the top of the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik.  The mountain is tremendously steep and the locals do not recommend hiking up to it.  This site is accessible by cable car and that is how Anne and Mark got up there.

The cross at the top of the mountain was installed by the residents of Dubrovnik.  The population of the city is mainly Roman Catholic.  When the Siege of Dubrovnik was taking place in 1991 and 92, the residents held strong in the base at the top of the mountain and the still-standing cross was a symbol to the entire city that the location had not been taken by the opposition.

While at the top of the mountain, Anne and Mark enjoyed a good view of the city and the Adriatic Sea.  

According to the tourist map, the far side of that island contains a clothing-optional beach.  Oooh la la.

Anne and Mark also visited a museum located in the old base on top of the mountain.  The museum exhibits made clear the fact that the people who fought in the Siege of Dubrovnik were not well armed soldiers.  For the most part the weapons they had available were mementos from World War II and hunting rifles.  Additionally, the photos on display in this museum show a fighting force made up mostly of local police and national guard-types, mixed in with what appear to be regular people and even a few tourists.

The guy on the left: You told me it was Bermuda Shorts day, not uniform picture day!  Real, funny guys.

I am not an expert in military issue headgear... but neither are these guys.

After a busy day of touristing, Anne and Mark finished it off by taking a nice walk along the beach in the newer part of Dubrovnik.  The area around the new port is well developed with resorts and play areas for the rich and famous.  Most of them were closed for the season however (it only got down to about 60 degrees that night, but this is "winter" in Dubrovnik, apparently).  This worked out well for Anne and Mark as with no one else around, they were able to relax, take advantage of the beautiful setting and watch the sun set over the sea.

City Walls of Dubrovnik

At the end of October, the University called fall break and Anne and Mark promptly left for a tour of the Dalmation Coast.  They set up camp in a place called Dubrovnik.  Dubrovnik is a very old city that has seen its share of action over the years.  It is located across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and has a history that dates back to before Roman times.  Early on it became clear that the city was strategically located and foreign powers would try to take it over.  You had all your usual suspects, Slavs, Turks, etc.  You also had the Venetians just across the sea during their hey day, trying to be a big, tough maritime power.  The local residents decided to fortify this location against these foreign threats.  Several fortifications have been built over the centuries, some replacing others and some built upon others, but even the most recent parts of the walls that exist around the city today are hundreds of years old.

Behind Anne in the photo above, you can see the entire "Old Town" portion of Dubrovnik.  The walls encompass the old town on all sides, with a wall to the sea and to the land to protect against either type of invasion, with only a series of gates through which people could enter or leave.

Despite having these significant fortifications, the city of Dubrovnik has been the target of multiple raids over the years, as well as being involved in several wars.  Most recently, Dubrovnik was put under siege from 1991-1992 in a war among the people of the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia (Dubrovnik is located in Croatia, which was a part of Yugoslavia until it dissolved).  As a result of this, the city has sustained extensive damage.  The old portion of Dubrovnik has mostly been restored, using original materials whenever possible.

The exceptionally good-looking man in the photo above (I realize it is the back of his head, but that can still be the better side for some people) is looking over the rooftops of the city while standing on top of the city walls.  If you look closely you can see that most of the roofs are bright red and only a few are of an older, more brown and "worn-looking" color.  The red roofs are the ones that were replaced following the bombing of the city during the 1991-92 siege.  The older-looking roofs are the originals.  As you can see many red roofs in the current version of the city, the damage to roofs in the city was extensive.

The photo above is the main drag through "Old Town."  It is called the Stradun and it is usually packed with locals and tourists alike (the photo above shows a nearly empty Stradun only because it was taken early in the morning).  The store fronts and the streets in Old Town sustained significant damage in 1991 and 1992, but the repairs made by the people have been done so well and so completely that the entire scene is nearly seamless.  Anne and Mark did notice a few places where the scars of the invasion still showed through, but mostly Dubrovnik has cleaned up and moved on.

If anyone is planning on visiting Dubrovnik, Anne and Mark have two pieces of advice: (1) bring your walking stair-climbing shoes and (2) pack light.  The city is built on a rocky island and to get around, the residents go up and down stairs nearly all day long.  This is fine for the local residents, who no doubt have fabulous cardio and strong calf muscles and do not have to carry around luggage.  On the other hand, these stairs are not ideal for Americans, like the one in the photo above, who happen to be carrying around an extra hundred pounds (and I'm not talking about the luggage).  Anne and Mark rented a room just off of the Stradun.  The location was fabulous: in Old Town, 50 yards from the main drag.  Perfect.  The part they did not tell us was that the 50 yards were all vertical.  72 steps from the Stradun to the room (but who's counting?)

Mark runs ahead to get a picture before all the other tourists arrive at the corner of the city walls.

Assuming that their cardio fitness was up to par, Anne and Mark decided to walk the walls.  The city estimates that it is about a 2.2 kilometers hike to walk completely around the city on the walls (2.2 kilometers is roughly 45 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 gallons - Anne and Mark are really starting to pick up this metric systems stuff).  At the end of the walk around the top of the walls, Anne and Mark visited the Fortress of St. Lawrence just adjacent to the Old Town.  The views from pretty much any point on the city walls and the fortress are spectacular.


Like this one: Spectacular

View of Fortress of St. Lawrence from the city walls.

... and this one: Spectacular

View of harbor and city walls taken from on top of the Fortress of St. Lawrence

And this one....well, maybe some are more spectacular than others...

Say hello to next year's Dubrovnik Tourism Association advertising campaign.

Zlatina's Korban

The gang's all here.

Shortly after Anne returned from her time in Hungary and the surrounding area, Anne and Mark were invited to Krassi's and Zlatina's house for a celebration they were calling a Korban.  In the Jewish tradition, a Korban is an offering or a sacrifice.  In Bulgaria, it refers to a celebration of the anniversary of a near death experience.  (The use of the same word may be because at the celebration it is tradition to serve lamb at a Bulgarian Korban celebration, a typical sacrifice in many contexts.)

Zlatina and Krassi were kind enough to invite Anne and Mark to the celebration.  Although, this may have been more of a social obligation than a personal invitation - it appeared that most of the town was either in the apartment or had been there earlier.  (Anne and Mark choose to believe they were personally invited.)

From what Anne and Mark could gather, Zlatina had been in a pretty bad skiing accident 15 or 20 years ago and had spent a significant amount of time in the hospital.  Now, on the anniversary of the accident, Zlatina and Krassi hold a Korban, inviting everyone in town (more or less) to their home to celebrate.  At first this seemed a little strange - we normally celebrate our birthdays and wedding anniversaries - the anniversary of happy events in our lives.  Why would anyone celebrate the anniversary of a nearly fatal accident?

However, the Bulgarians look at it completely differently. They do not think of it as the anniversary of the accident, but of the survival.  It is a celebration of life on the anniversaries of the day that a person came closest to losing it.  From that point of view, this is a pretty cool idea.

Zlatina, on the right, and Dani on the day of the Korban.

Turkish Baths

As Mark and Anne have traveled throughout Eastern Europe, they have come across Turkish Baths a few times.  These are present in the countries that the Ottoman Empire controlled (and Turkey, of course).  Some of the baths are still in use, others are just the old buildings that have been converted to other uses or are waiting to be renovated.

Hungary has several baths that are still widely used.  They are a major draw for both Hungarians and visitors alike.  The guidebook claimed that we must check them out while in Budapest.  So, Erin and I decided to give them a whirl....

So I had no ideas what Turkish Baths really meant when I went.  It turns out that the Baths are just glorified pools, or I should say they are a huge complex of pools.  We went to Szechenyi Baths.  I borrowed some pictures of the website, as I did not bring my camera around while in my bathing suit.  The location was also so huge it would have been difficult to get a good shot.

An ariel shot of the complex.

A picture of the outdoor area

Another picture of the outdoor area.  As you can see, the building is beautiful.  

This is one of the indoor pools.  It didn't look quite this clean when we saw it, but it was still very impressive.

As you can see, the building is just massive.  On the inside, there were about 12-15 indoor pools.  Each of these pools supposedly had different mineral properties, different temperatures, or a different number of jets.  There were also various saunas and steam rooms.

Each Turkish Bath has different rules, so be careful when choosing.  Szechenyi is a coed facility where everyone wears a bathing suit.  That is where I would feel most comfortable.....However, there are same sex facilities where people are allowed to be nudie patootie.  Not really my style, but to each their own.

On the outside, there were three massive outdoor pools.  One of these is an olympic size pool.  The other two are for wading.

Overall, I thought the experience was interesting.  I am not sure that I would go that often if I lived in Budapest, but I would recommend it to someone that was visiting Budapest.

Bratislava

Hello all.  I apologize again for the delay in these postings.  We went to Croatia for fall break and I was away from the computer.  Mark is holding all posts for Croatia until I finish with Hungary and Slovakia, so the pressure is on.

My travel buddy and I headed to Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) for an overnight stay.  Early in the day, we made our way to the train station in Budapest.  We had to go to a special international train ticket booth that only had two desks that sold tickets.  For some reason, people that had oodles of time to wait in line still were not sure where they wanted to go when their number was called.  End result: it took forever.  We should've showed up earlier, but I didn't realize the international tickets were purchased in a different place.  We ended up missing our train and waiting an additional three hours.  Do not fear, we made good use of our time by sampling some of the local fare around the train station (palinka and hungarian beer at a townie bar).

TIME OUT.  I would like to take a time out for a travel lesson that I learned on that day.  When we actually got to purchase our train tickets, we discovered that they were about 25% of the cost of booking on raileurope.com.  Note:  25% of the cost.....not a 25% discount.  The difference was that huge.

We also had the same experience the previous day when we purchased our train ticket to go to Eger, so we knew it wasn't a fluke.  I know that I read in the past that purchasing at the train station could be cheaper, but I didn't realize how much cheaper.  I thought back to all of the times that I booked my tickets in advance, and I felt victimized.  I am still going through a healing process.  All of those dollars down the tubes.....  I just want to let you know so that you consider booking in person when you use European trains.  Perhaps it was something special for bookings in Hungary, but it doesn't hurt to get the message out there.

Time out over.  After getting to Bratislava late in the day, we enjoyed an okay meal and waited for the morning to do sightseeing.

I don't know what you know about Slovakia.  It was formerly a part of Czechoslovakia (annexed by the Soviet Union after WWII, communism ended in 1989, and the two countries officially split in 1992).  It is now a part of the EU and uses the Euro for its currency.  I personally did not have a lot of knowledge about it before going there.  I knew it wasn't as developed as Czech Republic (the other part of the former Czechoslovakia).  I also saw something about it on Eurotrip.  I should be more embarassed that I saw Eurotrip, but I want to state for the record that it was on TNT and I didn't even see the whole thing.

This is a clip from Eurotrip about Bratislava.  Start about 2 minutes in, it is pretty funny.  It is a rated R movie, just wanted to let you know before you click the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbcH_qYkeTc

At any rate, it turns out that Bratislava is nothing like how it was portrayed in Eurotrip.  It was very clean, and very nice.  Bratislava is a somewhat small city (less than 500,000) compared to the cities that I usually visit.  The attractions were mostly within walking distance.  Here is a selection of the sites:

A sculpture of Napoleon.  France did lay siege to the town twice.  The Slovakians did not find this endearing.  There were several sculptures throughout the city.  Other evidence of Napoleon includes cannonballs that are still wedged in the walls of several buildings in Old Town.

Another sculpture.  This one was of a poor man that lived in Bratislava during the 1960's. He use to dress up in his one clack suit and top hat and hit on the ladies.

Sculpture of a guy peaking out of a manhole.  Kind of a little creepy, but I still like it.

A picture of Old Town


















More pictures of Old Town

Picture of a sculpture that is in front of the palace.  The exterior of the palace is rather boring, but they are working on renovating the interior.  Parts of the interior are now open, but we did not see it.

Palace gates.

Picture of the food we had for lunch.  The food is a lot like the food in Czech Republic.  I really like this food.  A lot of potatoes (these potatoes are not just your typical sliced and boiled potatoes....they are a cross between potato and pancake), cabbage (I love cabbage), gravy, and meat.  We stopped at a micro brewery for a quick lunch before the train.  Two thumbs up.

Hungarian Cuisine

 As the trip approached, I was not sure whether or not I would like the local cuisine.  Not that it would be a real issue if I didn't, Budapest is obviously large enough to get whatever type of food I wanted.  It turns out that I really enjoyed the food.  Hungary is known for its spicy (not spicy hot, but actually full of spices) food.  They use a lot of paprika, amongst other spices.  I read somewhere that there are over 40 types of paprika.  Who knew?  My travel buddy and I were also brave and tried a variety of local wines and liquers (we are brave little soldiers).

Goose confit
Verdict: recommend

chicken paprika with dumplings (thick noodles)
verdict: excellent.  We had this dish as well as beef paprika at several different establishments.  The worst one that we had was still pretty darn good








Below: some fancy chicken paprika and fancy dumplings.....very pretty

Langos
Verdict:  Kind of a fail.  This is a deep fried hunk of bread with the toppings of your choice.  I think you would need to have recently consumed quite a few alcoholic beverages.  This meal sucked the energy right out of me.  I had to go back to the hotel and get a nap.

 A walk-through window outside of McDonald's.  We didn't go there, but I thought this was funny.









Goulash.  Verdict:  Recommend.  This is a lot different than what we call goulash.  It had a thin broth.  It was quite good.

Unicum.  Verdict:  Not good.  Unicum is a strong liquer.  It is extremely spicy.  I have never had anything like it.  I hope to never have anything like it ever again.

I think my travel buddy's face says it all.  And that was just from smelling it.  I missed the look of revulsion after she tried it.

Palinka.  Right below.  Verdict:  Much better than unicum.  This is also a very strong liquer.  Not too bad.  It didn't make me want to die the way unicum did.  Next picture:  Hungarian beer....didn't catch the name.  Verdict:  good.  I didn't meet a Hungarian beer that I didn't like.

 In my hand, one of the many Hungarian wines.  We had some really good wines while in Hungary.  One of the more interesting was called Bull's Blood.  It was a red wine from the Eger region.
Verdict:  recommend that you try quite a few different types.

 Lemon and Esterhazy cake.  Both were very good.

These were some fancy deserts that were very expensive (in a building right on a touristy square).  I was glad that we tried it (guidebook says everyone needs to at least try it), but I don't think I would shell out the extra money in the future.  Maybe I didn't appreciate it because I don't have a sophisticated palate.  In my opinion, the ice cream on the bottom one was the best part.