Splitting time in Split
Trip dates: March 5, 2017 - March 9, 2017
After spending the day exploring Trogir and Čiovo, we finally arrived in Split where we would be staying for four nights at an Airbnb near Znjan beach and marina. It's a little ways from Old Town but there are a couple restaurants that were open nearby. Thanks to TripAdvisor, we found a place called Konoba Nevera that was known for their Adriatic shells and pasta. We got the local shells and homemade pasta dish, as strongly suggested by the waiter, which consisted of warty Venus seashells (like a wrinklier clam) and kunjka (or Noah's arc). We really enjoyed our meal here but didn't end up going back since the waiter was really pushy and a bit too egotistically proud of their food.
The next day, we explored Split's Old Town - which is easily doable in a day! We walked along the coast to Old Town from our Airbnb (about 1-2miles), passing by the few beaches that are in Split and the ferry port. The sidewalks and roads are not very well planned, especially for walkers, as the roads and sidewalks will just randomly end!
By the time we got to Old Town, we were quite hungry so we ended up getting a bite to eat in Trg Peristil, the People's Square.
It wasn't the tastiest meal but it got the job done, giving us enough energy so we could climb the Split bell tower right next to St. Domnius cathedral to get some nice views (hey, a bell tower finally open in March! huzzah!). The tower itself wasn't too high, but the steps were really steep to start! And once you got to the bells, it became open stairs - one of the girls walking in front of us freaked out for a bit and had to take some breaths. Eric got some minor vertigo when walking down too! The views from the top are pretty nice though, so I'd highly recommend it as long as you don't have a fear of heights.
After climbing the bell tower, we explored the rest of Diocletian's Palace in Split. We tried to see the Temple of Jupiter, but it was closed. I could see the statue of Jupiter when I peeped through the keyhole though. We also checked out the north and east gates to the palace, also known as the Golden Gate and Silver Gate respectively. By the Golden Gate is a giant statue of Grgur Ninski, where you're supposed to make a wish and then rub his big toe. I'm not sure why, but you can tell lots of people have done this as his toe is quite shiny.
We didn't end up checking out the underground of Diocletian's Palace - they closed at 5pm and when we walked by, it smelled super musty and we figured it wasn't worth the admission cost. It was only later when we googled it that we realized this was Daenerys' throne room from Game of Thrones - drat! Missed out on that. Oh wells, we had gotten ice cream from Luka instead of checking it out so not a bad consolation prize.
We wrapped our day of sightseeing Split by walking along the riva back to the Airbnb. The riva is the promenade in Split, and in the afternoon, it's full of people drinking coffee and soaking up the sun and waiting to be seen. It reminded us a lot of Miami. Surprisingly, most of the places were empty and closed after sunset, as most of them only serve coffee and drinks and not food.
The next day, we decided to check out some of the nearby attractions outside of Split. First stop was Klis fortress, which is the filming location for Meereen in Game of Thrones. It was pouring down rain and absolutely terrible when we got there, but since the weather was forecasted to rain all day, we decided to truck forward. There's supposed to be an entrance fee to Klis fortress, but there was no one at the gate and it was unlocked, so we just went in.
The fortress was a super easy walk up, and probably the least exhausting of all the hikes/climbs for views we've done yet. It was really windy and still rainy at the top but we had a good time exploring the ruins. The views weren't as great though since it was so gray and misty everywhere we looked. They also had a little display room relating to GoT's Meereen scenes that was super sad. It was some low quality photo prints and a paper mâché dragon, really quite pitiful.
After exploring the fortress at Klis, we headed back down to Fi and drove towards Salona, which was an ancient Roman city and still has a lot of ruins. We went to the amphitheater, which was surprisingly hard to find and not well signed. We basically drove through some tiny streets through a neighborhood that suddenly ended in the amphitheater. Voilà!
There were some other ruins near the amphitheater that we briefly scoped out. There was instructional signs posted around the ruins, but we were cold and damp and were pretty sick of the rain by this time. So we bailed out, ended up grabbing some fast food at the mall food court on the way back to our Airbnb and called it a day.
Our last full day in Split was actually spent doing a day trip out to the town of Omiš, which is about an hour's drive away. I loved Omiš and we did quite a bit there, so I'll write about that in a separate blog post!
That night was our final night in Split, but it was also our friends Shawn and Amanda's first night in Split. We ended up walking around Diocletian's Palace again with them, before going to dinner at a random place that Eric found on TripAdvisor. This turned out to be our best meal in Split and one of our favorite meals in Croatia!
The place we ended up with is called Villa Spiza - absolutely recommend you eat there if you're in Split! It's a tiny local restaurant where the menu changes every day based on what the chef finds is fresh at the market. We ended up getting truffle pasta and škampi na buzara there and both were so good! The škampi na buzara in particular was probably one of my favorite dishes that we've had on this trip! Btw, I learned that škampi refers to a specific type of Adriatic shrimp, which is really more like a langostino since it has tiny little claws and all. So the buzara was a simple stew-like preparation of the škampi in a tomato, garlic and white wine sauce, with the shrimps head-on and in the shell. The flavor of this dish was just delicious, the škampi perfectly cooked and naturally sweet, and I'm drooling just thinking about this dish!
Anyways, highly highly recommend going to Villa Spiza in the Old Town if you're in Split. The prices were also really good - it was probably one of our cheaper meals in Split and definitely the best food! The atmosphere is also really warm and welcoming, and the chef was very sarcastic but good humored and fun to chat with. We recommend learning some basic Croatian phrases when you go, and be sure to tell him that the food was vrlo ukusno (very delicious)! Živeli
With the exception of our meal with Shamanda and our first dinner in Split, we didn't really like the food that we had. Maybe we just didn't know what to order or went to the wrong places, but it felt like we were just eating Italian seafood that was more expensive than Italy and not as good. We really liked Split otherwise (though I probably like Zadar a bit better just because it was smaller and less touristy). I'm sure we'll be back again to visit sometime, especially since Split is a good jumping off point for visiting the islands - we'll just have to make sure that we eat at Villa Spiza when we return!
