It’s time to reveal my favorite 3+1 sights in Split. Hope you enjoyed the first part of the article, Once upon a time in Split part 1, which guided through as a short overview basically representing bits of the local culture and history of the city somewhat being a split of past of glory and echoes of post-socialism. 

Overall the Croatian trip was a pleasant surprise. Pleasant in terms of much to see and do, but must say almost two weeks’ was bit too much, although found many good ways to spend time in and out Split. 

Krka + wine and olive oil tasting

People say that nature is the best artist.  Krka national park, located roughly 50km from Split, is a picturesque place everyone with even a slightest interest towards nature should visit if staying close by. I took a package from Viator – transportations including – and upgraded it to a wine and olive oil tasting to have a full experience. So nature, bit of local tapas-style snacks, olive oil and wine – that’s something quite nice to experiment. 

Krka was crammed with people, which you cannot really blame as it’s one of the most visited destinations in Croatia. Everything was taking care of in well advance in the tour, so no one had to think or figure out stuff by themselves. You hear the irony? 

A WhatsApp group was created with images and google map links of all the meeting points were provided together with schedule and reminders. A well-communicated trip I must say. I do prefer taking things for my own hands when I travel, because it’s kind of what’s traveling is, a go-to- experience in order to learn and challenge yourself by doing something you have not done before. But. It was nice also when you can just be without needed to coordinate anything regarding schedule, all is taking care of. Haven’t done much of group trips like that, or done in few decades, so it was bit of new world to me. Enjoyed having my brains in offline mode, curious-minded –  observating and experimenting the nature but must say it was quite amusing to get so detailed guidelines regarding a place with not that much of risk of getting lost.

After Krka we headed to Skradin by boat, which is a tiny yet beautiful village with population almost 4000 people located just 17km from the national park. So a population of around of Sysmä in Finland, the little alleys seems quite empty at the time, as in Sysmä too most of the times. Some people were gathered for a coffee, but no big bunch of tourists – just our group scattered all over.

There was some own time there to have a possibility of have walkabout or going to swimming and that’s something I was actually about to do until I saw that there were quite many swans in the shore.

After Skradin we headed to the tastings. Started with white, followed by rose and ending with red. I’m not much of a red wine enthusiast as I get headache super fast due the tannins, but did try it though (without any headache this time). White and rose were great, and thereby needed to bring a bottle to home. During the tasting had discussions with few American solo travelers – a New York and a Chicago-based – with whom I had a dinner in the evening with. We found a cozy homey restaurant in old town with its’ owner giving us a complimentary Rakı shot because t we needed to wait little bit to get the table. What a service! Was fun to hear experiences of solo female traveling and also share mine. 

Mosor-mountain 

You know the feeling? You’re in a city – any city – and despite all the ridiculously beautiful details it has, you just want to go outdoors, just for a little while, to breath fresh air and focus just being there without any hassle or fuss of everything else. 

I had that urge.

With a bus ticket costing bit over 1€ as round trip (around 40min per direction) I was able to leave bustling city life and immerse in nature. Taking a bus was super easy as it left Split bus station in time and all announcements were first in Croatian following by English – both in written and spoken, so track of the bus stops was effortless.

The serpentine road in which the bus was driving fast as a lightning was in quite good condition not to consider bit of holes there and there.

After reaching to the destination did a short walk of 45min with absolutely privacy and silent feeling bit unreal after being in a city bursting out tourists literally everywhere and now “middle of nowhere”. As a Finn I’m used to the sound of silence, especially of nature, but experiencing it somewhere bit unusual destination, was new to me.

There is no page of the Mosor-mountains in Finnish Wikipedia

Didn’t do much of preparations before as I wasn’t really going for the big hike or anything like it, but just wanted to get to know the basics of how to reach the location by local bus and is there anything specific regarding trails. In Finnish couldn’t find almost nothing in Google, but luckily there were lots of English-speaking pages to navigate. Learned, that the trail I took, is sometimes called as a “Lady Trail” – and that’s due the easiness.. Wonder what is a man trail then. Maybe by reaching the very top blindfolded or something extreme like that.

Based on the instructions reaching the heap takes somewhat 4-5 hours due the reason that trails are bit hard to walk through due amount of limerick and stones. So walkability is quite harsh, I’d say. Tiny stones everywhere, one must be careful with every step on the road.

I also learned that the mountain emergency service gets calls every now and then from tourists who got lost there with their flip flops, so thereby read this message from the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service reminding people to enter the mountain with battery charged, avoiding using flip flops and remembering not to take selfies on a cliff.. In Finnish you say “uusavuton” which doesn’t translate exactly but means somewhat as a person incapable of taking care of him/herself, basically expecting much of pampering in order to cope with.

Salona

In my previous article, Once upon a time in Split 1, introduced how historically rich Split really is and explained bit of the culture and heritage Croatians have.

Diocletian, a great Roman-era empire, was born in Salona, an ancient city. It was such a fulfilling moment to walk down his – and great Roman era – footsteps and have a think of how did people lived here, what kind of habits they had, what kind of profession they were in, how was the family life, how did they survive from the wars, what kind of traditions and myths they had and so on. My first-ever archeological site experience was over the top. Read, that Salona was once considered as important as Pompeii in Naples’s so that’s bit setting the perspective while entering the place.

A good and informative video explaining the place further

Always had an urge to understand what’s behind the soil and the ground, and I think there will be more civilizations we might not hear in our lifetime. That’s the beauty of it; not our grand-great-great-great-families knew nothing of the Giza pyramids, but we do. Next generations will experience spectacular and never seen before, as we did with the Giza but something we won’t ever experience. It’s not a ”me-game” here, despite the fact of technology revolution and partly evolution from “species” such as telephone to a mobile phone has changed the everyday life of literally almost everyone on the planet history will partly remain a mystery.

I’d like to know if there is a correlation with technology adaptation / revolution / evolution and number of few findings on sites. That could be interesting, so would have some theory to back – or fail – my theory. To see whether technology is being utilized or have it been a groundbreaker in terms of finding new, valuable, artifacts – because of technology. Has it made that kind of impact? Technology isn’t a new thing for archeologists, as 3D models, IoT and lidar scanning for instance are used in order to review artifacts without damaging them. Here is a good listing on how archeologists are using technology – modern archeology relies on technology as the article is stating.

History is a life-long aspiration for me. I remember of playing an archeologist at our summer cottage by starting my own ”diggings”. Got pretty bored soon, so that’s one of the reasons of why I’m not involved with archeology. I’m bit of an ADHD (no diagnosed) electric rabbit with no interest to concentrate for a certain topic too long, I’m urging action, busyness and fast-forward doing. Something I also have thought about is anthropology, which is “the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species.”

Never say never, but I do fulfill my passion when visiting museums and traveling to destinations that usually have some kind of significant history involved, like Berlin and Amsterdam in a perspective of the 2nd world war.

Back to Salona. First of all the area it self is large and it’s the best preserved archeological site in Croatia. Knowing that beforehand its essential as it takes time to walk through the site. I read somewhere that people tend to use 1-2h to do so, which is quite an understatement if there is willingness to walk, think and explore some details while doing it. I’d say 2h is a minimum to get to know the place. As everywhere in Croatia by my experience, there were quite well signs of explaining of what each sight stands for.

The place is citied as a top tourist attraction but despite that – based on that – I didn’t see much of tourists there either. A group came when I was about to leave the place and saw some locals hanging out and having a picnic there, a jogger too, but not like touristy stuff. It’s marketed as a top sight not to skip and therefore I was surprised of being the only tourist there for some time. 

So experienced two tourist-free destinations, lucky me. The next sight on my list had lots of people involved, but not much tourists either. Any wild guesses?

+Football game

Must lift it here, although I did wrote about this on my last article. But short and sweet explanation – community spirit, we-spirit, and feeling like a local, while traveling – on why seeing a local game is crucial. Genuine experience of local pride and happiness are the essances of understanding what does that denonym stand for. Like for real. You can always find cute, little sugar-coated one-liners on every possible place you visit, but feeling it is another topic. I usually tend to say to people who doesn’t like to watch any sport on TV that do it for the community and watch on-premise because that’s one of the best way to see and feel the local culture, to be part of it, to understand it. It’s not about reading some brochure about a great local experience, it’s about feeling it and quite frankly I felt the spirit. Sport is one of the greatest form of equity- everyone are on the same line and page sharing the passion unified no matter who you are or what you do for a living. That’s beauty of sport. It connects people the way I don’t think anything else much does.  

My 3+1 experiences were something I truly feel a five-star “not to skip” -activities while traveling in Split. Had also activities which were good or really good, but didn’t quite make it to the 3+1 list for some reason. Not all of the sights and activities are excellent and that’s part of the journey one must face while traveling.

Rest of the sights worth of introducing

Marjan Hill (Split)

Marjan Hill is closest hill surrounding by the city. It takes quite a long way to reach the top by walking the staircases, which isn’t the most convenient for people with disabilities. I’m walking a lot on a weekly basis but even for me it was quite a challenge to get up. As being the most recognized landmark of Split it provides a pine-tree surrounded place for people to gather, do sports or walk and most of all to enjoy the beautiful views to the city.

Pros

• Location in Split, easy to get without transportantion
• A terrace somewhere mid of the way¨
• Great views

Cons

• The amount of stairs

Trogir

Trogir is a small town whose medieval center is located on a small island separated from the mainland. As being listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, it’s know for Venetian architecture. Being surrounded by’ 10 churches and buildings from the 13th century, the city gate (17th century) and city walls (15th century) and The Duke’s Palace (13th century), Trogir is a historic destination worth visiting.

Pros

• Roughly a one-hour boat trip from Split, also a bus option
• Charming historical place with beautiful alleys and interesting architecture

Cons

• Felt like Split in many ways from sight point of view

The Brac island

Decided to go for an island trip but timing wasn’t the best as had just few hours time to walk before sunset. Unfortunate as the Brac Island is considered as one of the most famous Croatian islands, but despite the fact of having just few hours there, it was a nice experience.

The promade was really beautiful, surrounded by the palm trees and people, respectively. A tourist destination where you find souvenir shops close by. After walking around the promade and alleys I decided to go for a wine at a nearest bar. Saw one of the most beautiful sunset’s I have ever seen and listened to music while waiting the boat to arrive.

Pros

• Just 50min boat trip from Split
• Beautiful place

Cons

• Didn’t see that much of difference to Split
• Own fault of not reserving enough time to get to know the place better

Island hopping Solta and Blue Lagoon

Took an all-inclusive, affordable package from Viator, and went for an island hopping. Included a light breakfast (a croissant), a light lunch (chose fish), limitless amount of white wine, lemonade and water, and transportation by a boat. The boat was surrounded by couples and families me being the only solo traveller there and to be frank, felt lonely most of the time.

It happened to be the only day with clouds with only little of sunshine. Checked the cancelling policy, and it said refund to take place more than 24 hours prior. It was long 50-50 will sun start to shine or not.

First we headed for the Solta Island. Key-takeaways: Beautiful little island with a one of the most beautiful doors I have ever seen and a Beatles kayak with no plate to explain, why. I had thoughts of going to swim but there were just rocky beaches so skipped it.

I like fish a lot but not when it’s fresh from the ocean without any preparations made. Basically I except someone to take fishbones away before setting it to a plate. The set was like from Mika Kaurismäki movie. A fish and a plastic cup of white wine.

On Blue Lagoon I went to swim. The water was cold (around 21 degrees) and despite of being a Finn I can’t tolerate any form of coldness besides a beverage and an ice cream. Some people did snorkeling but decided to just swim. The “beach” was very beautiful – the sand part of it – but closer to you got to the actual sea, the worse it got.

Had difficulties of getting to the sea as the shore for tens of meters was super low and full of rocks of different sizes. It was literally a combination of “I take one step and the cold win almost fells me to sea” -experience. I had my swimming shoes with me, which I think it’s the all-time best travel-related purchase I have ever made. Can’t imagine of hard it must have been to walk these rocks my barefoot. Many people were leaning on each other and going to sea hand by hand – the loneliness kind of hit me then – metaphorically and concretely – not having a person in my life to lean on.

Coming back to sea I did the unthinkable – a crab-alike walking maneuver as I wasn’t comfortable directly walk due the wind and waves, felt like if I don’t stick to something, like rock, I will collapse to the cold sea. It was like a horizontal crab raving for me to get back to the sand. Yep, hand, another hand, foot, another foot.

Pros

• Easy way to see different islands
• Very beautiful scenery and the archipelago

Cons

• A chocolate-filled soft croissant straight from the package of 10 – no freshness required
• People in their own circles not much of small talking
• Lunch, lunch and one more time lunch
• No shower on the island
• Rocks in the sea

Closing remarks

Sometimes I can’t understand Finns no matter how much I try

As an ending part must say something fun which happened to me – this is bit of Bridget Jones thing must admit, or I felt as a Bridget when I was 30 min prior the flight close to get, not on immediate location, but few min away. I heard an announcement calling with my first and last name on it to go to gate immediately. Never heard an announcement before so started to run towards the gate, felt bit slow motion -feeling at the time being. The reason for the announcement was – surprise all of the the passengers are Finnish – that everyone else are already in plane so we don’t have a reason to hold on the ground. Had bit of “walk of shame” as walked down the aisle of plane people staring “oh there she is”.

Had bit of “walk of shame” as walked down the aisle of plane people staring “oh there she is”

Sometimes I can’t understand Finns no matter how much I try. Like voluntary going for a line to spend hours ultimately getting a bucket worth of 2€. And then the plane-incident; How come someone wants to get to plane so early and do what, watch people walking by?

This is something I must figure out while getting well from my flu.