SPLIT
FACTOID: The Jewish synagogue in Split is more than 500 years old and is the third oldest active synagogue in Europe. The Jewish community in Croatia can be traced back to the 3rd century. Except for a brief period during WW2 the synagogue has been in continuous use since it was established.
Split as a city has been part of Greece, Rome, Republic of Venice, France, the Ottoman Empire and Yugoslavia. It is the second largest city in Croatia. It, like most other cities in this area, has a very interesting history. In the middle of the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Diocletian built a retirement palace in Split. The palace was huge and was more a fort than a palace. It was walled and today it occupies about half of the entire old town of Split. This row of shops and walls is the side of the palace that faces the Adriatic Sea.
The apartment we rented for the first two nights in split was in this courtyard of the palace. The Queen is standing in front of the entrance. There was a small restaurant in the square but it was a very well insulated room and we did not hear anything. The apartment was called Diocletian Luxury Room and was very inexpensive. We found it on the Internet and it had very good reviews. Oddly, it was cash only that we paid upon arrival.
The room was a large efficiency and was very clean and nicely done.
Very close to our apartment was one of the main squares of the fort/palace... A lot of the people shown are tourists who have gotten off cruise boats.
It was busy day and night. At night there always seemed to be some entertainment.
Split is a port and a very popular cruise ship destination. The first day we were there three large cruise ships were docked. The little city streets were very crowded.
Split had the requisite number of churches.
This one had a bell tower you could climb. The photos are from the top of the city of Split. This is the harbor with only one cruise boat docked.
and of part of the city...
Synagogue and Jewish Cemetery
The synagogue was up these steps.
There were approximately 20,000 Jews in Croatia before WWII. Only 5,000 survived. About half of the survivors went to Israel. Although a large number of the Jews would be sent to Auschwitz most were killed by the Ustashe, the Fascist group in Croatia. This is the entrance door to the synagogue. There are only about 100 Jews left in Split.
We climbed up one of the hills outside the old town one day.
At the top of the Marjan Hill we found an old Jewish cemetery. We had no idea it was there. The cemetery dated to 1573.
Most of the cemetery looked like it had not been taken care of in years.
One grave did have a number of stones on it. In Jewish tradition when you visit a gravesite you normally leave a stone. This was the only one with stones and it had too many.
The views from the edge of the cemetery of the town and sea were nice.
Food
The first night we wandered around looking for a place to eat. Close to the hotel we found Laganini. It was rated number 18 of 434 restaurants in Split. We were seated in a back open courtyard with a large group of what appeared to be bikers. We talked to them for awhile and they were on a group tour staying in the hotel attached to the restaurant. They were doing a similar tour to ours and we thought that it would be funny if we were also staying at the same hotel and the first meal with the group would be at this place. The answer was yes as we found out three nights later. The food was excellent. We had the tuna and a sea bass. We also sampled the local beer for the first time. The group meal we had later in the week with our group was not as good as the one we had alone.
This large billboard at the beach was advertising the Croatian beer Karlovacko. This is a very good local beer.
One of the drinks we got for a snack was the Cappy Pulpy. We assumed it would be a fruit drink that was pulpy. This was with great big pieces of peaches.
Along the waterfront area there are many booths selling all sorts of things. Many of them make crepes and donuts and other sweets.
This booth in the photo has many sweet things in an ice cream cone shaped crepe. I settled for Mr. Oreo.
Our second dinner was in Bokeria. This was not the type of place we normally go to but it was highly recommended although it was number 25 of 434 in split on Trip Advisor. It was very large for a Split restaurant in the old city and appeared to be very noisy when we walked by the night before. Turns out we were seated upstairs and for some reason, although it was open to the first floor, it was very quiet. We again had the sea bass over garlic potatoes, a gazpacho appetizer and swordfish over a carrot puree. We also had a salad with fruit and burrata cheese. The food was very good.
Bokeria had some interesting signs on the walls and this one above me was a good life motto.
At Shooter's Bar they labeled all the possible shots with x-rated names.
Archeological Museum of Split
The museum is located out of the old city… about a 20 minute walk. Most of the pieces are from the Roman occupation era and are from Split and Solona, the Dalmation capital of Rome. There are some Greek artifacts and several things from the Iron Age.
Outside of the main building is a vestibule that has many large Roman mosaics. A lot of them are from the palace of Diocletian.
This mosaic is from Salona (3rd century) and is of the boy Titus Aurelius.
There a lot of sarcophagi ….
Including this one from the 4th century depicting Israelis crossing the Red Sea.
It is the oldest museum in Croatia and was established in 1820. On this day the Queen and I decided to do planks every hour no matter where we were. This is in the outer vestibule at the museum. There were very few people at the museum.
The following two photos of items from the 4th century are of 7 branch menorahs. The seven branch menorah or candelabra was used in the Temple in Jerusalem for religious services. It is different than the menorah used during the Jewish festival of Hanukah.
The collection of ancient and medieval coins has over 70,000 pieces.
There were rooms full of amphora.
On the way back to the city since an hour had passed the Queen did a one minute plank a park we passed.
Arches
The city had many arches. Some were external entrance arches to the palace/fort…
… and others were internal.
Some were underground...
Game of Thrones
The Game of Thrones was filmed in both Split and Dubrovnik. We saw many `Official' Game of Thrones stores in Split.
Swimming in Split
The Queen always has a bathing suit with her in case she can swim either indoors or outside. A short walk from the center of the old city was a very nice and very crowded beach.
The Queen gets ready to go in. You can see by the photo that the water remained very shallow for quite a ways out.
Later on plank day the Queen did a one minute one at the beach.
Euronet ATMs
In need of some money on the first night I had noticed an ATM machine close to the apartment. I thought it was a standard one connected to a bank but I did not look closely and we wound up using an Euronet one. These are awful. Not only are the exchange rates awful but they charge a huge fee. They are all over Europe and whenever I see anyone using them I try to stop them and tell them to find one associated with a bank.
Hotel Luxury Jupiter
The hotel that was used by the tour was right around the corner from our rental apartment. This is the Queen in the lobby of the hotel.
We had a group meeting the night we checked in and then went out to dinner.
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