2011 Med cruise – Day 2 – Croatia
We had enough time this morning to have breakfast in the main dining hall, instead of the buffet restaurant. Since the ship is named “Nieuw Amsterdam” after New York’s original name, there are New York themed things all over the place. The main dining room – named the Vista Dining room on our previous cruises – is called “Manhattan”. The room on Deck 2 is called “Lower Manhattan” and the room on Deck 3 is – yep – “Upper Manhattan”.
A guy from Ireland named Jarette joined us. Apparently his luggage had not yet caught up with him and might not until Athens – which is Monday. Yikes. Anyway, he was very chatty. Andy happened to comment about what a nice camera he had. This triggered off a 30 minute monologue about how he was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, but he still prefers “fill-um” (film). And all the details about fill-um and how it works much better to capture true colors. For 30 minutes. Good thing this was only a breakfast conversation.
Our excursion for today was a walking tour through Split. Split is one of the ports where the ship does not dock; it just drops anchor in the middle of the harbor, and we take a ferry boat called a “tender” to shore.
Once on shore, we met up with our tour guide, who’s name escapes me completely, but it was hard to miss that he was well over 6 ft tall. We all received audio transceivers, so when the talked into his microphone we could all hear him clearly. When the transceiver wasn’t clicking and dropping the signal. The guide told us that Split is in Dalmatia and everybody in Dalmatia is very tall. Looking around you could see that it was true – a whole city filled with ridiculously tall people.
We toured the remains of the Diocletian palace, built almost 2000 years ago for one of the last Roman emperors – the only one to survive and retire from office. Only the basement level is left. There are houses with people living in them at the street level. Most of the reconstruction work has been accomplished in the last 50 years. The problem is that the underground level is filled with two millennia worth of trash. As it is removed, there is the danger of weakening the support of the houses above.
We walked through various parts of the palace, including one spot that showed what the original pile of trash looked like, and how the structures on the upper level are barely supported by wood beams.
The tour continued above ground. In an atrium with marvelous acoustics, we listened to a group of men sing two traditional Dalmatian folk songs. And we could buy their CD too!
We then toured the ancient church, which looked pretty much like all the other ancient European churches we’ve seen. In front of the church were two guys dressed like Roman soldiers, posing for photos (for a fee).
After walking us around the area outside the palace walls and through the main square, the tour was over - only 90 minutes after we started. Our impression was that it was supposed to last 2 hours.
It was only 10:30 and the last tender was scheduled for 3:30, so after dealing with the Hunt For The Bathroom (Split gets kudos for having public bathroom), we just started wandering around, hoping to find some interesting shops. There were lots of stores, but we didn’t see anything that was interesting – all the stores were standard chain stores found all over the world. And tons of shoe stores. Shoe stores EVERYWHERE, seriously rivaling Rome for the sheer density of shoe stores per street.
At some point we found ourselves back at the entrance to the church, where we sat down in the shade. After a few minutes, a woman told us we would have to move because the PROCESSION was coming. What procession? You’ll see, she said.
Ok, so we moved to the side of the square, and I climbed up three steps so I would be able to see. Suddenly the “Roman soldiers” disappeared, and reappeared with drums, and began to drum a steady beat. Then a man and a woman dressed in togas stepped out overlooking the crowd. The “Ceasar” babbled on for a bit in Latin, and then said, “in other words, Welcome!” “Ceasar” then tried to get the crowd to greet him by saying “AVE!” (whatever that means), but after the third try, he feigned disappointment and left. The whole thing was no more than 10 minutes. No clue how often they do this, but it was entertaining.
We stumbled across the fish market, the produce market (that one smelled a LOT better), and then finally through a clothing market, which of course included SHOES.
Eventually it was lunchtime, and so began the Hunt For A Restaurant. Many of the outdoor cafes we passed served only desserts and drinks; block after block we continued to trudge down the street until we found a restaurant that actually served food. So we sat down.
The waiter dashes by and hands us very thick menus – page after page of drink options and even more pages of food options in 4 languages. Before we could figure out what we wanted, the waiter appeared again and said, “Would you be interested in something from the grille – a nice white fish?” Nah, we said, that’s more than we want right now. “Ok, then how about a nice piece of ham with cheese and some calamari on the side, you share it, and it’s perfect!” Nah, we said, we don’t eat ham or calamari.
I said, “Can just have a salad?” The waiter said, “No, I’m sorry you can’t buy a salad separately from a meal.” Ok, then. We asked about a couple of other items on the menu, but they were not available. Ok, so what IS available, besides ham and calamari? We ended up with grilled vegetables, a cheese plate and a basket of bread – “Vegetarian, no meat, no problem!” It was interesting that no-ham/no-calamari means vegetarian, but whatever, it was fine.
As we were waiting for our food, we witnessed the same routine repeated at least 3 or 4 more times – “What about the pasta?” – “Sorry, we only have spaghetti.” Or “What about
During one of our endless waits, another "procession" started down the street - people dressed in various costumes. My assumption is the costumes represented various periods in Croatian history, which included the middle ages - there were people dressed in chain mail. That HAD to be uncomfortably hot. Following at the rear was a bagpiper. Rather sour sounding bagpipe, even more so than usual. Once again, all done in about 10 minutes and no clue what that was about. At the very least, we were distracted from our wait.
The next challenge was figuring out how to pay. The prices in the menu were in the local currency (Kuna), so the numbers were ridiculously inflated – 110,000 “kn” (OMG) is more like $25. Still kinda high for lunch, but at least you don’t need to take out a mortgage to pay for it.
Getting the check was the final challenge – to discover that we had to pay in cash. No, we don’t have any Kuna, but fortunately, they would take Euros. Would we like the change in Kuna? No, really, that’s just fine; we’ll leave the tip on the table….
We were able to scoot onto the 2:00 p.m. tender back to the boat. We’d had enough of Split for the day.
We spent the rest of the afternoon napping and sitting out on the veranda until it was time to go to dinner.
At our table tonight was one repeat – Dan, The Catholic Priest. There were two Australian couples (Ian and Robin/Peter and Ann), who were both delightful. So much so, we talked so long, we realized we were going to miss the 8:00 show. In typical geek fashion, we decided to do our Internet stuff first (buying more minutes already - and we’ve only been on board 2 nights!) and go to the 10:00 show instead.
So the evening isn’t quite over yet – as I type this, we’re two nerds sitting up in the “Exploration Café” where the Internet connection is strongest, sitting together at a NY Times crossword puzzle table. We have a photo of this. Like anybody would doubt it
Tomorrow: Day at Sea. Andy will do a Long Run, and Amy Will Not.
