It was another comfortable bus ride along the Dalmatian coastline with a few beachfront village stops along the way. Most of the shorelines are rocky with few sandy beaches. Small pebble beaches and rocky shores seem to be the norm. Most of these villages had wharf areas with broad stone walkways along with small boats tied up all along the walkways.
The Split Autobus was co-located with several long piers filled with passenger and auto ferry boats along with the faster catamarans. It was a short walk to the walled old city of Split where I would find my Downtown Hostel with some help from some shopkeepers and Michael, another traveler from Poland, who was also looking for the same hostel.
This was the first hostel in two weeks where I ended up sharing the dorm room with someone else.—Michael from Poland—who was here for a 2-week vacation.
After checking in, I explored the Old Town area including the Diocletian Palace, and the Cathedral of St. Domnius, and climbed its bell tower where a Netflix film crew was working on a romantic drama. They did not tell me the name of the movie though which has been my experience when I have come across previous film crews.
While having a coffee at one of the many restaurants in the Narodni Trg Square, I met Willy, a Norwegian, who is spending two months here as he frequently does instead of traveling from city to city. He told me about taking a day trip by catamaran to Hvar Island and recommended that I do that. We exchanged the kind of work we use to do and he told me he had retired about 4 years ago and now invests in bitcoin as his source of income. I told him we had done some early investing in the GBTC and made a big profit, but got out because it was too volatile for our taste. He indicated that it was volatile as he had just lost $1,000,000 the previous week. YIKES!
I ended up following his advice and took the early one-hour catamaran ride to Hvar Island for the day.
A pair of Dalmatians in Dalmatia.
Other than hiking up to the Fortress that overlooked Hvar Town, it was a very relaxing day with lots of stops for coffee, lemonade, and beer at the beachfront restaurants.
Because of COVID-19, there were only 3 boat departures instead of the 5 to 7 daily.
I caught the 5:30 pm departure back to Split and the afternoon winds and waves were much stronger than when I came but the catamaran cut through them to make for a smooth ride. Boarding with the big waves at the Hvar Harbor was a challenge for most of us.
When I returned to the hostel, I saw that it was now filling up unlike earlier in the month and weeks. I have a new bunk mate from Argentina who is joining up with his Croatian girlfriend.
I headed to a dinner of bass at my favorite restaurant and the waiter took care of removing the heads, bones, and most of the skin. It was moist and delicious along with the vegetables.
I also took a half-hour bus ride north to the walled town of Trogir where I enjoyed some great views from the bell tower.
The walking streets were narrow and worn with many high-end shops, restaurants, and gelato temptations.
My next destination is Dubrovnik by catamaran at 7:40am since the convenient bus doesn’t leave until 12:30pm.
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