Day Ten: Split (again)

Spent our last night on the boat and last breakfast at 7am. Had to depart by 8:30am. Took some pics with my roomie Jorja before saying goodbye to everyone and starting the walk to our hostel.

I had said no more hostels butttt the other gals were all staying together so I joined them. Unfortunately it’s about a 20 minute walk from the hostel to the old town, a bit longer than I would like honestly but it’s not terrible.

We went into the old town and wandered the streets going in and out of shops. There are a lot of cute restaurants and artsy shops all within the walls of the palace. Split is charming for sure. On the way in, we walked through a market and bought fresh fruit: the most delicious strawberries and figs ever! Then got trapped in a quick rain storm, at least we were cooled down for a bit!

I had looked up a place for both lunch and dinner so we had noon plans for lunch and 6pm reservation for dinner. The lunch spot I found online as a local eatery but after sitting down and reading the menu, everyone was not thrilled so we decided to go elsewhere. My least favorite part of traveling: trying to decide what to eat when you just want to already be sitting.

Ended up at Corto Maltese, had a coffee while we waited for lunch service, I ordered fresh bread and a beef carpaccio. Service took forever, the bread was good but didn’t taste super fresh and then I asked for olive oil and they actually charged for olive oil! The carpaccio was different, kindof tasted like raw roast beef wrapped around arugula. But overall it was light and good. Just was really annoyed by the olive oil!

After lunch, one other girl and I decided to go to the art gallery of Ivan Mestrovic, Croatia’s most famous artist. His sculptures were interesting and even more, it was great to be inside in the air con during the hottest part of the day. Most of the other ladies went back to nap and the one I went to the gallery with left as well. I stayed in the gardens for quite a bit, feeling a little homesick and admiring the beauty and listening to the sound of the cicadas and feeling very reflective—until I saw the skins of all the cicadas stuck to the trees and screamed and jumped and ran out of the gardens. :)

Ubered back to the hostel, charged my phone, barely rested, and it was time to walk to dinner.

We were all excited for our dinner reservation at Bokeria. My tour guide said it was her favorite restaurant and finally some food lived up to expectations! I had a delicious aperol spritz to start and shared an appetizer called “Bambolini”. They were fried rice balls with prosciutto and bechamel and absolutely delicious. We were even sopping up the Bechamel with the watercress and greens on the plate. For my entree, I had sea bass filet (seems to be a popular fish here). It came over a cauliflower purée with zucchini, the skin was crispy, and it was topped with a sun dried tomato type salsa—super good! Everyone was really happy with their meals and had cleared their plates. It was nice to have a good dining experience again!

After dinner was gelato time, obviously. Found an awesome one next to the restaurant. I had cheesecake gelato and yogurt mango gelato and  both were awesome. It was a good day for food!

Ended the night by listening to some music on the square. Headed to bed early, haven’t gotten too much good sleep because of the boat movement. Hostel sleep wasn’t any better though. The light from the bathroom kept me up and we had an early morning to head on our bus trip to Bosnia!