Sunday, August 11, 2013

Nieuw Amsterdam 2012 - Split, Croatia

Tonight we have to put our luggage in the hallway, so this morning we selected the clothes we are going to wear today and tomorrow. The rest is to be packed in our suitcases. Only 23 kilo’s per bag, so that took some weighing and repacking. Strange how your luggage weighs more on the way back. All those great experiences weigh a lot.

Around 10:30 a.m., we took the tender ashore. There were some pretty high waves, so it was not a comfortable trip at all. But a good conversation with an Australian former headmaster made up for this. Amazing how many nice people you meet on these trips. The advantage of tendering ashore is that you usually arrive in the heart of the city. In Split, Croatia, we walked right onto the Riva Boulevard. Beautiful, with lots of palm trees.


Riva Boulevard
Riva Boulevard.

We then entered the walled city, which is actually the Diocletian Palace. We were a bit disappointed. We were expecting something like Dubrovnik, Croatia. In our opinion, Split doesn’t come close. The city is nice, but really “overshopped.” You can hardly see the sights because of all the booths standing in front of them, all selling junk. In Split, tourism seems to prevail over history. That is not what we are used to at other UNESCO World Heritage sites. Perhaps we were just spoiled by all the beautiful things we had already seen. We checked out Peristyle Square with the St. Duje Cathedral and after that we tried to avoid streets with shops and wandered through the smaller alleys.

St. Duje Cathedral.
St. Duje Cathedral.

This way we passed Zvonik sv. Arnira Bell Tower and arrived at the statue of Grgur Ninski (touching his golden toe is said to bring good luck), just outside the Golden Gate.

Statue of Grgur Ninski.
Statue of Grgur Ninski.

We also went up Marmontova street to the National Theater, which is colored bright yellow and a nice contrast to the clear blue skies.

Marmontova Street.
Marmontova Street.

National Theatre.
National Theater.

After walking back over Trg Republike we felt like returning to the ship.

 Trg Republike.
Trg Republike.

There were nice activities in the Queens Lounge, swimming in the Lido and cocktails in the Crows Nest. Tomorrow at this time we will be back home. After dinner in the Manhattan Dining room, we ventured over to the showroom where Mark Donoghue was performing again. The responses to his first show were very positive, so he did an all new show on the violin, guitar, piano and using his nice voice. Now it’s time to label our suitcases for debarkation. Luckily we are in the “Green” group, leaving the ship as late as possible

No comments:

Post a Comment