Road trip to Split [Croatia, Day 12]

Our grand plan to go to Dubrovnik was abandoned first thing. We'd noticed a change in the weather yesterday, with cloud increasing over the mountains as the day progressed, and things had continued to disimprove later in the evening, with nasty clouds settling on the top of our Biokovo mountain cackdrop for the first time since we'd arrived. Things were much worse when we woke today. It was dull and murky, the streets were wet from overnight rain, and passersby were carrying umbrellas. The prospect of driving 145 km along the twisty coastal highway under these conditions did not appeal, so after due consideration we decided to cut our losses and settle for a trip to Split instead, closer, and in the opposite direction.

We stopped in Omis on the way, a fascinating place whose main attraction is the Cetina river canyon, popular with river rafters. For us it was an ideal place to stop for a bite to eat and to buy a cheap umbrella to protect us from the rain while we wandered through the town's fascinating old quarter until; we found a place for a bite of lunch. Split is only 50 km or so from our base in Makarska. Allowing for the coast-hugging road, the drive is about an hour non-stop, reasonably straight-forward until you hit the outskirts of the city. We managed to find a spot to leave the car, found a young local girl with perfect English who showed us on a map where we were, and headed off to explore.

Our approach to Split suggested that it is an ugly place, and so it proved to be on the whole, apart from the area around the harbour and the extraordinary warren of streets which are packed into what remains of Diocletian's Palace. We spent a good while (too long, as far as Carl was concerned) strolling around here, then wandered around the (very smelly, but dramatically city-scaped) harbour and stopped for another bite to eat before heading back to Makarska.

Croatia has a no-nonsense drink-drive policy (as in you're not allowed to drive with any drink in your system), so I was looking forward to dropping back our hire car and going out on the razz. Unfortunately, the winding-down which we'd noticed over the weekend has now turned into a virtual shut-down of most of the bars and restaurants, so things have become very, very dead. We managed to find a couple of places to stop at, and one place that we've come to like a lot was fortunately open, but we were back at our apartment before midnight with all our partying options already exhausted.

[EDIT: The original blip was an SP taken at one of the many, many corners on one of the many narrow streets -- more alleyways, really -- inside Diocletian's Palace. After due morning-after reflection, and with apologies to those who have already commented, I've done a change to this shot of what looked like a dedicated blipper in action at the harbour square in Split.]

p.s. We're warned to expect bad weather for the rest of our stay, but we'll make the most of it anyway.