Trogir, Croatia

Trogir is where we will finish our time in the Split area. Getting lodging in Split over the weekend proved hard so we found a place in nearby Trogir which is also a World Heritage city.

We are staying at the Trogir Palace Hotel. To get to the hotel you loop around the bay where Trogir sits, cross a tiny bridge into old Trogir and then cross a larger bridge to the island of Čiovo. Not a long distance but a lot of turns, dodging mopeds, other cars, pedestrians, etc. The hotel is quite modern and the room had functioning AC which was good as temps were hot.

After settling in we went for a walk to the UNESCO World Heritage old town of Trogir. Reversing the car route on foot puts a different perspective on the journey. Now you are the pedestrian dodging the cars. The old town seemed quaint enough but, to me, not all that special having seen so many with narrow streets and stone buildings. Apparently it is the best preserved Romanesque-Gothic city in all of central Europe. We could not go inside the fortress because an opera was being presented there. This didn't leave much but the cathedral and we tend to get "churched" out.

As we had no specific plans for Friday, the loose day in our travel planning, we stopped in at three tour-making places. It seems that we really are after the end of the season which is both good (fewer people) and bad (less options). It boiled down to a "Fish Picnic", Blue Lagoon tour, or charter a boat with skipper for the day. All involved an afternoon of lying around or swimming which I did not come equipped for. Seems silly in retrospect but such doings are not highest on my list.

In the end we repaired to the hotel to surf the net for other options. There seemed to be a nice ferry run from Šibenik to a little island named Zlarin which prohibits cars -- sounded nice to me. Ferry schedules turned out to be crappy for Friday after the end-of-season and we would have to make a very early start to get to the island and stay there longer than we wanted. I then noticed the ferry continues on to a city up the coast, Vodice, turns around and comes back. If we drove to Vodice and round-tripped from there, the departure time and time on the island fit nicely. Problem solved. Plan made.

Dinner was a half-board arrangement at the hotel and despite having one fewer course we were overfed again.

Each evening the Riva (seaside quay) in Trogir is the place to come for a walk with the family, drinks with friends, see and be seen -- social media old school. The other thing that happens in the evening is that sailing vessels dock -- lots of the tall rigged ships with passengers paying to sail or be-sailed up and own the coast. In retrospect, spending a week at sea on one of these making port at new islands frequently would be a lovely way to spend time. I even went so far as to look up one of the web sites advertised on the side of two of the larger sailing vessels (http://www.idriva.com). The prices seem amazing for 7 days full board (starting around 350-400 Euros). Bedding sounds a bit spartan and I'm sure they neglected to mention the deck scraping and floggings but still quite a deal. Must consider for some future time.