We split to Split

After yesterday's wet adventure in Plitvice Lakes I was hoping, but not expecting, to have it be drier this morning. My expectations were met, which is usually a good thing. In this case, it meant that it was still raining, and even harder. The Miric innkeeper had informed me the night before that our breakfast would be served in the dining room in our little building, so we didn't even have to walk the 50' to the main building in the rain. However, after another fine breakfast, we did have to load the car in the rain.

 

Still wet in Plitvice, May 2014

It was Miguel's day to drive, so he got to pilot us through the rain, and wind, and a stretch of road where the pavement was completely gone as the road was being prepared for rebuilding. We also got to experience a Croatian rest stop on the A1 highway, which was quite extraordinarily clean and offered very good looking food. It helps that the franchise was owned by Marche, the Swiss restaurant company.

The rain petered out as we neared Split, which is a good thing as we had to leave the car outside the old section of town to get to our hotels.

For this stop we're staying at different hotels. Beebs and Miguel are at a place inside the old Diocletian palace, while we are just outside the palace walls, in the old city. We have a lovely corner room overlooking Narodni trg - Pjaca, which is the main plaza of the old city. There are no cars permitted anywhere in either zone, so they walked in from where we dropped them by one of the gates, and we were picked up in a golf cart by our hotel at a reserved parking spot they rent on the street just outside the forbidden zone.

We split up for the afternoon (LoL). Sally and I walked around and went for our ritual pizza, then did some more walking in the drizzle that developed.

... and still wet in Split, May 2014

The Judita Palace Hotel - our room is 2nd floor, left corner with shutters. And yes, it's very nice inside.

Split is yet one more very, very old city. Unlike some of the towns we visited over the last week or so, it was a very rich city. The palace I referenced above was originally built for the Roman Emporer Diocletion in the 4th century AD in preparation for his retirement to his homeland. Like so many, he died only a few years after his retirement. Just didn't keep active, I guess.

They're not really Romans, May 2014

 

Completely off the subject, the World's Fair opened in New York (right by Citi Field) 50 years ago a couple of weeks ago. I went there any number of times with my friends, traveling on the Q44a and Q44 buses. Many companies had exhibits, including AT&T(1). In there exhibits were some soon-to-be-common technologies, like touch tone phones and Princess phones. There were also some more futuristic technologies like videophones(2). Videophones didn't happen so fast, but they are here now: Sally and I called out daughter and granddaughters this evening on Skype, and were able to look at low-res videos of each other on our iPads. For free. Pretty cool.

Not my girlfriend's videophone, May 2014

Tonight will be an early one, as we need to be out of the hotel and on our way to the ferry tomorrow at 7:30am. It leaves at 8:30 and we're advised to be there 45 minutes before.

Ferry preparing to split Split, May 2014

 

------

(1) The old, pre-breakup AT&T, which has been pretty much recreated as Verizon and the company we now call AT&T.

(2) John Sebastian memorialized them in Younger Generation: "And hey, Dad, my girlfriend's only three / she's got her own videophone, and she's taking LSD."

 

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans