Split!

Again, this is a double post day... scroll down if you haven't read our Dubrovnik entry!

We made the very awesome decision to take the boat up the coast of Croatia to Split instead of taking the bus. It was a nice sunny Sunday so we spent most of the trip up on the top deck:
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No one else seemed to know the deck was there so we pretty much had it to ourselves as we watched the islands and coastline go past:
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Fuzlet also felt very free and happy:
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We met a nice couple from WA who gave us a tip about good accommodation on Hvar, then we wandered to the restaurant to have lunch. One thing about Croatians - they have a very dry sense of humour. Our waiter pretended to charge us 100 euros for our meal (about 170 dollars) instead of 90 Kuna (about 20 dollars). Funny man. Then we got a message from the lady who was meeting us to take us to our apartment in Split. She described herself as being about 50 with a white sportsjacket. When we were close to docking, she sent this message:

"Am at wharf waiting for boat. I have short blue hair".

We were thinking... ok.... that's kind of more distinctive than a white jacket, why didn't she just say that earlier? We got off the boat, and could not see a 50 year old woman with blue hair anywhere. There was, however, a 50 year old woman with a white jacket and short brown hair with blonde streaks, so we approached her and she was the right person. Not a blue hair in sight. Still not sure if she was having a little joke with us or if it was a language translation issue. Funny lady.

The next day we explored Split. We went to the waterfront promenade:

And wandered around the Old Town (which is built in and through the remains of a massive palace). It sounds awesome, but it just wasn't half as nice as Dubrovnik - much bigger, noisier, and dirtier. We decided to console ourselves with cakes. The only words the lady at the bakery knew in English were cream and chocolate, so...that's what we got!

On our last day in Split we decided to leave the town and do our own little day excursion up the coast to Krka National Park. We braved the public transport and took a bus to Sibenik, then a local bus to Skradin, then a boat through a gorge (with a huge party of singing French men) to some massive falls in the national park, known as Skradinski Buk. A nice lady took our photo there:
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There are literatelly hundreds of waterfalls here connecting lakes and rivers. It's Spring here now so the water was gushing over them.
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We spent a few hours wandering around the falls eating sugared nuts and taking photos:

This made us happy:
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As well as pathways to the sides of the waterfalls, there were footpaths winding over the streams, lakes and waterfalls so you could walk right through, over, and around them:
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We took about a billion photos because it looked so spectacular:
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After such an incredible experience, the 2 hour wait at the local bus stop was a bit of a letdown:

But there were pretty views on the drive back:
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We got back quite late and wandered around Split at night:

Then went back to pack for our trip to Hvar on Wednesday (which is where we are now).

We are having an incredible time in this country! Yay for Croatia!