Living One Month Split Croatia
hi everybody happy Sunday we're so glad you're here this week we are telling you all the things about split not just the top two or three things we were there an entire month so stay tuned and you're gonna get all you ever want to know about Split Croatia we're Christmas and full Who Sold everything to travel the world full-time we share our Nomad life hikes and Eagan eats grab our book two carry-ons and a plan on Amazon and follow us on social subscribe to catch our video every Sunday so where are we we are in hania which is on the island of Crete in Greece we left split this week and we're now we're here for the next month and uh we've got a lot to talk about for what we did in Split we were actually there for six weeks so uh Chris why don't you just jump right in so um we've also done a blog post about this I'll put the link below they all the things we're going to talk about all the details are in the blog post so we're going to kind of do the highlights of everything and tell you our opinions about the different places this is a long video please hang with us subscribe and like now before you drop off but it's long but it's long because we want to do more than just give you the top five things display so when you get to split if you're there for more than three days you can get the split tourist card or the split visit card visitors card it gives you um free access to several museums and discounts at all the other places you get that at the tourist information Bureau inside declusions Palace grab that and set the a date for when you want to do it it's good for for 72 hours after you get it also if you're here for a complete calendar month so September 1st to September 30th for example you can get a split bus pass it's good for just that calendar month that is about 30 dollars for unlimited use of the bus all you need to show is a picture and go to the the main bus city bus terminal in split and get that pass so we did those two things and off we went into enjoying split so we're going to break this video down into Medical Care things to do in Split things to do outside of split and things to do on the islands from split so hang in there hope we're gonna and the vegan food we're going to talk about the vegan food at the very end so hang in there first off we're going to tell you about our Medical Care and split so do you want to talk about that a little bit first yeah I'll talk about it so you know I needed uh to have a dental implant and that didn't work out that's great I had a great experience with the dentist and planned do a bridge and we did a dental cleaning and again we've got a video on that so we're not going to go into into that a lot but also you were worried about your foot you thought we were thought we were coming to split to get foot surgery right we came here for six weeks because I was going to get foot surgery I went to the doctor and he said I don't need it so which was so update for y'all my foot doesn't need surgery but I did need Orthotics we went to an Orthotics place got a custom orthotics for 50 bucks we also and the link to the videos right there about all of our Medical Care and all the details and all that in addition we found somebody to give us massages it was 20 bucks for an hour massage so we did that several times four or five times actually yeah and we also uh found the the new Omicron booster came out while we were here and we were able to get our jab our final jab or our most recent jab on uh covet to keep us compliant with all the cruises that we go on so again if you want to do if you want much more details about the medical care watch the video so the next step is all the places that we enjoyed and split so you can certainly Google top 10 things to do and split we I mean we did those things but here's a few thoughts about some of the places that we went there we highly recommend so the first of course was Diet collections Palace what'd you think yeah so this is uh I guess if you can consider kind of like a walled City but not really because it was the uh the original originally a palace that was built by the uh the Croatian the Croatian Roman Emperor dioces who built his Summer Palace in Split right and it's been repurposed over the last you know hundreds or thousands of years and uh so but it's really the center of the city and it's place where all the tourists go to but it's really it's just got old world charm that's just just amazing they're walking down some of the narrow streets and just visiting some of the shops it just really was it was really a fun place to get yeah yeah and and much different than a lot of places where you reap in where there's the Centro that's old but this is really activated activated I guess yeah so it's right across uh it's right on the bay and of course along the bay you have the beautiful beaches of split so to the west of split are all of the locals Beaches into the east of downtown split over the tourist go we lived on the west side in a neighborhood called May a and we're able to walk like what seven or eight minutes down to the local beaches down the hill to the beach unbelievably gorgeous most of them were pebbly there are a few sand beaches which is really the sand beaches where the tourists went and the pebble beaches were where the locals went so anyway the uh and there's kind of a boardwalk all along the beach you have to get a little imaginative in some places but you can walk along the boardwalk for probably a couple four or five miles actually and what'd you think uh there were a number of times that we went to the beach that we went swimming I thought the water was fairly warm um considering it what you know it was September uh the weather was nice and I I thought the weather the the water was great and the beaches were beautiful and I think what's so Charming about the coast is there's these sea ladders off the cliff so you can like jump in anywhere and there's a sea lat sea ladder to get you out of the beach which was just if there's no sand or an actual Beach you can actually just climb out of the water on the cliff very Rocky Coast uh very different so of course uh being on the water we always had to catch a sunset so pretty often we would walk down what about 10 minute walk down from our Airbnb to the park called sistapin Park which is the most southern spot along the coastal split that sticks out enough to be able to see the sunset to the Northwest did I scrub that right yeah yeah it was a great place to to watch the sunset and it was also the kind of Park where it was you know really a great place for the locals we saw at least three weddings today just just you know off chance we were there on a you know on a Saturday or a Sunday for you know the sunset or something and there were weddings you know go and then as soon as one was done there was another wedding uh so it was certainly the place that people go to that is it's very romantic also the place where teenagers like to dive off the wall into the cliffs into into the water so we got lots of entertainment uh in this particular spot it's just a nice place to go teenage boys entertaining teenage girls so there you go and I don't think I saw any other tourists at this particular yeah that's true yeah I don't think so yeah um so we did kind of catch some sporting events too so course if you're in Europe you got to go to a football game Americans know that as soccer we went to the local football stadium and the hajjuk play hajuk is the Croatian word for like Warrior and um it was a little crazy Steve loved it me I don't know I don't think it's crazy I mean we hear about and and we were actually warned a little bit you know don't sit in the crazy section that's over in the end zone and it was so we were you know we were sitting in you know kind of like the 50-yard line right in the middle where all the other you know uh fans were but in the the crazy fans were over on the side and there was actually a nine foot fence separating them from the rest of everybody else but they are throwing m80s and smoke bombs and lighting flares and chanting and flag weaving and screaming and the entire time the entire game and that was just as entertaining for me as it was uh the game which is really an entertaining game as well that we went to so if you really want to see a lot go to a soccer game in a football game football football excuse me but another sport that we really enjoy we happen to be here at the same time as the European National Water Polo Championship for all the different European countries compete for the title kind of like the the European cup of water polo little did we know Croatian men are like the number one water polo team in the world so we went and watched the women play uh we missed the men's game but we when we heard all the loud noises come from the stadium we knew what happened the men won the European uh Championship uh the Croatian men team and uh the interesting thing about the if you the walkway around the marina in one section of it there's uh plaques or embedded into the the walkway are the names of all the people that won against yeah Olympic athletes I know I'd get it out so so the Olympic athletes are recognized in this uh walkway and many many of them are water waterfalls yeah Croatia is really well known for their properties and waterfalls yeah so catch the water polo if you come so also continuing are just things to do in Split because there's a million of them we lived in off of Marion Hill Marion Hill is the the hill to the east of downtown to the west of downtown split and it's a hiking Haven and full of old uh historic amortages and churches and the zoo is up there and just views Galore the Jewish cemetery is also there but we would when we just had a day off we'd just go hike hike up a Marion Hill it's absolutely love them because that's where our Airbnb was so it's really easy to just walk out our front door and go for a hike and again see some amazing views as just a beautiful place and it is a fairly uh touristy spot but you don't really see a lot of tourists but a lot of people are hiking and enjoying this particular yeah it's not crowded it's got great overlooks of the city and of the Adriatic Sea so uh it's we had super hiking right outside um okay then the last thing we're going to tell you about just doing in in Croatia or split Steve's really proud of this he found us what'd you find us we took a salsa class we took eight classes it was Tuesday and Thursday for four weeks it was perfect for the amount of time that we were there and I found us salsa lessons and um I'm really proud of myself for actually I'm not a good dancer and but I found his dancing lessons and it was a blast got to meet locals learning from Croatia there were two instructors a married couple of moments from Cuba and it was all a lot of it was English and Spanish so it was really fun yeah and um absolutely one of one of the highlights I think because we because we really felt like we got got to know some creation culture while we're there too so okay moving on from things to do in split we're going to now move to day trips from split there's many uh but we're going to try to be as brief yet as entertaining as possible and by the way uh again it's in our blog post we list all of the details about all these places don't forget to like And subscribe so uh Dubrovnik you can take a bus or a ferry to Dubrovnik we took the ferry you probably should have taken the bus because the ferry round trip was 10 hours and we also don't recommend doing it a day but we did nonetheless we did the day we took a ferry went to the robnik Steve what'd you think of the project so many people their first experience with Croatia is probably that's where they go because it is this really large walled City it's got tons of History again old world charm is is incredible it's also a really uh uh incredible place for Game of Thrones fans because there was a famous scene that was shot in on the stairs and inside the walled City there for me it was a great place to visit it was a little bit too much even though we were there after the tour the heart of the tourist season there was a lot of people so it was it was it felt like it was crowded um and I felt claustrophobic actually a little bit but but I I enjoyed it it's beautiful place um beautiful city I'm sure if we had been there longer we would have explored much more than just the uh the central you know we were only there about three hours though so yeah so I think I want to go back and and give it another chance let me know how it goes all right next up was mostar so if you look at a map of this area you see that Croatia is along the coast but there's a little section of the coast on the Adriatic Adriatic that um is Bosnia and Herzegovina they got a little sliver as the result from the Bosnia Serbian war and so we wanted to get to Bosnia and Herzegovina so we took a bus tour to the town of mostar which is a I don't know if it's a capital no um but we went to mostar and we're absolutely Blown Away by uh most are so we we also got a walking tour there they gave us really kind of the background of the Bosnia Herzegovina war or Bosnia Serbia war and um what we found fascinating or at least I did anyway is that mostar is like a little Istanbul half of his Christian and half of its Muslim there's a river that runs in between the two sides and a road that connects them and we just um we could see you know bullet holes in the walls and things but peace was definitely in the hearts of the folks that live there now so absolutely fascinating by the place what did you talk about it's a very useful place I mean I yes we saw uh remnants of the of the war from you know 20 years ago but it is a very peaceful place now and it really uh really enjoyed seeing the Muslim influence and uh visiting the mosques and the food was different the culture the language there's really unique differences just between you know Croatia and passing that they're they're very different countries and you like watching the guys jump off the bridge yes so there's the the historic Bridge across the river in mostar and you can pay guys 20 Euro to jump off of it and I I do that but anyways but it's a thing to do it's a thing to watch okay when we left mostar we actually stopped through caviccha Falls National Park and um a beautiful park with just a one major waterfall and you can actually swim there the water was a little chilly because it was the end of the season uh beautiful but we we thought that was going to be the prettiest place we'd see in in Croatia but boy were we surprised and we'll tell you about that keep staying tuned we're gonna tell you about that when we get to places to visit further down so next up it's actually what we're going to talk about all right so we have we've been challenged by many people to pronounce Croatian correctly and here's where we really gonna try hard so right Lakes National Park uh was probably the most prettiest National Park I've ever been to uh Riley Yosemite and Yellowstone it is you get waterfall after waterfall after waterfall our friends in Denver if you think about Hanging Lake it's Hanging Lake times a thousand or a million it's just you know 30 hanging lakes with waterfalls and just unbelievably beautiful you walk along a chestnut Boardwalk all the way through we did what about 15 kilometers eight or nine miles that day uh Kirsten and Peter our friends who are with us and what did you think of the place it's just it's just beautiful it's magical it's just walking through from you know Lake to Waterfall to the next Lake to the next set of waterfalls The Sounds the smells because you're in the forest you're in the mountains uh it was just really just kind of a magical place it's really beautiful and it does cost a lot of money to get in we the first week of October it was half price so it was like ten dollars a piece for us but the normal going rate is about 20 25 to get in so definitely plan when you go there plan that into your budget and into your travel it's worth going don't miss it but definitely it could take a big chunk out of your budget by the amount of money it might cost for you to get there and the amount of money to get in so it's about a two and a half hour drive from display okay next up and going in the other direction we actually made friends with the 50 plus expat group here and then hi everybody and they invited us on a caravanning road trip that they were going on to the biocovo Nature Park which is south of split it's the largest mountain range in Croatia and we were able to do several things there we got we got in the Caravan we did we went to the dalmatian mountains and stopped at the viacobo at Botanic Gardens and then went to the Skywalk and then climbed to the high point of the park what'd you think of that Skywalk Steve uh I'm not a huge fan of heights but I can but it challenges me and it gets my adrenaline going so I enjoy it so uh the Skywalk is over the edge of the cliff you walk out and there's just clear like glass underneath you that you can see you know straight down I don't know a couple thousand feet but you're looking out into the Adriatic Sea and just at the top of this mountain at the top of the cliffs just looking out into or looking down through your feet I think it's a glass I didn't do a lot of looking down I looked out and uh it's just a really a remarkable place and if familiar with with Croatia the mountains are just are just dramatic and they run all along the coast and uh it was a fabulous day yeah so when we got a chance to walk up to the high point pass all the wild horses and things it was just you know stunning when we got up there kind of felt like being on top of Mount Evans in in Denver Colorado where you're up at the High Point all you can see is just beautiful Horizon so even though it was a sea and the islands on the sea different different geography but definitely different geology but definitely interesting geography there you go all right next up just another uh just continuing in our day trips from split we went to Solon which has the Solano ruins so just really new actually where diocletious who built the palace and split he actually lived in stolen and ruled the area from there doing Croatia Roman Croatia and obviously what's left is ruins their first or fourth Century ruins of a giant Amphitheater and it's City that went with it and the thermal bass and the church and the cemetery that went all along with it what I found amazing um was that the place was just really like non-descript as a local terrorist attraction but when we went it rivaled any other Roman ruins anywhere in Europe and uh just was I mean it was almost like you could be in Rome with the quality of the rumen but it's not as developed as anywhere else in Europe what do you think about that yeah it was a a great place if you're if you're interested in uh in Roman ruins uh you know first century uh it was a long time ago and to kind of take yourself back in that place and there weren't a lot of people there so it was something place that we could go to and wander around this was a really large city at the time and then to go from there and um just take a quick bus down into the city of Solon which is has a river front along the Riverwalk is really beautiful uh and very different than splits very different than split but so close so it's like just like a neighborhood outside of split uh it's really that close you just take the city bus there and uh easy to get to and it's so from there uh our last place we're going to mention that you ought to visit while you're in Split is to go up to zadar it's about a two-hour bus ride make sure you get the the fast bus and not the slow local bus like we did if you take the fast bus it's two hours uh it's there are ruins there The Forum is the Roman forum is there but we went for two reasons the first is to the Museum of ancient glass so all of the glass that they found in these first to Fourth Century Roman ruins is in the museum so we are fascinated by the bottles and the urns and the shards and things that they found and then the other thing that we really enjoyed was the sea organ which is an art installation and what's it sound like it sounds like the ocean the ocean could talk it sounds like whales and and planes and dolphins and it's just really amazing how you're working right along the Waterfront and just like built into it how they designed a like a natural organ that so the sounds are the whistling sounds again we'll have a link there but so I'm gonna actually enroll some b-roll here and let you listen to it and just thank you to my friend Alex for letting us have this b-roll so just we're gonna just listen for a second don't go away we're coming back and we're back with the fine the second we got two more categories I am so glad you're hanging with us we know this is long but it's so worth it because it's all the things you need to do when you're in Croatia so island hopping from split it's absolutely a must it's like going to New York and not taking the subway you got to do the the ferry system so we went to four Islands on the ferry the first was Kroger which was just a quick little hour trip to Trover uh it's kind of like a mini split uh an old city ate some food saw the yachts you know nice day out okay next up was Shula which is another small island about an hour away by ferry somewhere friends in the expat group took us there tiny little island very friendly little place and what was the one thing that we saw there on Schulte do you remember the with the the secret swimming hole yes they took this our host took us to a great little spot that we went swimming and had a little picnic and some you know some appetizers and just looked out again at the beautiful ocean in the water fabulous day uh and yeah just a beautiful if you just want to get it out of split and go to some place where nobody else is go to Schulte Island yeah that's it and that's an hour Ferry right and I think it was like 250 or 350 or something Euro um okay the next one was VAR it's so hvar it sounds like VAR in Croatian and that's what about a two hour ferry ride and when we got there we met some friends from D2 tours D2 detours that we had met through the go with us Facebook page and they had a car so they took us on a drive around bar what'd you like about the drive I loved it it was great going just through the the island and seeing all the different uh types of scenery that are around there there was one tunnel that we went through there was about the size of a car that you with one lane that went through this this long tunnel uh that was a lot of fun and the the central was uh part of it was a UNESCO world heritage center yeah the story Grand plane which is an area that was continuously farmed for 2500 years we got a chance to see that and we also went to Varsity and saw the castle and walked around and went to the harbor and had some vegan food and just a lovely day with beautiful views on bar Island and then the last place last Island we went to we'll put a link up here is our romantic adventure to this we got like we needed a little bit vacation this is the furthest Island from slit at first furthest inhabited Island from split and it's where Mamma Mia 2 here we go again was filmed so be me being a Mamma Mia fan Steve being one who tolerates a Mamma Mia fan um we I was dying to go and check out some of the scenes and that's exactly what we did we got to Vis on a two and a half hour ferry ride and then we what do we do we got one we did one of your favorite things we went cycling but we got e-bikes which is really good because it's very hilly and a lot of ups and downs beautiful island but for essentially for two days we rode all around the island and went to a bunch of secluded beaches and um we went to Europe's most prettiest beach as Geneva where also some of the scenes from Mamma Mia was we went to komiza the the town where there's restaurant scenes from Mamma Mia stayed the night there actually made some friends with some cats and uh just had a very romantic lovely 24-hour gooey eye at me 24 hour getaway in invis so highly recommend Beast as a getaway okay and finally all of our vegan fans we don't talk about vegan food very much because um a lot of people just kind of go a little but and we're not those types of vegans either I don't know what that means but we do like our whole food plant-based food so split was loaded with vegan restaurants we found at least five full vegan or vegetarian vegan and or vegetarian and a absolutely delicious food the entire time we were in Split including the grocery store weren't so great the local bodegas and things weren't so great but the Green Market was fabulous we have time how many times did we go to the Green Market as many times and you were making friends with all the all the vendors right selling the almonds and uh um yeah and so would you did you want to say anything about the vegan food what's you know my favorite spot was you know it was basically street food it was a place called veg that was in the near the Green Market and it very much near kind of the central touristy area in uh on the side of the palace but they had you know great you know burritos and everything was just was in Seton and tofu and and all your different meat substitutes if you want those or just really fresh veg everywhere so it was really yummy nice a nice change of pace from Spain and Italy and some of the other meat heavy places to eat them so that is the story of our life in Croatia we hope you've enjoyed it are you planning on going to Croatia where do you want to go what questions do you have you can go for medical you can go to split you can go all over Croatia you can hit national parks you can stay still and use the vid use the the the internet why why are you going to go to split and do you have any questions for us we'll see you next week with our stories perhaps from Greece talk to you then ciao
2022-10-25 17:17